To be a young Catholic today
Is'nt easy...to put it bluntly.
This is because to be a Catholic, a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ directly contradicts the world and the conventions of the society around us.
By definition, this name calls us to live a life that utterly does our best to fulfill the greatest commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
Sometimes hearing that commandment rolls off the tongue because it is something we know so quickly like, 2+2=4 or after A comes B then C. It's something that becomes instinctive, just like prayers which are pillars of our faith.
When we think of these commandments it their most literal term, it is asking for our belief in God to utterly consume us and be every breathe we take. Loving God would become our existence and reason for being. Sounds radical, but that's precisely what Jesus tells us to do. To live a life of faith is to live radically. Radical love.
It's against the grain of mainstream discourses that tell us to love ourselves. Whilst it can be a positive confidence building mantra, if it's the only mantra dominant, then thinking selflessly and putting the desire to serve first becomes difficult.
If we're constantly fueled with "believe in you" where is the space to believe in God?
If we're constantly fueled with phrases on ambition and pursuit of money, where is the space for humility?
To give up our time and efforts to think about the poor...and I mean really pray for the poor, give time to the poor, and put ourselves in a position of poverty (even if it is for a brief 40 day period of fasting once a week for Lent) is difficult to do nowadays. 'Poverty' is such a vast and engulfing word too, sociologically one thinks of it in both economically 'absolute' and 'relative' terms but one can also be spiritually impoverished. How can we as young Catholics deal with these issues realistically, with tact, intelligence, humility and love?
We have to remember that God has chosen us. It is not the other way around.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit--fruit that will last--and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
If we practice asking God for the desire to love him more, and the ability to die to our own selfish wants then we can make steps, leaps, in faith.
This is a message to inspire and offer support. To say that yes, I know, to be a young Catholic is not always easy, there are controversies all the time in public affairs, politics and interrogation from non-beleivers. It may even be condemnation from those that are even closest to you.... But we always have Jesus at our side and can always be encouraged by Jesus' word:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Stay encouraged, and please continue to send messages if need be.
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