A good confession

There's this funny notion that people have about God. This idea that if God is real, than it is up to God to show himself to man. As if the perogative somehow fell on Him. I actually had a friends who demanded a very particular sign of God, for proof of Gods existence, and when he didn't get that sign, he decided that therefore God must not be real.

Have you ever thought about this? First of all, if you don't believe in God and don't think he's real, then fine. Pray that God will reveal Himself to you, and see what happens. But don't 'demand'.

Imagine for a moment if you were God. You created a good and beautiful universe, and then you put your prime creation into the universe. And you loved this prime creation, and used many different ways to show this creation that you loved it. And then one day the creation demands of you that you prove that you exist. What?

Now wait a minute! God is existence- by His very nature! You can't ask whether God exists any more than you can ask whether existence exists! But more than that, you only exist because God holds you in existence. If God so chose, you could stop existing altogether- even your history could be erased, so no one would have any memory that you ever existed. God could go back in time and prevent you from getting conceived- who the heck then are you to demand that God prove himself? God is also all meaning, all joy, all love. People say "I refuse to believe in God until I receive irrefutable proof of His existence". By what right? Who gave you the right to choose for or against God?

As if God, the author of existence, owes you anything what so ever!

So why then does God bother to reveal Himself at all?

Because He loves us. That's what people do when they are in love. They reveal themselves to the other. They want to be known, understood by the other. And you've probably heard before that God does not force Himself on us. He does not force us to love Him, because that would not be love. Love has to be free or it is something else.

Then why do we force God to love us? Now, you might object that God is love, and therefore he has no choice anyway. True enough. However, by the nature of love, you cannot demand that he love you, any more than you can demand any person love you or open up to you. You can only indicate your openness, that you are ready to receive them and love them, and then wait to see what they will choose.

So yes, pray that God will reveal Himself to you, but pray with a disposition that is ready to love, and not with the arrogance of thinking that you can in some way push God around!

So, supposing God does reveal Himself to you... Then what? It's very possible that God has revealed Himself to you in the past already, that you already know Him at some level. Just as God has revealed himself to you out of love, now it's your turn to reveal yourself to God. Just as you want God to show you that he's real, God wants you to show Him that you are real.

But, you say, God sees all. How could he possibly ask us to reveal ourselves?

Always remember that love takes place in the will. Yes, God can see you- he sees every talent, every strength, every weakness, every sin, every secret....

The question is, when you are with Him, are you real? Do you let Him see all of these things? When you pray, do you kind of pretend to have some sort of piety or eloquence that you don't really have? Get real! And especially when you consider your sins- when you go to confession....

The point of the sacrament of confession is that it forces us to get real. A lot of people ask why we don't go straight to God with our sins. Jesus implemented the sacrament of reconciliation when He said to His apostles"Whosoevers sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and who's sins you retain they are retained." He did it so that we would have to admit to another person what we did- we can't just kind of shrug off our sins without recognizing them. Say "God will forgive me" and not really repent. Confession forces us to acknowledge our sins and to say that we will repent from them- that we will try not to do it again. Just by doing this, this affects our will. It strengthens our commitment and our resolve, and gets us the graces we need to live up to what we said.

But what most people do when they go to confession is they kind of rattle off a few sins in a kind of vague manner. Often your confession when you're in grade 4 stays the same when you're in grade 12 and then as an adult. "I was mean, I was lazy, I didn't control my anger."

Now let's be honest- isn't there a bit more to it than that? Haven't our sins sort of matured?

But maybe now the stuff is too embarrassing. You may say 'love is openness, true, but I would never open up to my boyfriend or girlfriend and tell them all the sins I have committed. So why do I have to do it to God?"

First off, every sin you commit, you commit against God,. Secondly, God sees all your sins. On Team we have a little practice where if someone offends another Team Member, we have to go to that Team member and say "Will you forgive me for...." and that person has to say "I forgive you." You can't just leave it at 'sorry', 'it's OK". What this does is makes each person acknowledge that there was a real and genuine sin, and each person has to actually choose to recognize it and try to change it.

So with God. If you have not been to confession in a long time, or you have not made a good confession in a long time, where you admit exactly what it is that you did, then it is time for you to do that. It is time to get really honest and real with God.

There is this funny idea with God that we should first clean house, before he comes over. You know, first get rid of all of our sins, so that we're ready to talk to God. That would be like if house cleaners were coming, and you thought "I better make sure the house is clean for them!" Or better yet, if you thought you better get over your illness before you visit a doctor.

Jesus compared himself to a doctor, and said "Healthy people don't need a doctor, it is the sick that need him!". What's the point of going to s doctor if you're not going to let him know in what ways you are sick? If you're going to try to hide the symptoms?

We do this with God. We go to God and don't let him see some parts of us, because they are too dark, too dirty, too disgusting. Those are the very parts God wants to work in!

St Therese of Lisieux said we should offer ourselves, our whole selves, to God- even our sinful places! Let God see that stuff, and let God love us in our sinfulness. This is not the place that we should hide from God!

So my challenge to you then is to do an examination of conscience- a real, deep examination, digging up all the darkest and most embarrassing muck- and bring that stuff before God. If you have a sliver and don't deal with it, it could get infected. If you have a wound that is not treated, it could fester- this dirty mucky disgustingness that you think will go away if you ignore it is going to grown and start seeping into other parts of your life. If you have past sexual sins and you don't deal with them, this will affect future romantic relationships.

After thinking about all this stuff, don't wallow in it. I'm not saying that we should wallow around, getting all dark and depressed because we can't stand our own sinfulness. We open it up and give it to God. The bible says that God wants to purify us like Gold that is purified in fire. So it might hurt a bit to look at this stuff and show it to god, but what you do then is let God untwist it and restore you to your original purity and dignity.

Obviously the most concrete way to do this is by going to confession. We won't have a lot of time for confession this weekend, but at some point, maybe next weekend get there! If you need to call your priest and say "Priest! I got some dark, dirty, ugly garbage that I need your help to deal with, let's bring it!" and make an appointment for confession- do it!

Then when your done, and you do your act of contrition, you promise God that you are going to try not to sin like that anymore- mean it. Be determined not to sink back into the grossness!

(Close in prayer)

Holy God,

We pray that you would reveal our sinfulness to us, so that we can see it, and root it out, and deal with it. We pray for mercy, God, because we know we have sinned. We pray for the grace to be able to choose what is right. We thank you that you love us so much that you don't want us to stay in our sins, but you want to heal us and to make us whole. Do it.

We pray all this in Jesus name,

Amen.

Running the Race

Last summer most people here made a commitment to live for Jesus. We gave you dog tags to remind you of your commitment, and prayed over each of you, etc. Now, 4 months have gone by- how are you doing?

There is a popular notion that once you make your commitment to Christ, that that's in- it's going to be easy. And by easy I don't mean that you won't get persecuted, that you wont sin, that you wont have to make sacrifices. Before you made your commitment, you all knew that that is exactly what was going to be demanded of you!

And yet, there's this notion that by the grace of God you'll just keep up the firm resolve you had in the first place, that you will always choose to reject sin and keep doing the right thing. But let's be honest- how has it been? Are you still "on fire" for God?

Some of you may have a vague memory of the emotions you felt as you made that commitment to God last summer. A bit of a God high, where you felt the love of God and were convicted that you were not living up to the potential for which He created you.

And so you resolved to be Gods- some of you said 100%. Some of you said "I'm committed to being a Saint!". And yet, 4 months down the road, some of you are probably tired and frustrated and disappointed in yourselves because for everything you resolved, you're still not Holy.

Well if that's you, then good! You're exactly who I am giving this talk for.

First of all, let me dispel the notion once and for all that you can make a decision one day on a God high and then not struggle. The truth is, that god high will go away- and that is where the real commitment comes from! It's when you don't feel the presence of God, well all evidence of the existence of God seems gone, that it is most important to be faithful to Him.

What you experienced at counselors week was real. Or maybe you experienced God somewhere else. I assure you- it was real! It was not simply some artificial emotion that we managed to conjure up to con you into believing in the things we believe in. God is a person, and as a person god touches each one of us in a different way. God is not just some impersonal "force" or "energy" like a lot of people would have you believe- so while one person may have felt a huge peace, and even laughter, another may have cried healing tears.

I believe that God wants to touch you again this weekend, and I believe that he will- if you are open.

But when you don't feel Him- remember the commitment you made while you did! St Teresa of Avilla said that she never felt the presence of God in her whole life. the way we feel God is referred to by the Saints as "Consolation". When we don't feel God at all, this is referred to as "desolation". St Teresa never felt that consolation, and yet- she continued to live her life as a Saint for God.

It's like when you get married. On the day that you get married, you will (hopefully) feel a rush of joy and of love to your spouse. After that time is the honey moon- I understand that is reasonably pleasant too. But in time they say that the "honeymoon" stage ends- you don't feel that love and emotion like you used to, in fact, just being with the person you committed to can sometimes seem like a chore!

Isn't that what happened with a lot of us in our relationships with God? We started off feeling all warm and tingly, probably went home from Camp, told some people that we loved them, hugged people we never hugged before, prayed every day- and slowly, the feeling faded, until one day we didn't even want to pray. It's dry. Boring. A chore.

This is reality. real love is not an emotion- it is a decision, a virtue. A virtue is a disposition of the will. In other words, it is a habit of choosing. If you have fallen away from God because you don't feel the emotional rush anymore, remember your commitment! A spouse can't (or shouldn't) divorce their spouse because they "don't feel the love anymore". This would mean that they never really understood what love was.

So, if the feeling is gone, and you have not been living up to your resolve, that's fine. Recommit anyway. This weekend will hopefully be something like a marriage encounter- a chance for you to get away and be with God in a quiet and beautiful place and start communicating again.

Now some of you may be in different shoes. You might be the kind of person who continually renews your commitment to God, and continually says "yeah, I can do better" and continually falls again. And you're frustrated. You're tired of fighting a losing fight! You are angry with yourself, and think "God could not possibly love me!" or you're saying "I'm sure god still does love me, but I don't deserve it, so I'm not going to let Him."

St Therese of Lisieux addressed this issue. Since before the time of Jesus, people have been trying to earn Gods love, and failing. The Pharisees were people who worked hard all day and night to do everything right and to not sin- so that they would deserve the love of God. But they did not understand what god was about.

God said "I desire mercy, not sacrifice!". God wanted to be able to just show them His love, to love them even though they couldn't possibly live up to it! Imagine again if you were in a relationship and your boyfriend or girlfriend kept saying "I'm not good enough for you, I keep screwing up, you shouldn't love me."

Wouldn't that be annoying?

God is Love. That is what his very nature is. God, by his very nature, wants to love you. The very fact that God holds you in existence means that he is loving you- every moment! And when you sin, he is not stunned! He is not scandalized! It's like a father trying to teach his son how to walk. If the son trips, the dad doesn't freak out, and say to the boy "You are no son of mine! You don't deserve my love". Instead the Father wants to get the son back on his feet and say "Try again Son!" Of course, when the boy finally learns to walk, the father will be thrilled- delighted! The boy will still fall sometimes, but as long as he keeps getting up again, the father will be pleased.

but wouldn't it be sad if the boy tripped and gave up- at 2 years old, deciding to never learn to walk. It's just too hard, just too frustrating. That's what we do in our sins!

St Therese says we shouldn't be surprised when we fall- of course we are going to fall! We are human! And it is not God that loves us any less. We should be happy that we have such a good and patient and loving God that he sticks by us and loves us all the more!

We should be happy, because God is all the more glorified by us when we fall, because he just gets to love us again, pour mercy on us again.

This is the thing. At some point, we need to recognize that it is not about us- it is all about God. God's love is what matters- not our own ability to respond to it. St Francis de Sales points out that when we get frustrated with ourselves, it is not love of God that is wounded- it is love of self! We are frustrated because we are not as good as we thought we were- well, stop looking at yourself, and start looking at God!

St Paul is an awesome example of a man who continued to deal with sin, even after coming to Christ.

Romans 7

15I do not know why I do the things I do. I do not do what I want to do. But I do the things I hate.
19I do not do the good thing I want to do, but I do the wrong thing that I do not want to do.

21So there is a law I find that it is at work in me. When I want to do what is right, I can only do what is wrong.
22In my own mind I am glad to obey the law of God.
23But I see that in my body there is another law fighting against the law in my mind. And that makes me like a prisoner to the law of wrong things in my body.
24I am a very sad man. Who will save me from this body that will make me die?
25Thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord who will do it!

So St Paul clearly recognized that even though he had come to know Christ and was living as a great Christian, he continued to sin, to 'do the things he hates' none the less! He knew on the one hand that he had to have hope- that Jesus would free him from his sin. But he acknowledged that it was a struggle for him.

In many ways the Christian life gets more difficult the deeper into it you go. People have this notion that once they overcome the initial obstacles to Christianity, that it will somehow get easier. Where did they get this idea?

Here's a question- was Jesus tempted more or less than most people?

On the one hand, Jesus did not have concupiscience. This is the tendency in us towards sin that we have from original sin. So, someone might say that he must not have been tempted as much.

However, St Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, made the argument that when we are tempted, we are usually tempted pretty much until we give in or distract ourselves. Jesus never gave in to temptation. In other words, his temptation would have gotten worse and worse and worse.

This is likely what was happening to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Remember that he was fighting to try to do the will of his Father. Some people think that he sweat drops of blood because he was so stressed about what was going to happen the next day. But Jesus always told us not to worry about anything. I think that what happened was that he was being tempted to give in, and not let them kill him, and he did not have the consolation of the presence of God- and the temptation was so intense, and he resisted it to the point of sweating blood.

So just as Jesus, though perfect, struggled big time against temptation, and just as Paul needed to remind himself that he had to have hope in Jesus that he would be saved from his sin, I think we need to have the same disposition.

St Paul compared the spiritual journey to a race;

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

9:24 Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. 9:25 Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.
9:26 So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. 9:27 Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.

What tends to happen in the spiritual race is we keep getting distracted- either by things on the side lines, or by how we feel, or by how far we have come. We need instead to be like a runner who keeps his eyes on the goal. Our goal is not Sainthood itself. Our goal is the person who is Christ. If we continue to push on, looking to Christ as our goal, and making all the little sacrifices, and enduring suffering for love of Him, this is the Christian journey!

7 Dwarfs

I want to talk about some of the bad habits Christians tend to get into in living out their faith practically. But instead of just listing them randomly, we're going to compare each of the habits we talk about to one of the Seven Dwarfs.

(grammatically, it seems to me that it ought to say "Dwarves", but apparently that's not how Disney did it!)

Who can name off the seven dwarves?

Doc, Grumpy, Dopey, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy and Sneezy

Doc- He's known for being the smart one, though he's always stammering.

The problem with being a "Doc" Christian is that they know everything about Christianity, but it's just a head knowledge. Doc Christians can tell you which book of the Bible I the longest, what the three Cardinal Virtues are, what the 7 deadly sins are... Etc, etc, Etc. But the Bible makes it clear that "If I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2

Having faith in God is about way more than just knowing about what you believe- it is about knowing the person that you believe in. It's about love. And it should be a life transforming thing. A lot of people who become Christian fall in love not so much with Christ, but with the things of Christ. So they love reading the Bible, and learning as much as they can, and knowing the Church history, and being able to argue to defend the faith.

All of this is well and good, but the truth is that just because you know a bunch of stuff about Christianity, this does not actually make you a Christian! The word "Christian" means "one who is like Christ", and the things that really drew people to Christ was not how smart he was, though that was impressive, but how holy and loving he was.

Christians are often accused of pride or self righteousness. We want to know the truth not because we love the truth, but because we want to be able to impress our friends with how smart we are. What can happen is that we replace Jesus as our God and make our own intelligence our God. This is not actually dangerous, it is outright sinful! If the thing which excites you the most is how intelligent you are, it's time to give that over to the God who gave you your intelligence!

God has called us to love Him- but we fall into a trap of self-love. If we are reading the Bible, and memorizing it's verses, so that we can impress other people- this is wrong! We should be reading it in order to fall deeper in love with God. You've probably met people who can quote the Bible like crazy and argue anyone into the ground, but are they loving people by doing it?

I used to be like that. When I went to Bible School, I would read the Bible, Highlight passages, memorize them, and write them into a little red book that I carried with me. There were whole pages dedicated to different arguments- the Eucharist, confession, Divinity of Christ, etc. Then one day someone gave us a talk on being detached- and said that if there is anything, however small, that was holding us back from God, we had to get rid of it. I felt like God wanted me to get rid of my little red book. But I thought that didn't make sense, since this book was helping me to learn about God, and about the Bible, so clearly it was a good thing!

Later that day a lady approached me and said 'What things are you getting rid of?' I told her about some CD's that had inappropriate lyrics and things- she said "I think you should get rid of your little red book!" Weird, eh? So I did, I threw it out. And I realized that I had made my own ability to argue get in the way of loving God and other people. I started reading the Bible the way it was meant to be read, as a letter to myself from God.

Dopey

So while on the one hand we don't want to only know God intellectually, we don't want to be Dopey Christians either. There are some Christians who when asked stuff about God say "I don't know, God made it that way!" or whatever, and they say "Don't question the things of God!"

You probably heard about in the news how the Pope said something that made a lot of Muslims mad. He was talking about how it doesn't make sense to try to promote religion through violence, and he gave an example of an emperor who had complained about how Muslims would
kill people who refused to convert, or who tried to convert away from Islam.

The Popes point in this talk was that faith is rational- it is reasonable. There is a movement in Christianity today which says that God's reason is so far above our reason that we shouldn't even try to understand the things of God. Christians then become dominated by their emotions, and Christianity becomes something irrational. God is a God of Logic, and while we will never fully understand him with our puny brains, we do have the opportunity to begin to understand.

God wants us to question things, to use our minds and try to understand things. One of the greatest gifts that he gave us is our intellect and our ability to reason- this is the thing that philosophers say sets us apart from the animals. It is our gift of reason which allows us in turn to make real decisions of the will.

But a lot of Christians have bought into a kind of irrational an anti-rational faith, saying that since Christianity is a relationship, than we should rely entirely on emotions. Emotions too are gifts from God, but just like when you marry someone you can't be loving only when you feel the emotion of love, so in our relationship with God we need our intellect for when our emotions are not inspiring us to love God.

Grumpy

What is wrong with being a Grumpy Christian?

Well, obviously if we are grumpy, then other people are not going to want to be Christian. There are some Christians who have a very dark outlook of the world. They see the sins of other people, and the things going wrong in our own world, and they are mad. There are Christians who sit there in church every week with a scowl on their faith, and they don't even know that they're not being good Christians!

But Jesus said "I have come that your joy may be full." Jesus does want us to be joyful! He wants to fill us with joy! That's why there's a Christmas carol called "Joy to the World" and not one called "Anger and suppression to the world." Many people see Christianity, and all they see is the sacrifice, how we don't always get to do whatever we want, since some things are sins. What they don't see is that living a life of love and meaning brings way more joy than living a life of self indulgence!

Joy is also a virtue. So is mirthfulness- which means, laughing lots. Seriousness is not a virtue! So if we are the kinds of Christians who don't know how to have fun, then it is time that we began to practice the virtue of Joy! St Paul even wrote "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances." In other words, no matter what is happening, we should continue to have joy!

Happy

So, that said, what could possibly be wrong with being a Happy Christian?

The problem is, some Christians get the wrong idea. They think that since God wants to give us joy, then he must want to give us whatever will make us happy. And, if we are not happy, then God must not love us!

Now of course, God wants to give you every good thing. God loves you. But sometimes something that doesn't make us happy may in fact be a good thing. It's like if a mom said to her little boy "I want to give you good things" and the boy said "then give me candy and toys, and if you don't give me candy and toys, it means you don't love me!" The mom knows better- knows that it's better for the boy to have spinach and less material goods.

There are Christians who think that since we're Christian God won't let us get sick, we'll always have lots of money, bad things won't happen. This simply is not true! God uses suffering for the good, and a lot of times we may not even see any possible good from it. But we know that God, who is all good, and all powerful, loves us and has allowed it- therefore, it must be a good thing even if we don't see it.

To say that Joy is a virtue means that we should practice it even when things don't go so good for us. That's exactly the time that we will acquire the virtue from God as He intends! The difference then between being 'happy' and being 'joyful' is that you can be joyful even while crying because someone you loved died, but happiness is routed in external circumstances.

It should also be noted that you will not always feel happy. You may not always feel the love of God, or be on that God high- but your relationship with Him does not change. It isn't based in feelings.

Sleepy

What is wrong with being a sleepy Christian?

This one is probably a bit more obvious. God has work for us to do! We can't be lazy! There are a lot of Christians who become what I would call "consumer Christians". They go to Church and to OLVC and to Youth Group. They do praise and worship, and they look for the God highs. They do Bible studies, and may even evangelize to their friends.

But, as much as they love God and love the things of God, when it comes down to the work part 0f the faith they are more inconsistent. You know, helping people who are poor, or reaching out to less popular people, or keeping their room clean or doing the dishes without being asked. These are the kinds of things God has called us to do- but we're too tired. Jesus said "Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom." In other words, just 'cause you have an active prayer life, and you feel a love for God, if it does not translate into works, it does not mean much.

James wrote that "faith without works is dead" and said 'what good is it to see a poor man, and to say to him "Be clothed and well fed" and not to provide for his physical needs?"

Let's be honest- Christians are often people who go to Church and pray, but in their day to day life live just like everyone else. We like our comforts so much- our coke, our TV, our Ipod- that we are unwilling to be generous with people who can't even afford to eat. We like resting so much, that we don't take the time to do the work that God has called us to do!

We cannot be Sleepy Christians.

Sneezy

Now, what could possibly be wrong with being a sneezy Christian? Does God have something against allergies?

What makes Sneezy sneeze? Pepper, loud noises, getting startled, flowers- pretty much everything. Some Christians react just as easily! Every little thing that happens, Christians freak out to! Every time someone swears, or there's a bit of violence on TV, or someone gossips, or there's some sort of scandal or weakness around. Some times it may not even be an actual sin that gets us all upset! What about the person who is distracting in church, saying the responses too loud? Or the one who won't sing? Or the one who raises their arms?

Of course, we need to try to root out sin- all sin. If there's sex or violence or inappropriate humor on TV, we need to ask if we should be watching it.

On the other hand though, Jesus said 'don't try to take the sliver out of someone else's eye, when you have a log in your own.' In other words, Christians get so choked up at other peoples sins that they don't try to take care of their own!

Christians are often accused of being self righteous. Self Righteousness is a kind of pride that does not recognize your own sins. The Pharisees were brutally self righteous. they didn't even want to associate with tax collectors and sinners! But who did Jesus associate with?

Let's be honest here! We Christians who react so much to the sins of other people, and look at them in disgust and disdain, often do not even recognize our own sins! We are not loving the sinners around us- in fact, we are not even capable of loving them. Jesus addressed this again and again. Like the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in the temple, and the Pharisee walks around in arrogance saying "Thank you god that I am so wonderful and sinless, and not some lowly sinner like that tax collector!" while the tax collector says "God, I'm sorry I have committed so many sins!" Who is justified in Gods eyes?

But even though we've heard it, this is often how we are. Instead then of reacting to the sins of everyone else, maybe it is time for us to recognize that it is only by the grace of God that we do not commit the same sins. Jesus referred to himself as a doctor, and said "A doctor does not go to the healthy people, but to the sick." We need to admit that we need Christ so that we can accept Him and begin to love the sinners around us. We are all sinners, in need of the mercy of God.

So we cannot be a 'Sneezy' Christian, who allows the little things to bug us so much that we are unable to love the people around us.

Bashful

The last of the dwarfs is Bashful. what's wrong with being a Bashful Christian?

The great commission was when, just before going to Heaven, Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations. In other words, we need to tell people about the truth, and try to bring them to it.

But when you're confronted at school or work or wherever about being a Christian, how do you respond? Are you proud of it? Do you get excited and try to tell other people about Jesus? Or are you ashamed?

Christianity is treated like something that we should be ashamed of. It is something different, which people regard as being naive, or for the emotionally unstable. And so people either deny that they are Christian, or they admit to it in a kind of apologetic way, as though it were a disease or disorder. There is an expectation of rejection.

First of all, you will be rejected and persecuted and mocked for being a Christian. Don't like it? Too bad, it's part of the package. Jesus said that seeing as they persecuted the leader, they will naturally persecute the followers.

When you agreed to be a Christian, when you made your commitment to Christ, it included with it standing up for truth even at the cost of personal rejection. Why should we care if people reject us when God is pleased with us? Jesus said "If you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father." In other words, don't go around being embarrassed of Christ- be proud!

Imagine if you had a Girlfriend or Boyfriend who was embarrassed of you. You liked them a lot, but and they'd go on dates with you and hold your hand, and tell you they love you, but when other people were around, they would treat you as some sort of a distant acquaintance, and say to people "Oh, this is my friend" or "This is my coworker." That's what we do to Christ, when we pray, and go to Camp and spend time loving him and then we go to school and pretend we don't even know Him.

We should be so proud of who Christ is and what he has done for us, that we just want to tell everyone! And when people mock us, we should be happy because that's what they did to Christ!

Snow White

So God does not want us to be a 'Dwarf Christian'- He wants us to be 'Snow White', since the Bible says "Though your sins were red as scarlet, I will make them white as snow."

If you have noticed that maybe some of these Christian bad habits are things you have acquired, then we need to go to God and give ourselves to Him and let Him transform us!

Salvation

I've told a lot of people about this Life in the Spirit Seminar hoping that they would come, in hopes that we could get a new community going in south Calgary. But also because, frankly, I want this time to be a life changing experience for the people who come. I mean, if all it was was just a fascinating social experiment, that'd be ok. Just a weird cultural experience of what could be considered a sub-culture of Orthodox Catholicism in Canada. Or maybe it'll just be a time to get to know other young adults who are somewhat like minded- though, I know quite a few people here, and I know that you're not all necessarily "like minded", especially regarding the issues at stake. But I think it'll be more than that- for some of you these next 4 weeks could be a definitive time in your life when you decide for yourself who Christ is and what relevance that has for you.

Matt. 16Peter's Confession of Christ13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven."

Context- They are in Caesarea Philippi. The town is called that because it was built by King Herod Phillipus to honor Caesar. In the town is a large white temple dedicated to Caesar- Caesar was worshipped as a God by the Romans, and this worship was imposed on everyone the Romansruled. Thiss town is also near the place where the Jordan River starts- coming from underground streams. The Jordan river is the life force for all ofIsrael. Thiss area was also considered by the Greeks to be the birthplace of pan- the little "toot" guy with pig legs and goat horns from "Hercules". So this is where Jesus asks the question "Who do the people say that I am". The people listening to Jesus had lots of food for thought.

But I'm not gonna give you an apologetic talk explaining precisely why I believe that Jesus is God and not just an imposter. It's not unlikely that I could convince you, at least at a rational level, the arguments supporting Jesus as God are quite convincing. If anyone wants to engage in this type of discussion later, I'd be happy to talk to you.

But Jesus himself said "Not everyone who calls me "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom." And James wrote " 19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that, and shudder". So obviously bringing you to a point of intellectual assent would not be good enough! Most people need to encounter Jesus for themselves- and that is precisely the thing that we are hoping will happen to you in these next four weeks. You will encounter Christ, some of you for the first time, many of you in a deeper way than ever before. Even I, as one of the speakers and small group leaders, fully expect to get from this seminar a deeper appreciation of Christ, and a deeper relationship with Him.

I encourage you then to just unload your preconceived notions, open yourself up, and for the next 4 weeks every Thursday say "God, I give you permission to do whatever you want to do in me tonight. Show yourself to me, bless me, Knock my spiritual socks off."

Jesus' 2000 year old question is being asked to you- "You- who do you say that I am?"

Now we've heard a lot of cliche answers over the years "Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God, King of Kings, Good Shepherd." Many of these answers have probably been so repeated they've lost all their meaning! But there's one that I want to unpack in particular- "Jesus as savior".

Some Christians like to evangelize to other people by running around asking them "Have you been Saved? Have you been washed in the blood?", which frankly doesn't mean anything to most people who hear it. What do we mean when we say "Jesus Saves"?

Most people think "Jesus saves us from Hell." Now this is true. People often get mad at God for sending people to Hell, but they got it backwards. God created people for Heaven. But Heaven is a perfect relationship with God. Hell, on the other hand, is the absence of a relationship with God. God loves us all, as we heard in Fr. Alfredos talk. He wants us to be in a perfect relationship with Him. But we choose not to be in a relationship with him. We choose to sin, and we cut ourselves off from God.

When I say Sin, the word means "Miss the mark." God is perfect, any imperfection whatsoever cannot exist in the context of a perfect relationship with God. Any sin severs that relationship- no matter how minor. Mother Theresa, then, 'deserves' to go to Hell. I was thinking about this one day, and I was frusterated with God, that all over the world people are going to Hell, and I said to God "Why don't you do something!"

And then I remembered- Oh yeah. God already did. He sent us Jesus.

Some how- I admit I don't understand how- Jesus' act of perfect obedience makes it possible for us to be in a relationship with God. Some people explain this in a kind of legalistic way, that Jesus took our place. Others say "he was perfectly obedient where our obedience was imperfect, and his perfect obedience makes up for ours." I honestly don't know how it works, but I know that Jesus gave himself to us in a total gift of self sacrifice, and that somehow through uniting ourselves with Him (Eucharist) we are 'saved' from Hell!

But the word "Saved" means more than that. In the original Greek in which the Bible was written, the same word is used for both "Saved" and "Healed" See, Jesus wants to save us from our sins and make us fully alive- in this life! He wants this life to be rich in meaning- not superficial and dull, as most of our lives are! He wants to save us not only from the consequences of our sin, but from the sin itself!

Now, most people today wouldn't get this. They'd think "I don't want to be saved from my sin. I like sinning. I don't wanna stop." Christians are accused of being self righteous if they say "Hey that's a sin! But don't worry, I know a cure!". Would it be self righteous of a healthy person to say "Hey, you have a cancer growth! But don't worry, here's a cure."?

Sin is a spiritual disease, and Jesus is the cure. People might not think they want to be saved from their sin- they think it's not hurting anyone- but what about the alcoholic who can't stop drinking? What about the guy addicted to pornography who's marriage is suffering? What about the woman who gossips so much that no one wants to share anything with her and be vulnerable? What about the person who is so guarded because of what other peoples sins have done to them, that they are unable to have a healthy relationship? What about the married couple who can't figure out why they keep fighting about little insignificant things, and they keep drifting farther and farther apart?

Believe it or not, Christianity offers a cure to all of these things. You think "Whatever, I know some disfunctional Christians"- think of them as being in rehab. The more you unite yourself with Christ, the greater freedom you will experience from sin.

Remember that God created us perfectly good, and perfectly free- he wants to restore us to that dignity- Christ is the way.

Lastly, I want to warn you against a danger that a lot of Christians fall into. Desperate to be free from sin, or to escape Hell, or to have meaning, or whatever, they look at Christ as a means to an end. I did this for the longest time. I remember asking Christ in virtual desperation one day while in Adoration "Jesus, you died to free me from my sins. Well you died for nothing, because I'm still a sinner."

For the longest time I missed the point. Heaven is a perfect relationship with God. Sin diminishes that relationship, clouds our minds so that we can't see clearly and we're likely to sin again, and closes us off to the love God has for us. Jesus' saving act was when he died on the cross, giving himself to us, body and soul, spirit and divinity. We receive Christ in the Eucharist. None of this is legalistic. None of it is a formula. You're not "saved" by believing the right thing. It's about getting to know a person- that person is Christ, who is God.

My challenge to you over these next four weeks is to pray every day- not just on Thursdays when you come here, but every day that you would be brought a little deeper into this relationship.

Who do you say that I am?

Matt. 16
Peter's Confession of Christ
13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

Context- They are in Caesarea Philippi. The town is called that because it was built by King Herod Phillipus to honor Caesar. In the town is a large white temple dedicated to Caesar- Caesar was worshipped as a God by the Romans, and this worship was imposed on everyone the Romans ruled.
This town is also near the place where the Jordan River starts- coming from underground streams. The Jordan river is the life force for all of Israel.
This area was also considered by the Greeks to be the birthplace of pan- the little “toot” guy with pig legs and goat horns from “Hercules”.
So this is where Jesus asks the question “Who do the people say that I am”.
Who do people now a days say that Jesus is?
“Jesus is Lord”, God, prophet (Muslims), good man (Dan Brown), didn’t exist, records unreliable, liar, lunatic, cult leader, etc.
To those who say that Jesus did not exist or that the records of him are unreliable;
There are more historical documents about Jesus than about any other person from that era- Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc. To say that these documents are all wrong, that they are an elaborate collaboration created in order to deceive, requires more faith than to say that Jesus was God! You assume a thing to be true, and ignore the facts in such a manor as to support your assumptions. What benefit did anyone receive from creating the myth about Jesus? The apostles were all killed. The Roman Empire collapsed. Being a Christian was not considered beneficial in the worldly sense for the first 300 years of its existence! So why would anyone conspire to create this kind of a lie?
No good historian on the planet takes seriously the idea that Jesus did not exist.
Another set of theories that no good historian takes seriously are those suggested by people like Dan Brown- that the stuff in the Bible about Jesus was made up by people with an agenda and are not true. There are some people who think that the only true thing that the Bible says about Jesus was that he called God “Our Father”. They say that everything else must have been made up.
Why? Because according to the Bible, Jesus walked on water and healed the blind and rose people from the dead and eventually rose from the dead himself! Seeing as those things are impossible, obviously someone must have made it up, right? Again, this works with the assumption that Jesus was not God, and therefore he couldn’t have done those things. But what if he was God? Isn’t that the whole point?
So let’s assume that the documents referring to Jesus are as reliable as any other historical documents. Who then was this guy who once lived?
CS Lewis referred to this problem as a “trilemma”. (Term coined by Josh MacDowell) Jesus said he was God. So either he is God, or he’s lying, or he’s a lunatic. So what is He, Liar, Lunatic or Lord?
It’s funny if people think that he is just a good teacher, because what moral teacher would lie about being God? Think about the weird things Jesus said; “Be like me, because I am meek and humble of heart.” What kind of person goes around telling people how humble they are? “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” How arrogant is it to claim to be the only way to God? Surely if he was a moral teacher he wouldn’t make such crazy claims! No other great teacher in history- Buddha, Confucious, Muhammed, Moses- none of these ever claimed to be God! It is too outlandish to say!
Unless it’s true. The question is, does Jesus seem like the type who would lie about such things? He told people to be perfect, as His heavenly Father is perfect, he taught them to love, he claimed to even be the truth and said that people should worship in spirit and truth- pretty strange things for a liar to teach people. Moreover, what did he benefit from his lie? He was crucified! Why didn’t he just admit the truth?

Of course, he could have been crazy. If he believed that he was God, but he was not God, this is like someone believing that they are a poached egg. It’s just crazy talk.
I met someone once who claimed to be God. The guy stood in the door of a downtown church in Ottawa, telling people that he was Jesus, and that they had to leave everything behind and follow him. I talked to him for a few minutes, but as it turned out I took too long to convert, and he eventually decided that I had missed my chance for salvation from him.
Now here’s the thing- he seemed crazy. He was inconsistent in what he said, he was angry, his eyes looked weird. Jesus, apparently, did not seem that way. When he told people to follow him, for some reason, they did! For some reason they thought he was right- so much so that it made the local officials mad, and they had to kill him! In fact, when the local officials would argue with Jesus, who would always say something clever and corner them. If he was crazy and inconsitent, the how come no one could point out the lack of logic in his arguments?
Then of course there’s the whole problem of miracles. Now maybe he faked all the miracles somehow- had people pretend to be blind, had rocks strategically placed in the water so he could “walk on it”, the storm just coincidentally stopped when he told it to… maybe all this happened, but it’s not likely. But even if he did… how did he ‘fake’ rising from the dead?
To me, this is the single strongest argument of the truth of Christianity. All of the apostles but one died for saying that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. The last one was exiled. How is it that these 12 men did not crack and give in? Admit that they were making it up?
So here’s the thing. As far as I’m concerned, if Jesus rose from the dead, than he is who he said he was. If he didn’t, than maybe the whole thing is a lie. Did he? Even St Paul admits that everything hinges on that one idea. 1 Cor 15:17-19 “17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
Here are the possibilities;
Jesus never died on the cross.
Jesus never rose- his body was still in the tomb.
Mary Magdalene went to the wrong tomb.
The disciples stole Jesus’ body for their lie.

Jesus never died on the cross:
Here’s the problem with that argument. First of all, a lot of people saw him die on the cross. There’s no real possibility that he wasn’t up there- that it was someone else and they were confused, etc. Some people say well, maybe Jesus was in so much pain, and had so much blood loss, that he fainted. Then, after lying in a nice cool tomb for 3 days, his strength was restored, and he got up and left.
Now think about it. The Bible tells us that a large stone was rolled across the front of the tomb, so large than when the ladies went there on the third day they were worried about who would help them move it. Are you trying to tell me that a guy who had been scourged within an inch of his life, then nailed to a cross, lay down for 3 days, didn’t eat or drink anything, and when he was done he got up and moved a massive boulder?
Jesus never rose, his body is still in the tomb;
Some people say the disciples just lied, that Jesus never rose and his body was still in the tomb. But if that happened, why didn’t the Pharisees and the enemies of Christianity just take people to the tomb and say “see?”
Mary Magdalene went to the wrong tomb;
Perhaps Mary went to the wrong tomb, and made the honest mistake that Jesus had risen. The problem is, the other disciples also went to the tomb, and a lot of people said they saw Jesus after he rose, and again the Pharisees could have just said “see?” if that happened!
The disciples lied, and stole the body;
First off, the disciples all died for their lie, (11 of 12 apostles were martyred, the other, John, was exiled). Also- how did they get the body past the guards? Roman Guards- professional soldiers who would suffer the death penalty for failure- were posted outside the tomb. Are we really supposed to believe that the disciples came and stole the body while the guards happened to be snoozing? In fact, the Bible tells us that when the Romans realized Jesus’ body was missing, they were instructed to lie and say that is what happened!
So here’s what I think. I think Jesus rose from the dead, and that he was who he said he was- God.
But, just ‘cause I think that, doesn’t mean that you have to.
I think a lot of times we hear a talk and think “Hmm, good points. This guy has a good reason to hold the opinion that he has.” But notice Jesus didn’t just leave it at “Who do other people say that I am.” He asked “Who do you say that I am.”
That’s my question to you. Who do you say Jesus is? Not your parents. Not the school. You. You have to start thinking for yourself now- you have to make a decision about this sometime. Is He the Son of God? Some obscure historical figure? A guy with good ideas? Someone who never existed? A cosmic abstraction?
Is Jesus relevant to your life? Have you got a personal relationship with Him?
This is between you and God. Pray about it, and see where you stand.

Youth and Orthodoxy

My name is Peter van Kampen, and I am presently the Youth Coordinator at St Cecilia's parish, the program coordinator at Our Lady of Victory Camp, and the Dean of Students for the Boys at Clear Water Academy. When I was originally asked to give this talk several months ago, I was quite excited since youth ministry is obviously something very close to my heart.

I grew up in a strong Catholic family, the second oldest of 10 kids. We went to Mass on Sundays, obeyed all the rules and seasons of the Church, and often prayed as a family. As a little kid I would sometimes sneak off to St Cecilia's for Mass in the mornings (Mass was at 7:00am), and I wouldn't tell my mom, since I remembered the passage that exhorts us to pray 'in our rooms with the doors closed." I remember one time my mom caught me, and I thought I was ripped off since I wouldn't be getting my reward in Heaven!

However, despite this upbringing, when I reached my teenage years I began to question the faith a lot. This was not due so much to doubt about the truth, or to any form of intellectual integrity- I just thought Church was boring, and I didn't want to go. Of course, my parents made me go, but this illustrated the status of my faith- it was something imposed on me from the outside, and not something I had chosen.

In High School I befriended a group of protestant kids who invited me to their youth groups. At these groups I made more friends than I had ever made before. But more importantly, Christianity suddenly became something relevant to me- I saw other youth who actually chose to believe this stuff, and to live by it! I didn't have a particular isolated conversion experience, but through this time I began to take ownership of my faith, and in short, I chose it for myself.

Since that time I went to the JPII Bible School, spent 2 years with the Companions of the Cross in Ottawa, and have devoted much of my time to various youth ministries.

I believe that Youth Ministry is one of the most important facets of our Church today- and one that is often neglected. It is said that 90% of conversions- either for or against Christianity- happen in the Adolescent years. And this, of course, makes sense. Adolescents is by its nature a time of crisis and of choosing. You are growing from a child inot an adult- from someone who's decisions are made to someone who makes his own decisions. We have often heard that "love is a choice"- faith too is a choice. It is a virtue, therefore a quality of the will, and the will is, of course, the thing which makes choices.

So let's be honest- a person can choose to believe, and likewise can choose not to believe. We have probably all met people who choose to believe a thing despite all evidence to the contrary. This is because even faith is an act of the will, and they have willfully chosen to believe something which can be rationally shown to be false.

So adolescents are this period of choice. We, as a Church, have been given the 'great commission', to evangelize. The easiest target group to evangelize- and in many ways, the most important group, is youth. It stands to reason, then that the Church would place a high priority on youth ministry. But let's be honest- how are we doing?

I think it is important for us all to recognize that youth ministry is not the job of just the young adult guitar player that your parish hired.... it is the job of the whole church. JPII referred to the youth as not "The Church of Tomorrow", but as "The Church of Today". We as a church need to reach out to our youth, to challenge them, to give them a role in our parishes, and of course to love them. We need to try to look past their questionable fashion sense and taste in music and see "The Church of Today" which is in desperate need of evangelization!

I would like to ask all the Youth Ministers here to stand up. These are the people on the front lines in your parishes doing youth ministry, running the programs, teaching teens the Catechism. But now I want to ask anyone who is a teacher, or principle, or youth worker- anyone who works with youth top stand up. Now I want to ask all the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and older siblings of youth to stand up. Now everyone who has youth that attend Mass at your Church stand up.

Look around. These are the youth ministers at your Church. Not all of you are called to join youth ministry, and go bowling with teenagers- though a lot more of you probably are than are presently doing it. Every one of you represents the Church to these young people. The great commission is for you!

Have a seat.

Now here's the thing. We tend to look at our world, and we get a little depressed, especially about the state of youth today. Youth have problems today that didn't exist even when I was a teenager. Of course, drugs and promiscuity were already issues when I was a teen, but now we have drugs like Crystal Meth, which is more effective, more affordable, more available, more addictive, and more destructive, than the drugs that my peers dealt with. The internet has made a whole world of pornography available to youth, and this is a trap that grows increasingly perverted the deeper someone gets into it. And we live in a society which takes what was once regarded as a perversion- homosexuality- and now raises it to the level of a sacrament in marriage. This is the world that our teens are growing up in. How then can we Catholics hope to remain relevant?

And yet, JPII promised us a new spring time, and let me tell you, from the front lines of youth ministry, that new spring time is here! Things are taking off for youth in this diocese, all across Canada, and all over the world- and we are gaining momentum. I often visualize it as being flood waters crashing onto a levy with increasing force, and one day the levy is going to break, and there will be a flood of graces on our youth.

For those of you who know youth, that maybe you are tempted to give up hope on- let me assure you, the inclination to give up hope is, in fact, a temptation. Remember that hope, along with faith and love, is a "Theological Virtue". Notice it's not a 'theoretical virtue'. By "theological" I mean that it comes from God- we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can be filled with hope. By "virtue" I mean it is a disposition of the will. In other words, hope is not a feeling anymore than love is a feeling. We choose to have hope, and by the grace of God He gives us hope. To say that there is no hope is to lack confidence in the God who created all things and is above all things. From this moment on, I challenge you to choose to have hope for the youth, and to keep presenting them in prayer before our God!

So what is our mission then as Youth Ministers?

Our Mission is to bring Christ to the youth. We must never lose sight of our mission. Often we think our mission is to get as many teenagers out to our events as possible- the success of youth ministry is gauged in numbers. Or we think that our mission is to entertain youth, or keep them off the streets, and essentially do damage control. A temptation I often face as a youth minister is to think of youth ministry as being somehow about me- about attracting youth to myself, having youth think how cool and funny and holy I am.

But, if a youth were to wander into my ministry looking for Christ, and all he found was me- that youth would be royally ripped off. I will always remember an incident where a teenager came to my youth group in Ottawa, and it happened to be a 'social' night. We were running the Lifeteen program, which runs a 4 week cycle, and every fourth week is a social evening with the intent of drawing in more youth who would not otherwise come to a Church event.

Well on this particular evening, a youth came and saw us playing games- and left. He sent me an e-mail some time later saying "I don't understand. If I go to Mormon youth group, they teach me about what they believe. If I go to Jehovahs Witness youth group, they teach me what they believe. But I go to Catholic youth group, the Church which claims to have infallible access to the truth- and we play games." That youth felt ripped off because he came looking for the truth, and he was not given it.

My talk this morning is called "Youth and Orthodoxy." "Ortho" means "True" and "Doxy" means teaching. If we are going to present Christ to the youth, we must the uncompromised truth.

Now a lot of people think "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"- when it comes to youth. I used to be a part of a team called the Chastity Challenge Team. We traveled all over Canada, the USA, Ireland and England promoting the message of Chastity in High Schools. Imagine an issue more 'offensive' to youth. Based in Ottawa, we tried to get charitable status in Canada. The courts decision was as follows. We were not granted Charitable status because we 'only promoted one side of the issue.' The courts wanted us to say "Chastity is a good idea, but if you can't handle it, at least wear a condom." One reporter who covered the issue aptly pointed out that this would be similar to not granting Mothers Against Drunk Driving charitable status unless they agreed to say "Don't drink and drive, but if you do, wear a seatbelt."

Now here's the thing. There is an assumption that the message of chastity will be wholesale rejected by youth, because it challenges them. The message that youth clearly get from our society is this "You can't control your hormones, but at least you can diminish the consequences from your lack of self control."

Is this loving? Are we loving the youth when we tell them they are in capable of making a healthy moral decision? The Bible says "Love believes all things". Soren Kiekergaard added ""And believes them lovingly." If we genuinely love our youth, we will believe that they are capable of making a moral decision. It's like if you married someone, and they made a vow of fidelity to you, and you looked at them, smiled and compassionately said "That's nice dear. But since you can't actually control yourself, here's a condom for when you sleep around."

It is true that youth lack some of the moral discipline they need to acquire. Likewise, they lack some of the intelligence and education that they can gain. It is not compassionate to say to a youth "There is no such thing as knowledge" simply because they lack knowledge and we don't want to make them feel stupid. Likewise, it is not compassionate to a youth to say "There is no such thing as higher morality" simply because they are not functioning at the highest moral level. Rather, in both cases, we must educate our youth! We must bring them the truth!

I would love to do a skit some time for youth about Goldilocks and the 3 bears. Have the 3 bears open a restaurant, and Goldilocks visit it. No matter what she is served, she always has a complaint- too hot, too cold, too spicy, too salty, too sweet, too thick, too thin, too chewy, too tough- etc. Finally in exasperation Papa bear takes her food and puts it in the blender and creates a bland, lukewarm flavorless paste. Goldilocks, disgusted at this final insult, leaves the restaurant without eating.

The point of the skit would be this. There is a common opinion amongst some that Christianity ought to adapt to the times, be less offensive. Dare I suggest that it'd be much better if the times would adapt to Christianity! Christianity is by its very nature offensive. A fundamental precept of Christianity is the fact that every person deserves to go to Hell. Otherwise, salvation is meaningless. But telling people they deserve to go to hell is generally considered to be offensive. You could even be apologetic about it, and say "I don't actually want you to go to Hell, I am merely pointing out to you the objective truth, that you deserve to go to Hell."

What tends to happen is that people say "Alright, youth ministry is essential to the life of a Church, therefore let's be sure not to do anything that offends youth." In other words, let's not challenge youth to step out of themselves, let's allow youth to remain as they are, in their comfort zone. Youth ministry then gets reduced to mere entertainment. But as far as entertainment goes, how can we possibly compete with Hollywood? And as far as comfort goes, how can we possibly compete with ones livingroom couch?

God said in the book of Revelation "I wish you were either hot or cold, but since you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth!" Are we seriously trying to sell God-vomit to the kids? We cannot compete with the world when it comes to entertainment or comfort- the only thing we have to offer is truth. Meaning. A life that is not lukewarm.

So we have to stop watering down the faith! The Church has the incredible gift of a infallible Magisterium which can teach the truth, without which, it's anybodies guess! Youth are not interested in listening to another tired old opinion. They are sick of being given pablum. They want meat. They want Truth. Even if it means, yes, they might have to work at it, they might have to chew.

But, if we offend some people, wont we lose them?

Sure. We probably will. Is that an acceptable loss? Consider for a moment Christ. Remember that our mission is to bring Christ to the youth- if we do anything else, if we're so afraid of offending the youth that we don't give them Christ, we have sold out, and likely we have made an idol of our own egos.

Christ spoke the truth even when it meant that he would be rejected. He was not crucified for saying "love one another"- that was not so offensive! You've likely heard the passage in John 6 quoted in defense of the doctrine of the Eucharist. Jesus tells people that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. the original Greek is actually a little more vulgar- it could be better translated "munch on my flesh' or 'gnaw my flesh'. People were so offended, they began to leave! But Jesus didn't take it back. This indicated 2 things. 1st, he meant it literally when he spoke about the Eucharist. Second, he spoke the truth even when it was offensive.

Consider too the story of the rich young man. He said he had obeyed all the commandments his whole life- basically, he'd been a pretty good guy. Jesus said "go, sell all you have and come follow me." That young man went away sad, because he did not want to have to give up his comfort to be a Christian.

Christianity calls us out of our comfort zones. It calls us to give until it is painful. It calls us to love when we don't want to. It calls us to make sacrifices, and not to obey every little whim that comes to us in the form of a temptation. And how many times do we Christians try to take this Christianity and make it comfortable so we wont offend people?

"But Peter" you argue, "we must be compassionate! Jesus was compassionate!"

Yes, Jesus was compassionate! When other people wanted to stone a woman for committing adultery, Jesus protected her! But then he said to her "Go, and sin no more". Our culture seems to think that compassion would have said to her "Geez, you poor thing. You know, adultery really isn't a sin, I mean, clearly you're in love with this other guy that you're not married to and who am I to deny you the right to sleep with him or to call it wrong? Don't worry about these merely human laws about marriage- let's celebrate the love you two have! It's not a sin!"

Jesus was very compassionate with sinners- but lets get real. He had very little tolerance for sinners- Scribes and Pharisees- who didn't acknowledge they were sinners.

The truth is that Christianity is hard. It requires big time sacrifice. And we need to present the truth to the youth. And I firmly believe that the youth will rise to the occasion! JPII wrote an encyclical, called "The Splendor of Truth". Truth though it challenges us, though it forces us to change, is attractive and exciting, and people hunger for it! And if we have denied youth that truth, we need to repent, and start giving it to them!

If my theory is correct, than you should be able to tell from the fruits. Which youth ministries are more 'successful'- which are creating more committed Christians- those which water down the truth, or those that are unreservedly faithful to the magisterium? I have been doing youth ministry in this country now for 10 years. I can honestly say that every single successful Catholic ministry I have encountered has been faithful to the magisterium. NET, CCO, Life Teen, OLVC, Companions of the Cross, Legionaries of Christ, Youth for Christ, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal- they all have this one thing in common. They bring Christ, unabashedly, to the youth, and they do not compromise the truth for the sake of anyone's comfort.

Success Stories.