Get real with Catholic youth —
they long for it ( CatholicAnchor.org ),
By Father Michael Shields of
The Heart of Jesus, June 2014
Earlier this year, during a missionary journey
to Ireland
In these young people I saw enthusiasm and
beauty, but also pain and alienation. What
most astounded me was the deep reverence they had for the sacredness of the
faith.
I watched hundreds of youth spend their
evenings praying for hours — prostrating themselves before the Lord in the
Blessed Sacrament.
I heard confessions every day at this time
and was busy late into the night.
Then there were the spontaneous conversations.
The deep searching questions I never asked
as a youth:
- How do I
treat my dad after he left us and is living with another woman?
- How do I deal with the pain
of my parents’ divorce?
- My friend is
homosexual and is hurting — what should I do?
- Why did my
mom (or sister) have an abortion?
- Am I
worthless if I don’t make a lot of money like my dad?
- How can I be chaste again?
Where is the real truth and is there such a
thing as an absolute truth?
After being with these youth and seeing
their yearning for something deeper I’ve concluded that they don’t want a
church that is like the world but a church that
is very different from the world.
Look at the
religious communities that are growing with new vocations.
They look different from the world.
They have a desire to live and pray in
community.
In a world that has abandoned God, the new rebels
are those who love the Catholic Church,
follow and obey the pope and sign vows with a holy habit.
During my trip to Ireland
It was by far the largest of all
gatherings.
You see, youth are tired of churches trying
to adapt and strain to make liturgical music exciting for them.
They are tired of superficial, self-affirming
homilies full of snappy anecdotes.
It is a great sin today that many priests
give boring, irrelevant homilies that fail to inspire youth to burn with zeal
for God, that do not challenge the lost to turn again to the well of salvation
through Christ.
Today’s youth seek a church that truly
worships God — not a small god that we can control or that bows to the whims of
the present culture, but a God whose train fills the temple and whose glory is
so great that, at once, he convicts of sin and affirms a deep tender love.
Today’s youth seek a God that is a fire, a
storm and a father that calls to a deep intimate sacredness that touches them
and calls them to be holy.
They want a church that places the bar higher
than the culture, not a compromising church that keeps track of what is
politically correct.
Youth want a church that proclaims our need
for heaven and shows the way to get there.
They want a church that leads them beyond the
anguish, fear, worry and loneliness of this world to a world full of God’s
love.
They want a church that has answers to
questions and offers to suffer with them, to bear their wounds.
They long to be told that there is an
objective reality that we can know and understand so as to order our lives and
be happy.
They
want to know that Jesus is real and present with us here and now, that he is
truly a friend and the savior of our souls.
They want to see a church which is ready to
suffer for the poor, the lost, the abandoned and the broken.
They want to see that Christ and his church
are real.
The
writer is pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Magadan , Russia
http://www.catholicanchor.org/opinion/get-real-with-catholic-youth-they-long-for-it/
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