What started out as an Instagram account with 10.5 thousand followers, turned into a motivational book for Catholic millennials. The face behind it all is Br. Anthony Freeman.
ANTHONY FREEMAN, LC
Author, “One Step Closer”
“Various people who were following me on Instagram, they said, 'Look, these phrases that you're putting out there, we love them, but we'd like to know a little bit more. What's the reflection or experience that makes you come up with those phrases?”
“One Step Closer” was inspired by a business book just before Lent 2017. So Br. Anthony made it his task to write a reflection a day for 40 days on one quote from his Instagram account. These consist of experiences, life hacks and spiritual motivation all geared toward young people.
ANTHONY FREEMAN, LC
Author, “One Step Closer”
“Young people have questions and the Church is actually answering those questions. And that will make the youth ask more questions. As a Church, we don't present the whole spiritual life to young people. I think we may stay on what they have to do to be a Catholic and not show them the complete fullness of the beauty of the faith, which is the interior meaning of the faith.”
In fact, the seminarian even reveals in the book his biggest temptation during his time in seminary: the fear of failure. He says in addition to this theme, there are a few general themes for the book.
BR. ANTHONY FREEMAN
Author, “One Step Closer”
“If there were 40 thoughts that I wanted to share with young people, these were them. I guess you could say there were a couple of themes that I'm going around. The first is virtue, the other would be holiness, you could say another is motivation and then there's also a couple of tools that I try to give young people.”
These tools are laid out blatantly for readers in his book, encouraging prayer and reflection from one of this generation's favorite hobbies, social media.