In his homily at the Vigil for Life at the National Shrine in Washington D.C., Cardinal Daniel DiNardo from Houston preached one of the most beautiful but deeply challenging homilies I have ever heard. Though the message of the homily was clearly to empower those present to stake their lives more fully for the pro-life movement, near the end of his preaching, he said a sentence that spoke so distinctly to my heart. He announced that this was his last year serving as the Chair of the Bishops' Pro-Life Committee and began to thank the staff whom he worked with saying, "Were I forced to articulate all they have done and mean, I would be left altogether helpless."
Today is the one day of the year that I honestly would rather celebrate than my birthday. It is a day that marks for me the point at which I really began to have Life ("and have it abundantly"). It is a day that commemorates when I began to recognize that Jesus truly IS "the way and the truth and the life". February 15th is the day that I was hired as the Youth Minister at St. Matthew. And on this particular February 15th, which marks my fifth year in this job, I wish to verbalize to ALL the youth I have met and worked with that "Were I forced to articulate all YOU have done and mean, I would be left altogether helpless."
Last August, I stood in a crowd of 1.5 million people at World Youth Day and heard Pope Benedict XVI proclaim with deep passion, "Dear young people, the Church DEPENDS ON YOU! She needs your lively faith, your creative charity, and the energy of your hope. Your presence renews, rejuvenates, and gives new energy to the Church." With these words, he echoed the heartfelt cry of his predecessor, Blessed Pope John Paul II, who said "I am unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear, is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young. YOU ARE OUR HOPE. The young are our hope. Do not let that hope die. Stake your lives on it." And it is with a heart overflowing with love that I say to the youth of our Church: THANK YOU.
Thank you for being brave enough to escape the tumultuous noise of this world to seek the Lord in silence and hear him begging you to live more radically for him. Thank you for being courageous enough to forego the priorities forced upon you by society in order to live passionately for the Gospel with eternity as your aim. Thank you for reminding me what it's like to believe in a world where violence ceases, the hungry are fed, and problems aren't too big to be solved. Thank you for allowing Christ to break your chains of sin and shame that you might live freely for him, confident in the abundance of his mercy. Thank you for placing yourself in the disposition to be utterly consumed with the love of Jesus and allowing that love to convict you to live lives of holiness and virtue. Thank you for your selflessness, your passion, your love. In all these ways and more, THANK YOU for truly being our hope. Thank you for truly renewing, rejuvenating, and giving new energy to my own soul, to the souls of your family members and friends, to the Church, and to this world.
But my thanks also comes with prayers that you will continue pursuing Christ, with the knowledge that you first must allow yourselves to be pursued BY Christ. I pray that you might not get distracted by or caught up in the glamour of sin, but that you might know with certainty that true beauty and the fullness of life is only found in Christ. I pray that you might continue to be humble enough to recognize your own NEED for grace and to have the courage to prioritize your life so as to RECEIVE that grace. I pray that you might come to know Jesus Christ as more than an idea or a concept, but that you know him who saved you, who loves you so lavishly, who forgives you so faithfully, and who has created you for such a beautiful purpose.
By the help of his grace, may you be the new Ezekiels breathing life into dry bones (Ezekiel 37). May you be the new Jeremiahs to whom the Lord is saying "Say not I am too young. To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Have no fear for I am with you" (Jeremiah 1:7-8). May you be the new Timothys, who "set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity" (1 Timothy 4:12). And may you take to heart these beautiful words of Blessed Pope John Paul II, believing them with every fiber of your being: “Ask yourselves, young people, about the love of Christ. Acknowledge His voice resounding in the temple of your heart. Return His bright and penetrating glance which opens the paths of your life to the horizons of the Church’s mission. It is a taxing mission, today more than ever, to teach men the truth about themselves, about their end, their destiny, and to show faithful souls the unspeakable riches of the love of Christ. Do not be afraid of the radicalness of His demands, because Jesus, who loved us first, is prepared to give Himself to you, as well as asking of you. If He asks much of you, it is because He knows you can give much.”
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