ABRAHAM Hewitt admits to having “fallen short of the glory of God” but one thing he’s no longer shortening is his name.
“I used to order coffee and give the name ‘Abe’,” the 25-year-old said.
“(But) then they’d call out ‘Abby’ or even ‘Dave’ so I got fed up with that.
“Nowadays I’m really proud of my name and I say, ‘I’m Abraham’ and feel really blessed.
“I love our faith and it’s something that is a massive part of me.
“I love having that name.”
Kind-hearted Abraham said most people immediately associated his name with Christianity.
“Mum wanted to give all us children biblical names,” he said of being the middle child of five.
“When I talk to people they straight away make the connection that this guy must be a Christian.”
It wasn’t always the case for Abraham, however.
The “cradle Catholic” spent his early years in Nelson, New Zealand, but began and completed schooling in Caboolture, on Brisbane’s northside.
He admits to “falling in with the wrong crowd” and, as a 17-year-old, “turned away from all the good values and morals” demonstrated by his parents.
“Mum and Dad always led us in the Rosary at least one time a week,” Abraham said.
“We went to Mass and even often had Rosary groups in our home.
“(But) as a young person I kind of saw it as ‘their thing’.”
The self-confessed teenage “rat bag” said his upbringing became less influential and instead, Abraham was coerced by friends.
“I think friends are really influential in decision-making,” he said.
“In Year 11 and 12 my faith seemed to be dwindling.
“I got mixed up with the ‘wrong crowd’ and in order to be popular I had to do something stupid.”
“Stupid” choices throughout school and in-to an electrical apprenticeship eventually led Abraham to drug use, alcoholism and even defending himself in court.
“I was an experiential person,” he said.
“If Mum and Dad said, ‘Don’t do that’ and I asked ‘Why?’ and if they didn’t answer, it just gave me the reason to go and do it.
“I wanted to be free and find my own way.”
Abraham said he increasingly found it difficult to “connect” with God because of lifestyle choices.
“I had a lot of guilt about what I was doing,” he said.
“I fought a lot with Dad because he was disappointed with the choices I was making.
“Dad has a lot of integrity and I so wanted to be like him.
“Mum always listened and welcomed me back.”
While Abraham knew his lifestyle was not of God, poor choices continued to dominate as a tradesman.
“It was a bad environment (to work in),” he said.
“I was very impressionable and had compromised a lot of stuff.
“I was going out on Tuesday, Thursday, Fri-day, Saturday nights … (and) I was walking down this path that seemed to be fulfilling but it wasn’t.”
When he was walking down an unknown street in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, one night Abraham’s phone was stolen and he found himself penniless.
In his desperation he cried out to God for help.
“It was almost like I was wandering the streets of the Valley and in my desperation, my conscience started to come back,” he said.
“I thought, ‘I hate my life’ and knew I couldn’t get home.
“After I asked God for help, miraculously a $10 note came floating along in front of me.
“I thought, ‘God heard me … He could have made it a $50, but He heard me.
“I went home to my parents and that night was the beginning of the road back to Him.”
The next “significant step” he said was being given a “surfer’s Bible” from a friends’ mother.
“I remember I picked it up and started reading it, the whole of the New Testament,” Abraham said.
“It also had testimonies of professional surfers … people I looked up to.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is true, Jesus is real’.”
The keen surfer said he felt as though the truth of the Gospels were revealed to him for the first time.
From there he also uncovered the wonder of Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist and the power of the Sacrament of Penance at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.
“I was standing in this crowd (at WYD08) by myself and this person came wandering through this crowd and said, ‘We’re having Confession up in this tent, do you want to come?'” Abraham said.
“I thought there’s no way I’m going to tell a priest all the things I’ve done.
“But because I can’t say no when someone asks me something, I went.
“I spoke to the priest for an hour and admitted things I’d never admitted to anyone.
“He gave me hard, good advice and I remember walking out and feeling like I couldn’t speak.”
From there “big changes” were afoot.
Abraham spent two years serving with NET (National Evangelisation Teams) but said he “didn’t grow his hair and put on an ‘I love Jesus’ shirt”.
“The change felt very authentic,” he said.
“I’d go to my Mum and say, ‘Do you know Jesus is really real?’
“I’d tell her she didn’t seem very excited about it.”
After NET Abraham began his own electrical business.
He’s adamant young men of faith can survive in the “tradesman world” – in fact, in any occupation – and driving that passion is his involvement in the Frassati outreach.
Frassati is “a peer-to-peer Catholic youth ministry focused on helping young men encounter Christ and embrace their masculine identity”.
With Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati as their patron and more than a dozen men of faith living in Frassati households in Brisbane, representatives have already spoken with hundreds of youth in parishes and schools in Queensland and interstate.
They are a brotherhood committed to sacramental life – encouraging young men to discover and live out their God-given vocation through that lens.
“Our faith isn’t something we should separate from work,” Abraham said.
“When you are Catholic and working ‘out there’ in the world but living your faith everyday, there is integrity in that.
“It is possible – through the sacraments of the Church and a whole lot of prayer.
“That’s what happened to me, Abraham.”
