Christmas is the perfect time to invite someone you love to Mass — but it can feel awkward, scary, or like you’re overstepping.

Maybe it’s a family member who stopped going. Maybe it’s a friend who’s been curious. Maybe it’s your spouse who doesn’t usually come. Whatever the situation, this episode makes it simple.

In this episode, I walk you through exactly how to extend the invitation — naturally and without pressure.

We talk about:
* Why Christmas Mass is the easiest invitation you’ll ever make
* What to say (and what not to say) when you ask
* How to handle a “no” with grace and zero awkwardness
* Why sharing your faith this Christmas might be the best gift you give

If you liked this episode, you’ll also enjoy:
 A No-Disappointment Christmas: Managing Holiday Expectations
 A Different Kind of Gratitude for Catholic Moms
 Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Liturgical Living

If you want to grow in confidence — in your faith, in your relationships, in your motherhood — that’s what Mary’s Heart Martha’s Order is all about. Come be part of a community that cheers you on. Learn more at catholicmomcalm.com/marysheart

So I go back to this place and I feel like I’m 16, 18, 22 because I lived in this city when I was those ages. So everything just felt kind of wistful and nostalgic, and I spent time with my dad. Who I see usually two or three times a year, my brother, who I haven’t seen in, I don’t know, maybe seven years.

And then my mom, who I also usually see one or two times a year.  And then I saw one of my really good friends that I’ve been friends with since I was maybe 12, so a friend that I’ve had for a very long time.

So after our back, I’m feeling very young. I’m feeling very nostalgic. I’m having an amazing time, and I have taken trips without the kids and they haven’t felt like this. So I was really contemplating, you know why did this feel so special this trip? And part of it was being in this place and seeing all of those people, all of those people. Knew me and loved me before I became Catholic, before I became a mom and before I created this business. 

And I realized that I don’t often get to be the true essence of who I am without wearing those hats. Now I never really take off my Catholic hat, but you can, you know, take off your mom jacket and your. Business jacket. If you have a job or another vocation.

And you’re just like actually a soul, you’re just a soul on this planet to be loved for who you are and not for what you do. And as I spent time with these people, I just, I felt that in a way that I hadn’t felt in a really long time, that I am not all these other roles that I play, and I like those roles. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy those roles, but it’s not all of who I am. 

And no single one of those roles are the essence of who I am. The essence of who I am is someone that is created by God. He just made me to be me, and I’m worthy of love just as I am. And I just hadn’t been in an environment where I wasn’t thinking about myself through the lens of my roles.

And that is not happening to me right when I hang out with my friends, like my Catholic mom, friends. They don’t open the door to their homes and say, okay, I would like the Catholic mom version of Sterling to walk through this door and spend time with me. Right? They’re not putting any kind of filter on me. I am sitting down as the Catholic mom version of myself, and we talk about mom things. 

We talk about who’s reading and struggling with reading. We talk about potty training, we talk about discipline strategies. We’re talking about food or books that we’ve gotten for the kids or those kind of mom things. 

And there’s nothing wrong with that. I actually like doing that, but I realize that I always do that. I’m always doing that. I’m always wearing my kind of Catholic mom hat or my work hat. I also really like my work hat. I really love doing this podcast. I really love doing coaching calls. I really love meeting with my team and I have a couple friends that also like to talk about business, and I love talking about business with them. 

But it was just such a stark contrast to drive to the city and talk to people who didn’t necessarily want to talk to me about mom stuff or business stuff or even really Catholic stuff because none of the people I visited were Catholic. And I don’t know, it just felt like they were so interested in me and who I am and what I think. And we talked about deep thinking things. 

And of course you can talk about deep thinking things related to motherhood and business and Catholicism. I’m just sharing that my experience was very different than my regular life, and it just got me thinking that we get really caught up in the roles that we play and we just forget that again, you’re just a human and you’re just totally lovable the way that you are, and you are separate than those things.

We are also those things, but you also can be separate from those things. And it didn’t actually change my behavior very much when I got home other than to just appreciate my life a little bit more. I mean, I just came back and I felt like,  I’m sterling and now I get to be a mom and I get to work on my business, but I just created some separation there and I just feel better.

I know that’s not really a great way to explain it. Saying, I just feel better. But I do. And I just want you to remember for a moment that you are someone separate. And going back didn’t make me wanna be 20 again, by the way. I wasn’t like, oh, that was such a good time. I wish I was single. I wish I wasn’t Catholic. I wish I could do whatever I wanted. 

It didn’t make me think that actually I really had a deeper gratitude for my life as a mom and doing the work that I do. Being Catholic, going back to a place where I wasn’t Catholic, I got to see like, wow. I can’t imagine how hard my life would be if I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ. And I was surrounded by all these people who didn’t believe in Jesus. It’s just crazy to me. It’s just like crazy to me. There’s just people walking around the planet not believing in Jesus. 

So I just wanted to share that with you because it was such an interesting experience. That may not be possible for most of us. I mean, again, I don’t think I had had that experience of not being with the kids for a not work related trip.

I’ve taken some trips away from the kids, but all of them have been related to my job. I’ve either gone away and worked on writing a book for you all, or I have gone away to run a mastermind. I run this business mastermind for Catholic moms who have business and I teach these retreats and I love those trips. I love them, but I’m just fully wearing my work hat when I do that. 

So this was, yeah, I mean, the first time that I have left the kids and not been, you know, wearing my mom hat or my work hat, and I don’t know, I just, I got to meet myself again in a deeper way and I dunno. I just, I just brought her back with me and I’m like, Hey, you’re in there too. And I love you. 

There’s like a person inside of me that isn’t those things. And I’ve just been thinking about her a little bit more. And I don’t know, it’s just, it’s made me enjoy my day to day life. And again, I love being a mom and I love my job. I had a deeper appreciation of those things coming back, but some separation there too.

So the other big thing that I wanted to share is that I visited my friend. It’s funny. I wanna say a boy. ’cause in my mind he’s a boy, but his name is Tony. We’ve been friends for a very long time and Tony’s not religious and we have this huge history. He’s almost more like a brother to me, really. I mean, that’s how close we are and we’ve just been close for a very long time.

And so I visited him when I went back and we were just catching up and we were talking and I had this feeling. About asking him to go to mass with me and he had asked me some questions about Catholicism maybe two years ago, maybe two years ago. He had just asked me some questions. I think he had found a father, Mike Schmidt podcast or something resonated with him.

And I would say he was like kind of religious curious. He was like kind of thinking about it a little bit. And then this year, I think he was also watching some Protestant services online because of a different friend of ours that we went to high school with. Is a youth pastor, maybe, I don’t know, some sort of connection there. He was telling me about that. 

So I’m sitting there, we’re catching up and I feel this kind of prompting from the Holy Spirit to invite him to mask ’cause I know I’m gonna mask the next day. And I just wanna tell you, I was so nervous. I got this like pit in my stomach and my cheeks were hot and it’s, it was like the feeling of asking someone on a date. It had that feeling to it. 

And I remember sitting there being like, well, I just can’t do it. I had the thought that I wanted to do it, and then I was like, I just can’t. I’m sitting there, I’m 41 years old, and I am struggling to ask this friend who I am very close with, like, he’s not gonna laugh at me. He’s not gonna yell at me. He’s not gonna be like, why would you ever ask me that? 

I would just say like a safe person in my life, and I just, it felt like the words were caught in my throat. It was so hard, but I remember thinking, Sterling, if you don’t ask him, you are just really going to regret that. You’re really gonna regret it. 

And so I just, I garnered the energy. I was like, you just have to brave for 60 seconds. I don’t remember if you ever saw that movie with Matt Damon called something like, if we bought a zoo. And his family buys a zoo. It wasn’t a great movie except that the dad teaches the boy that if you really like a girl, you just have to be brave for 60 seconds to ask her out.

So that’s the only thing I remember about that movie. But I remember being like, yeah, you can be brave for 60 seconds. And so I say, Hey, just like tomorrow I’m gonna go to Mass. If you wanna go to mass with me. 

And he goes, what time? And I was like, it’s Nine. And I had, by the way, I had been thinking about going to the eight, ’cause there was an eight o’clock service at the beautiful cathedral. And, but I knew for sure he’d be hard out on eight. Okay. There was no way. 

And so I went, you know, I think at nine and it was 11 minutes from his house. And he goes, all right. He goes, I don’t know if I’ll be up by then, but if I am, I’ll totally text you. And I was like, yeah, no pressure, but I’d love for you to come with me if you’re up.

So it was super chill, by the way. Just cool. He didn’t yell at me. He didn’t make fun of me. Okay. Nothing bad happened and it wasn’t even a yes, okay. It was like a maybe, but I was like. And I felt a lot of relief in my body. So anyway, he ends up texting me the next morning and he says, yeah, I you know, I’m down. Let’s go. 

I have lots of thoughts about the parish that we went to, and I’m not necessarily gonna share that, except that it was just, I was looking at everything through the lens of bringing this person for the first time. 

And I just don’t normally do that. And for example, just so you don’t think it’s like wild and mysterious, it was a very large parish, which I didn’t know ’cause I had just Googled it. And remember I wasn’t Catholic when I lived here, so I’d never gone there. 

Huge parish, totally. Full parking lot. So I got there 10 minutes early. 10 minutes early. Okay. And I had to park like so far. And then we had to sit in the narthex. Where there were no kneelers, we were just in like chairs, which is fine. I just didn’t know. 

But in my mind, I was just like, this is his first experience. And then, okay, I guess I’m gonna say some of the things, and then it just happened to be the one day, you guys know there’s one day in the whole year that they make the pitch to give money to the diocese. 

Okay. Every church does it. And it just happened to be that one day. So this lady comes up and talks for so long, the longest of all time, about giving money the diocese, which I don’t mind, I really don’t mind it at all. But I was like, the one day. 

Anyway, so it was interesting to just watch in my body, my experience of mass with him. But, it was beautiful. It was wonderful. It was fine. I just, I watched myself being like hyper aware and kind of like mini critical of a bunch of little things just because I wanted him to have a good experience. Anyway, so we get done. He was like, that’s nice. We go up, we looked at some of the art.They had beautiful art and it was nice.

And then we’re walking out. And I give him a hug and he says, he looks at me so genuinely, and he says, thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you so much for inviting me. I can’t begin to describe this boy who has never been religious, has been like, pretty anti all establishment things. Like that’s kind of dumb. Like, why would you believe in Jesus? Like just kind of one of those people you think would never.

And I just, I couldn’t believe it, you guys. I couldn’t believe. That he just needed someone to ask him, and it just, it was so powerful and it was so touching to me, and I just wanted to tell all of you because it now makes me wonder how many people are in our lives where all we have to say is, Hey, do you wanna come to mass with me? That’s all we have to do. 

And when I say that’s all we have to do, remember I wanted to throw up and die and it was very hard to get that one sentence out. It was very hard, so I wanna validate that, but that’s all it took. I didn’t have to like make a case for it. I didn’t have to cajole him or convince him. I just made an invitation.

And I don’t know where it will lead. Please pray for his soul because I love him. He’s just such a special person to me. And. I pray for him all the time because I pray for all the special people to me who aren’t religious, and I just hope it was the beginning of something. You know, I hope it was the beginning of him meeting the Lord and falling in love with him. And all it took was for me to ask. 

Now he and I don’t live in the same place and we’re like never in the same place. So this was the first time I could ask him, and as I was driving home, I was thinking about. Where I live here and if there are people in my life that I could ask that I haven’t asked, and the only people I could think of it was we have one set of neighbors and they’re Protestant and I think they go to Protestant church.

And I thought, maybe I should ask them. It’s unfortunate that, and they’re older, that he’s in the hospital right now. So we did take the kids and, and we drove to the hospital to see him, which was so special. We prayed for him. But, So maybe I’ll ask him a different time, but now is not good ’cause he’s gonna be in the hospital even through Christmas.

But as you think about it, I just want you to ask the Lord. Lord, is there someone that you want me to invite to mass? And maybe it’s Christmas, mass and maybe you’re like, Sterling, I am putting white tights on three girls and trying to get a boy to wear a Christmas sweater. And it is not the time. I’d be like, okay, maybe not Christmas mass.

But maybe especially Christmas, mass, maybe it’s the time where normally somebody wouldn’t say yes, but they’re like, you know, it is Christmas, maybe I should go to mass. And I just want you to think about inviting someone. Think about inviting someone to mass and just know that the Holy Spirit will prompt you, right?

So you’re gonna hear me talk and you’re gonna be like, Janice, I should really invite Janice. And the Holy Spirit will just like put that person on your heart. So you don’t have to like think about it too hard. The Lord is there to guide us.

But I’m very grateful for that moment and I just knew I wanted to tell you and I knew I wanted to tell you before Christmas in case God puts it on your heart to invite someone to mass. Before Christmas for Christmas, mass, because I know we all know that extra people go to mass on Christmas.

And you know, please pray for my friend and for all of us, for all of our friends and family members and the people that we love that don’t know the Lord. Let’s just pray for them. Let’s just believe that anyone can come back all the time. And I say that all the time, but it was such a cool moment to watch it. 

And obviously he’s not like signing up for RCIA and ready to jump in yet, but you know, it was a big step. And that’s the beginning. It’s just feeling like someone cares about us and wants to invite us. You know? I think we’re in a world where we’re all so lonely. Just inviting people is so powerful. 

So I am praying for all of you. I went to I think it’s pronounced Ate Shali mass, which is a. Candlelit mass that happens before the sun rises and then the sun rises during mass and it’s just, it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

And I guess it’s something that they do during Advent. So we will make that an annual tradition in our family. Going to one of these masses, we had to drive pretty far to go, but it was totally worth it. It was one of the most beautiful experiences that I’ve ever had. 

And our religion, this special community that we’re part of is so deep and so beautiful and so layered and so rich, there’s so much there. And let us not forget that. And even if you’re in a season where you can’t take advantage of things like that, my friend with. Like three kids under four was like, I don’t think we’re gonna make it. ’cause you would’ve had to wake up at 5:00 AM and put the kids in the car to go. 

And I was like, yeah darling, that’s not for you right now. Like, I also would not put those ages in the car and go to this mess. But you know, as seasons change, find ways to just explore our faith a little bit more deeply and see what’s for you in each season. ’cause it’s so rich and deep and beautiful, and it’s a special time of year to think about that and then where you can invite people to experience it with you. It’s very special and it’s always within our power to do that. 

All right, my friends. I mentioned that because I was praying for all of you. I was sitting there just like hard praying for Catholic moms in this beautiful, beautiful mass. Just praying for us, for Christmas, for all moms in December and just for this next year that we may all draw closer to the Lord.

And that we may all increase the amount of time that we spend with interior peace. That is what I want and that is what I pray for for you, that we all experience more time having interior peace with the Lord. 

All right, my friends, Merry Christmas. I love you. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.