As Fr. Bautista continued speaking with us, he described the fascinating story of a young Muslim woman who was entering the Church under his guidance through the RCIA process. Her story was moving. While working with Americans, this woman, who must remain anonymous, was touched deeply when she realized that the U.S. medical personnel not only treated wounded Americans and Iraqi civilians, but also treated wounded enemy combatants, including one who was known for having killed U.S. Marines. As she put it, \u201cThis cannot happen with us.\u201d <\/p>\n
This dramatic extension of mercy even to enemy soldiers caused her to take the next cautious step. She asked Father Bautista to \u201ctell me more about Jesus.\u201d As Father described Jesus and his life in the Gospels, one thing stood out among the rest for the Muslim woman he called \u201cFatima\u201d (not her real name) and that was how kindly Jesus had related to, as she put it, \u201cthe two Mary\u2019s.\u201d Fatima was moved to see how Jesus deeply loved Mary, his mother, who was sinless, but also how Jesus deeply loved Mary Magdalene, who was \u201ca great sinner.\u201d As these discussions continued, Fatima reached a point where she said to Father Bautista, \u201cI want to become a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Father Bautista sees himself as a chaplain for all troops, not just Catholics, he decided to introduce Fatima to other chaplains from Protestant and Orthodox backgrounds. After some time had passed, Fatima returned to Father Bautista and said, \u201cI want to become a Catholic like you.\u201d When Father asked her the reason for her decision, she said, \u201cYou were the only one who told me about the other Christians, so you left me free to decide for myself. That\u2019s how I knew this was the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
As their catechetical lessons developed over time, Fatima\u2019s family discovered her plan and was warned sternly by her father that if she continued on this path, she would be disowned by the entire family and would never have contact with them again. At this point, Father Bautista became concerned for Fatima\u2019s well-being and cautioned her to look carefully at the consequences of her decision and to think seriously before continuing her path into the Church.<\/p>\n
Fatima paused for a moment and then looking intently at Father Bautista asked, \u201cDo you give up so easily on Jesus?\u201d The question took Father aback for a moment, but then he thought, \u201cThis is incredible; this Muslim woman is already bearing witness to me about how important my own faith is!\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You’ll want to read the rest<\/a>. It’s a truly inspiring story of great faith and — significantly, for Advent — great hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every now and then, a conversion story hits you so hard you just stop and go “Whoa.” That pretty much sums up my reaction to this remarkable item from the Catholic News Agency. A stringer went over to Iraq and spent some time with a Navy chaplain, Fr. Jose A. Bautista-Rojas: As Fr. Bautista continued…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-converts","category-inspiration","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}