The following story first appeared in the Summer 2004 Glenmary Challenge.
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Catholic Evangelizer
Holly Edenfield, known for welcoming diners to her family's restaurant,
now invites them to the Catholic Church as well!
By Father Vic Subb

LOCAL HANGOUT: At the Edenfield Buffet Restaurant in Metter, Ga., Holly Edenfield not only knows everybody's name, she welcomes everyone at the door with a handshake. Glenmary Father Bill Smith, a frequent visitor, first extended the invitation to Holly to visit the local Catholic Church. Now a member of Glenmary's mission parish, she extends that invitation to others.

On the main street in Metter, Ga., the popular place to hang out is the Edenfield Buffet Restaurant. Any time during the day, you can find local business people taking a coffee break, an elderly man sitting in a booth reading the newspaper, a group of women catching up on local happenings. Photos of local leaders, past and present, line the walls with University of Georgia Bulldog banners interspersed. This restaurant is an oasis—a place where everyone knows your name, a place where feeling at home is a way of life.

The restaurant is owned by the Edenfield family. Their youngest daughter, Holly, works at the restaurant and contributes a great deal to the family atmosphere. She greets each customer with a warm smile and handshake.

Openly, and with great enthusiasm, she also shares the news about her recent baptism into the Catholic Church and her love for her new parish family at Glenmary’s Holy Family Church which I pastor. “I have found a home,” she says. “I love the people there. They make me feel at home and a part of the community.”

Holly’s enthusiasm is echoed by Mercy Sister Paul Marie Westlake, the pastoral associate at Holy Family, who journeyed with Holly during the year-long RCIA process. What first attracted Holly to the Church, Sister Paul Marie says, was the feeling of reverence in Catholic worship—and the fact that the Mass is the same everywhere in the world!

Brought up in several churches but a member of none, Holly loves to talk about the Lord. One evening in the spring of 2003, Father Bill Smith, a retired Glenmarian who lives in Metter, engaged in an after-dinner conversation with her. During their chat, Father Bill invited Holly to come to Mass that Sunday. Her immediate reply: “I’ll be there.”

Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Holly showed up at Holy Family for Mass. “I didn’t know what to do,” Holly recalls, “but people were so kind.”

Each Sunday after that Holly sat in the second pew. And she wouldn’t be alone. She always brought someone from the restaurant to introduce to her new Church. “She soon became our best evangelizer,” says Sister Paul Marie.

Even before her baptism, Holly delighted in helping change people’s misperceptions about Catholics. Two of the most common questions that came up in the restaurant involved why Catholics “weren’t allowed to eat meat” and why they “worship Mary.” When Holly doesn’t know how to answer a question, she checks with Sister Paul Marie, Father Bill or Dee Dee Moore, her sponsor.

And in all of Holly’s conversations about religion, she urges tolerance. She thinks that is one of the many gifts Catholicism has to offer.

Dee Dee Moore tells about Holly’s soul-searching as she asked God to help her know if she should join the Catholic Church. Holly told Dee Dee, a convert herself, how she kept getting images of red when she prayed. Then, on Pentecost Sunday when she entered Holy Family and saw the church decorated in red, she knew for sure that this was her Church home.

Holly’s enthusiasm for the Catholic Church also created enthusiasm among the members of Holy Family. Most converts in Glenmary’s small rural parishes are spouses of Catholics or have a Catholic relative. To have a local person who is not related to a Catholic join the Church is a great sign of a mission community’s effective presence.

Holly says she knew that Catholics were involved in the community and thought Holy Family was a large church with many members. So she was surprised to find such “a small group (35 registered families) of committed Christians,” she says. “And I wanted to be a part of this group.”

Holly got her wish on Easter Sunday 2004, which she proclaims as the greatest day in her life. Holly invited many guests: her parents, family and, yes, friends from the restaurant.

On Easter morning Holly passed me an envelope. Her note said: “Thank you, Father Vic, for baptizing me. I am blessed by God to be part of Holy Family.” I later found out that she had passed similar notes to many members of our parish.

But God’s blessing is a two-way street. We are also blessed to have Holly as a member of our local Catholic Church.