Our Youth

So, it seems that St. Joseph the Worker’s Parish is going to trust ME to help out with the Confirmandi…  😯

Here is something that was shared with me, and now I want to share with you…

Today, many people are searching. We too are searching. Basically, in a different dialectic, both these things must always exist within us. We must respect each one’s own search. We must sustain it and make them feel that faith is not merely a dogmatism complete in itself that puts an end to seeking, that extinguishes man’s great thirst, but that it directs the great pilgrimage towards the infinite; we, as believers, are always simultaneously seekers and finders. In his Commentary on the Psalms, St Augustine interprets so splendidly the expression “Quaerite faciem eius semper”, “constantly seek his face.” This is not only true for this life, but for eternity; his face will be one to ceaselessly rediscover. The more deeply we penetrate the splendour of divine love, the greater will be our discoveries and the more beautiful it will be to travel on and know that our seeking has no end, hence, finding has no end and is thus eternity – the joy of seeking and at the same time of finding. We must support people in their search as fellow-seekers, and at the same time we must also give them the certainty that God has found us and, consequently, that we can find him. It is not a matter of pandering to youth, which is basically ridiculous, but of a true youthfulness that flows from the wellsprings of eternity, that is ever new, that derives from the transparency of Christ in his Church: this is how he gives us the light to continue. In this light we can find the courage to face confidently the most difficult questions asked in the Church… today. On the one hand, we must accept the challenges of youth, but on the other, we in turn must inculcate in young people patience, without which nothing can be found; we must teach them discernment, a healthy realism, the capacity to be decisive. A Head of State recently told me that his main concern was the widespread inability to make definitive decisions for fear of losing personal freedom. In fact, men and women become free when they bind themselves, when they find roots, for it is then that they can grow and mature. We must teach patience, discernment, realism, but without false compromises, so as not to water down the Gospel!

~Benedict XVI, Message to the German Bishops, 2005