Growing up in a conservative Catholic family and attending Mass in the Byzantine rite did not matter much to Sabatino Carnazzo as a teenager in Monterey, Calif.
“I lost the faith not because of any intellectual reason, but through the laziness of being a teen in California,” said Carnazzo, who now serves as director of evangelization at St. John the Beloved Church in McLean and is founding director of the St. John Institute of Catholic Culture.
Although as a youngster he didn’t have the zeal he now has to spread the faith, Carnazzo had a love for gardening, which led him to open his own landscaping business after graduating from high school. An ambitious youth, Carnazzo moved out of his parents’ house and started his own business.
He continued to stray further away from his faith and deeper into a life of immorality.
“I struggled to live a virtuous life,” said Carnazzo, who at the time felt his conscience tell him that “living that life was not okay.”
By the age of 23, his landscaping business was booming and he opened up a nursery specializing in Koi ponds and water plants. Although he was financially successful, he said his life was “ultimately frustrating,” because he had turned away from God.
It was the questions of a Jehovah’s Witness he was dating at the time that challenged him about “the things I knew in my heart, but wasn’t living.” It eventually led him to research. “I started studying something for the first time in my life,” said Carnazzo, who immersed himself in Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. Through study and prayer he found the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church. He realized then, he said, that “I better live my life in accord with that.”
His desire to change his lifestyle was almost a battle, yet he relied on the Lord to be his strength. “I was struggling to deal with the vices I had acquired,” he said. He depended on the graces from weekly confession and daily Mass, which sustained him in striving for purification.
His new yearning for truth and God was also inspired partly by his older brother, who at the time was discerning religious life in a monastery.  
During his conversion back to his faith, Carnazzo decided to volunteer as an assistant with fifth- and sixth-grade religious education. Within a few weeks the teacher decided to quit, and Carnazzo was left to impart his knowledge of the faith to the students. “I loved it,” he said as he continued to study and learn more. His students started bringing their friends and his class grew larger. “I looked forward to teaching CCD more than landscaping,” said Carnazzo with a grin. It was then he realized God was calling him to put teaching the faith before anything else.
After prayerful discernment he decided he needed to “get out of California” and pursue a college degree in theology. At the age of 24, he took the SATs for the first time and applied to Christendom College in Front Royal, where his brother was studying at the Notre Dame Graduate College.
Upon being accepted, Carnazzo literally answered the call of Jesus in the Gospel to “come and follow me.” He sold all of his water plants and closed his business. His material property and belongings no longer meant anything to him. “I got rid of everything that wouldn’t fit in my truck and drove across country to Christendom,” he said.
It was more than just “downloading information,” said Carnazzo about his experience at Christendom. It was “an eye-opening experience. It opened my eyes to think in a way I had never thought before. It wasn’t just facts,” said Carnazzo, a member of Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church in McLean.
At times while at Christendom, “I doubted whether I should be doing this,” he said. However, he continued to study. “I had given my life to be there, so I was extremely serious about learning.” As an older student, he said he “brought something to the classes that was unique.” Carnazzo also had the opportunity to study in Rome and Ireland and participated in the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.  
During his junior year at Christendom, Carnazzo began facilitating an evening Bible Study. The classroom where the Bible study was held was packed, Carnazzo recalled. That experience was the inspiration behind his desire to organize the St. John Institute of Catholic Culture, an outreach to Catholic and non-Catholic adults in the area.
The institute offers programs in the evenings for people to learn what the Church teaches.
Living the faith is not just attending Mass on Sundays he said. “We are Catholics 24- hours a day. We’re Catholic in the food we eat. We’re Catholic in the people we associate with.”
Presented in a social setting often with wine and cheese, the institute hosts talks on various topics including the catechism, salvation history, the meaning of Mass, early Church councils and Biblical apologetics.
The evening events, which draw 40 to 60 people, often attract Protestants, one of whom has already asked to be enrolled in the RCIA program.
The programs seek to open “people’s eyes to the beauty of creation and living life as a Catholic … living the faith,” he said. It is about experiencing the culture of being Catholic, said Carnazzo, who is married to his wife Linda. They have a 1 and a half year old daughter Marianna, and another child on the way.
All of his experiences have prepared him for his ministry of evangelization, he said.
“God brings good out of evil,” said Carnazzo.  
He now uses his experience for the glory of God. “That’s why I’m in Virginia,” he said, jokingly. “I want to live for Him now. Whatever He wants.”
Henrietta Gomes can be reached at hgomes@catholicherald.com.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Arlington Catholic Herald