I just hung up the phone after having a great conversation with John.

That’s not his real name, but he is an oblate of a religious order, and made an inquiry into a Come & See retreat after seeing one of our Facebook ads last Thursday.

We here at Vocation Promotion put up the ad that day, and a few hours later, at precisely 5:27 pm central time, John saw the ad and clicked it.

When he clicked, he was taken to our compelling, personally-written letter explaining why he should consider that God may be calling him to this particular men’s order. John saw that he lived only a couple of hours away from the monastery. He filled out the application, explaining that he was active in the lay movement of the diocese and was fully involved in the Church.

What’s neat is that he’s a paramedic, and is excited about how his oblate spirituality suits his profession so well. John is not a young man, but is a good candidate, a regular kind of guy, just the kind of man that — if God is indeed calling him — would make a good monk.

The 44-cent click

And the amazing thing is — it cost only 44 cents for John to click on that ad.

What excites us here at Vocation Promotion is not just that we were humble instruments of God’s grace, but that we provided the link in the chain of inspiration for John to click. There was the ad copy, the image, the letter, the Facebook app, the programmed link that sends the application immediately to the vocation director. Yet, if no one had put that ad there, would John have missed his vocation?

How many missed opportunities are we guilty of because we Catholics don’t make use of what Vatican II called the “modern means of communication”? How vacant is the online advertising world of religious ads — ads that, even if they don’t sell, are constant reminders of God’s presence?

We Catholics can no longer moan that we need multi-million dollar budgets to pay for Madison Avenue ads. The “Mad Men” days are over, folks, in many ways. Because of the inexpensive cost of the internet, we Catholics can now sneak into the hand-held devices of the nation, like the “lizard that find its way into the king’s palace.” (Proverbs 30:28)

The Pope tweeteth

Oh, I know that personal, face to face evangelism is better than virtual communication. But the thirteenth century is over, everyone. Even the Pope tweets.

Can you imagine your neighbor walking down the street on a lazy Sunday morning with no plans, and seeing an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the message, “Regrese a la Misa,” or return to Mass, and directing him to the nearby parish? (Yes, you can target Facebook ads to language groups, and those who have religious interests like our proprietary list of devout Catholics.)

I just got an email today from a man who spent $25 on Facebook ads and got eight more people to sign up for his parish’s Octoberfest. No doubt the income paid for the ads.

What if we peppered cyberspace with ads proclaiming the Gospel? Could we bring in two hundred more souls to Sunday Mass? Five hundred? A thousand? Could we invite people back to Church? Engage atheists, scoffers and non-believers? The possibilities are endless.

It makes a person feel like rushing into the fabled halls of the Vatican, wildly waving a smartphone, yelling, “Your Holiness — I found it!”

And this Pope, being so open minded, would certainly listen.