I am going to dig into this question again. Hindsight is almost 100%perfect.
I recently carried on a long conversation with a relative who is in poor health and has a depressed attitude that goes with the poor health.
When I say conversation, I mean that mostly I listened and spoke up only to prompt more conversation. I felt this person really liked the attention of the phone call. So in that respect it was a very good thing.
The problem? Every other sentence had the words jesus christ
and not in a reverant manner. That left the other sentences to have the words god damn. (you see I feel so bad that I will not capitalize those words-in that one conversation they were used in a poor manner so many times that I do not want to repeat the act)
The good feeling of being compassionate was quickly overcome with the guilt of letting my Lord and Savior being so disrespected.This followed me around for days later.
Like I said, hindsight is perfect—-I know how I should have handled it-gently pointing out the wrong, or even saying something like,”oh-let me know when you want to pause for prayer for we have been calling out God’s name quite a lot, I am sure He is all ears waiting to see what we want”
To a lesser degree this kind of thing happens ALL the time even among parishoners-especially where I live. I can pray at the moment, and I can pray about it later. But does anyone have any helpful suggestions on keeping God and His name respected in our conversations with others?