B16 rejoices in ‘new, more youthful’ Church
Pope Benedict is still talking about the huge impact the young people had on him at World Youth Day in Madrid last August.
“A new, more youthful form of Christianity” is emerging, he says, and he’s delighted with it. He describes it under five headings:
1. A new experience of the Church as catholic or universal.
“We come from every continent, we speak different languages, we have different ways of life and different backgrounds, yet we are immediately united as one great family,” he said.
And that was exactly what so many young people felt in Madrid. Along with all the difference came unity in their love for Jesus and for the Mass. “We all pray in the same way,” said B16.
2. A new way of living the faith.
The Pope was really moved by his meeting with the 20,000 young volunteers who “devoted weeks or months of their lives” in helping to make the event run smoothly.
All people are tempted, he said, “to look out for themselves and so to become inwardly empty.” The young people had the courage to make the leap of faith to serve.
But first they had to experience “the encounter with Jesus Christ, inflaming us with love for God and for others, and freeing us from seeking our own ego.”
3. Adoration, which has “an increasingly natural and central place” in young people’s spirituality.
This is an act of faith, the act of faith. “God is present,” said Benedict. “And because he is present, I bow down before him. My mind and will and heart open up to him.”
The risen Lord enters into our midst. “And then we can only say, with St Thomas: my Lord and my God!”
4. The sacrament of Confession.
“Openness to love is present in each person,” said the Pope. It’s “implanted in us by the Creator together with the capacity to respond to God in faith.”
But there’s also a tendency opposed to love, “ a downward gravitational pull.”
As a result, “we need the humility that constantly asks God for forgiveness, that awakens in us the counterforce, the positive force of the Creator, to draw us upwards.”
5. The sense of joy that comes from knowing that “I am wanted; I have a task in history; I am accepted, I am loved.”
The Pope explained: “If ever the sense of being loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question if to be a human being is good at all.”
Wherever doubt about God spreads, then doubt about humanity always follows. “We see this in the joylessness, in the inner sadness, that can be read on so many faces today.”
On the other hand, said the Holy Father, “despite all trials and times of darkness, it is a wonderful thing to belong to the Church, to the Catholic Church, that the Lord has given to us.”
All this brought him back to a theme which now dominates his thinking: How do each and every one of us play our part in proclaiming the Gospel today? In bringing the joy of the faith to others?
It’s a question that only we, individually and together, can answer.
“A new, more youthful form of Christianity” is emerging, he says, and he’s delighted with it. He describes it under five headings:
1. A new experience of the Church as catholic or universal.
“We come from every continent, we speak different languages, we have different ways of life and different backgrounds, yet we are immediately united as one great family,” he said.
And that was exactly what so many young people felt in Madrid. Along with all the difference came unity in their love for Jesus and for the Mass. “We all pray in the same way,” said B16.
2. A new way of living the faith.
The Pope was really moved by his meeting with the 20,000 young volunteers who “devoted weeks or months of their lives” in helping to make the event run smoothly.
All people are tempted, he said, “to look out for themselves and so to become inwardly empty.” The young people had the courage to make the leap of faith to serve.
But first they had to experience “the encounter with Jesus Christ, inflaming us with love for God and for others, and freeing us from seeking our own ego.”
3. Adoration, which has “an increasingly natural and central place” in young people’s spirituality.
This is an act of faith, the act of faith. “God is present,” said Benedict. “And because he is present, I bow down before him. My mind and will and heart open up to him.”
The risen Lord enters into our midst. “And then we can only say, with St Thomas: my Lord and my God!”
4. The sacrament of Confession.
“Openness to love is present in each person,” said the Pope. It’s “implanted in us by the Creator together with the capacity to respond to God in faith.”
But there’s also a tendency opposed to love, “ a downward gravitational pull.”
As a result, “we need the humility that constantly asks God for forgiveness, that awakens in us the counterforce, the positive force of the Creator, to draw us upwards.”
5. The sense of joy that comes from knowing that “I am wanted; I have a task in history; I am accepted, I am loved.”
The Pope explained: “If ever the sense of being loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question if to be a human being is good at all.”
Wherever doubt about God spreads, then doubt about humanity always follows. “We see this in the joylessness, in the inner sadness, that can be read on so many faces today.”
On the other hand, said the Holy Father, “despite all trials and times of darkness, it is a wonderful thing to belong to the Church, to the Catholic Church, that the Lord has given to us.”
All this brought him back to a theme which now dominates his thinking: How do each and every one of us play our part in proclaiming the Gospel today? In bringing the joy of the faith to others?
It’s a question that only we, individually and together, can answer.
Rebel students want a new deal on sex
Some young people, it seems, are rebelling against last century’s sexual revolution and want a deeper vision of life and love.
The new mood is even hitting Yale, one of America’s top universities. And what happens at Yale is soon picked up by other colleges.
A bunch of students there, calling themselves Undergraduates for a Better Yale College (UBYC), have begun a campaign to promote a cool, respectful attitude to sexuality in the college.
Not an easy task. The Yale Daily News has warned the group that “the project of reforming Yale’s sexual culture is a formidable one.”
But UBYC are delighted at the “overwhelmingly positive response” they have received so far from students, faculty and parents.
Their website says: “We are united in firm opposition to Yale’s prevailing sexual culture, if customs so loose and lax can properly be called a culture. ‘Hook-up culture’, ‘sexual liberation’; call it what you will. We are against it.”
No messing there!
They go on: “We believe that a culture of semi-anonymous, ‘consequence-free’ sexual encounters promotes, not responsibility, but irresponsibility.
“We believe that the self-centred pursuit of physical pleasure embodies, not integrity, but indecency.
On the positive side, the group will “advocate for a better sexual culture, one grounded in genuine respect and self-giving love.”
They will also “oppose campus attitudes and events that offer a degrading and trivialising vision of sexuality.” Above all, they will “embody the alternative in our personal lives to the best of our abilities.”
Their first aim was to end the ‘Sex Week at Yale’ which is held every two years, is backed by college authorities and bombards undergrads with obscenity and immorality.
The next “sex week” is due to be held this month but, under pressure from UBYC, Yale has withrawn its support for the event and kicked it off campus.
It’s amazing the good that people can achieve when they put their minds to it.
The new mood is even hitting Yale, one of America’s top universities. And what happens at Yale is soon picked up by other colleges.
A bunch of students there, calling themselves Undergraduates for a Better Yale College (UBYC), have begun a campaign to promote a cool, respectful attitude to sexuality in the college.
Not an easy task. The Yale Daily News has warned the group that “the project of reforming Yale’s sexual culture is a formidable one.”
But UBYC are delighted at the “overwhelmingly positive response” they have received so far from students, faculty and parents.
Their website says: “We are united in firm opposition to Yale’s prevailing sexual culture, if customs so loose and lax can properly be called a culture. ‘Hook-up culture’, ‘sexual liberation’; call it what you will. We are against it.”
No messing there!
They go on: “We believe that a culture of semi-anonymous, ‘consequence-free’ sexual encounters promotes, not responsibility, but irresponsibility.
“We believe that the self-centred pursuit of physical pleasure embodies, not integrity, but indecency.
On the positive side, the group will “advocate for a better sexual culture, one grounded in genuine respect and self-giving love.”
They will also “oppose campus attitudes and events that offer a degrading and trivialising vision of sexuality.” Above all, they will “embody the alternative in our personal lives to the best of our abilities.”
Their first aim was to end the ‘Sex Week at Yale’ which is held every two years, is backed by college authorities and bombards undergrads with obscenity and immorality.
The next “sex week” is due to be held this month but, under pressure from UBYC, Yale has withrawn its support for the event and kicked it off campus.
It’s amazing the good that people can achieve when they put their minds to it.
