Happy Birthdays

Today is my mom’s birthday. Martha Catherine Cavanaugh was born on June 28, 1909 in Fairfield, Connecticut. My dad, John Joseph McCarthy, was born on July 24 of the same year in Springfield, Massachusetts. Both, then, were born within a few weeks of each other 111 years ago. Although Mom died in 1977 at the age of 67, Dad lived for many more years and died in 2005 at the age of 95. So, it's only fitting I wish them both a Happy 111th Birthday. 

Mom and Dad enjoying a beer in the 1950s

I don't know why, but there's something about 111 that seems rather special to me. I've always liked numbers, so I suppose it just the repeating 1s. Of course, having parents who were born 111 years ago also reminds me of the fact that I'm getting on in age. Indeed, as I recall my own life I think of those birthdays that have special meaning.

As for my childhood birthdays, I don't recall any being very memorable. But my 16th birthday was different. With it came the ability to apply for the sought after driver’s license, bringing mobility and freedom, along with enhanced dating opportunities. 

Turning 18 meant only two things in suburban New York back in 1962: I could buy a beer for 15 cents at McGarvey’s, a local pub, and I could now drive in The City. The former was pretty cool but the latter was something only a fool would do. 
By the way, McGarvey's was actually just a bar, but some of us thought it would be much classier if we called it a pub. 

I suppose the 21st birthday is special in another way. On that day the child suddenly considers himself an adult, even if he prefers not to act like one. And in New York back then, you could drink a beer at 18, but had to be 21 to vote. Now the opposite is true. I prefer the former.

Actually, my 23rd birthday was rather special because I first met Dear Diane just three days later on a blind date. Hard to believe that happy day was almost 53 years ago. I took her to a football game, with the Navy Pensacola team, the Goshawks, quarterbacked by Roger Staubach. We then went to a rowdy party and I didn't get her home until waaaay too late.

The 30th, another coming-of-age birthday, marks one’s arrival at an age that separates youth from all the rest. Yes, indeed, once you’ve joined the over-30 crowd, there’s no going back. By then, however, Diane and I already had three children and I was enjoying my career in the Navy. My youth was long past. 

When I reached 40, I tried to ignore it, but my friends threw a surprise birthday party simply to remind me of the arrival of middle age. As I recall the party had an almost funereal theme, lots of black decorations and stupid gag gifts.

But there’s something very real and slightly ominous about turning 50. I suppose it’s the half-century thing and knowing that the larger part of one’s life is in the past. 

I was too busy during my 50s and 60s to pay much attention to birthdays, although I’ll admit 75 came as a bit of a shock last year. It just crept up on me and took me by surprise. 

I haven’t a clue how many birthdays I have left, but it’s not a big number. Birthdays are like reverse milestones: we know how far we've gone, but have no idea how far we've got to go. I'm certain of only one thing. Like my parents I won't live to 111. 

Homily: 15 Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 14, 2019

Readings: Dt 30:10-14; Ps 69; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37

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Don't you just love Moses? In effect he told the Israelites: OK, folks, God's Law is really pretty simple...And you don't have to look for it, because it's already in your hearts.

And that Law, in all its simplicity, is clearly spelled out in today's Gospel passage from Luke: You must love God with everything you have...and love your neighbor as yourself. 

But how many of us do that?  How many of us instead use our minds, hearts, souls and strength to love the perishable things of the world? How many of us seem even to love ourselves more than we love God? And our neighbors? I suppose we tolerate most of them, but do we really love them? 

Consider all the thoughts that cross our minds in the course of a single day. How many are of God and how many are of the things of the world? Yes, indeed, loving God is hard when the world tries to extinguish the light of God's truth. There's a lot of darkness out there, brothers and sisters.

As Pope St. John Paul II often reminded us, the world's darkness is nothing other than a culture of death, one that surrounds us with its evils of war, terrorism, abortion, hatred, infanticide, euthanasia, and so much more. But God is the God of life, who calls us to love Him and each other, even in the midst of all this hatred.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" [Jn 10:10].

Indeed, how can we love God, while accepting these evils? How can we love our neighbor, but turn our backs on those in need?  Do we even understand whom we're called to love? Like the scribe in today's Gospel, will we too be surprised by the Lord's answer when we ask Him: "And who is my neighbor?" [Lk 10:29]

Well, he's not just the guy next door, the one who joins you for golf on Tuesday, or just the woman who plays Mahjong with you on Thursday...you know, all those folks we like, the ones who are amazingly just like us. 

No, Jesus gets a little radical as He redefines neighbor. 

\Our neighbor, He tells us, is the stranger, the one we've been taught to distrust. The one who's not at all like you and me. He's also the public sinner, the 20-year-old addict, the pusher, scared to death as he awaits trial in the county jail in Bushnell. She's the down and out, the homeless single mom with three kids, wondering how she'll keep her family together, where the next meal will come from. 

That's right, Jesus tells us, our neighbor includes all those wounded by life. And then Jesus challenges us: Stop what you're doing and care for my people.

To the priest and the Levite in the parable, God's house was the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus teaches his disciples that God dwells in the ditch alongside the road, that they can see His face in the faces of the beaten, the downtrodden, the oppressed, and, yes, in the faces of sinners.

About 45 years ago, out in Monterey, California, I was one of our parish's youth ministers. At one weekly meeting, while discussing the Good Samaritan, I asked the kids to tell the rest of us who in the parable they most closely identified with - the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. 

I got the expected answers until this one young man said, "I can't identify with any of those guys. I'm more like the guy who got beat up. And no Samaritan has ever come along to help me."

It was a remarkable moment in the life of that small group of teens. At first everyone laughed, but then, as we talked about it, their opinions began to change. It gradually dawned on them that no one is immune from life's problems and difficulties, that sometimes every single one of us needs help, needs God's healing touch.

Years later when we were living in Massachusetts, our eldest daughter, Erin, chose to attend a college in California. So Diane and I decided to load up the old station wagon (and, believe me, it was old) and drive her there ourselves. 

Somewhere in Arizona, along an empty stretch of Interstate in the middle of the desert, the car's engine simply stopped and refused to start. I immediately did what every red-blooded American male does in such a situation. I opened the hood, stared blankly at the engine, and swore at it. My wife and daughter just prayed. 

Within minutes, though, three teenage Navajos in an old pickup stopped on the dirt service road that paralleled the highway and volunteered to drive to a service station a few miles down the road to get some help. But before they could leave, another car pulled over in front of us. The driver, also a Native American, but from Oklahoma, took one look under the hood and had the car running again in about three minutes. In a hurry, he just drove off before I even had a chance to thank him. And then, no longer needed, the three young Navajos gave us a smile and a wave and sped off down the dirt road trailing a cloud of dust.

Since that day I've often thought of those good Samaritans and how they took the time to stop and help this obviously befuddled white guy from Massachusetts.

If our roles had been reversed, would I have stopped for them? As much as I hate to admit it, probably not. How easy it would have been to rationalize a decision to pass them by. After all, we were in a hurry, anxious to get to our hotel before nightfall. Anyway, a state trooper would probably be along soon. And you can't be too careful, can you? You never know the kind of people you'll run into.

How easy it is to magnify our own needs to ensure they outweigh the more obvious needs of others. And by doing so we ignore the command of Jesus and His Church, the command to act always with justice and charity, to act as the Samaritan acted.

The Samaritan wasn't at all responsible for the victim's plight, but in justice he knew he still had to respond to the man's basic human needs.  Yet he didn't stop there, did he? No, he went on to tell the innkeeper that he would pay for all the man's expenses, something that in charity goes beyond anything human justice might require. 

You see, Jesus is telling us that because we are baptized into the Kingship of Christ, we each must reflect the justice of the Kingdom. We're called to go beyond, to give our lives for others, to give them in love without measure. We can do this only do through the grace of Jesus Christ, who makes us part of His Body, the Church, and lifts us up to heights far beyond our own capabilities  What did St Paul say in today's second reading?

'God wanted all things to be reconciled through Him and for Him, everything in heaven and on earth, when he made peace by his death on the Cross.' 

Brothers and sisters, the love of Jesus Christ, the love of His Cross, carries us beyond man's justice, bringing peace and healing where hope has been lost, and lifting us to the joys of God's Kingdom.

He calls each of us to continue His work, to be Good Samaritans to all God's people, and He's given us a roadmap with the path clearly marked. We're asked to obey His commandments and to love -- to love Him with all our being and to love each other. If we do this, He takes care of the rest.

Allow Jesus to make His home within you. This will happen today through the Eucharist, when we are called to Communion with God Himself. God doesn't force Himself on us, but if you allow Him, He will give you the strength you need to cope with any and all of life's challenges.  He will give you the courage you need to accept your calling. He wants us to do His work in the lives of those we touch, even the lives of strangers we encounter on Arizona highways.

Oh, by the way, after graduating from college and going on to earn her Master's degree in education, our daughter's first teaching job was at a mission school on a Navajo reservation.

St. Bonaventure School - Thoreau, NM

God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He?

The Inescapable Power of the Cross

Clipper, in Nichols, looking for chickens in the snow

Growing up as a youngster I lived first in rural Connecticut and then in suburban New York. I was only four years old when we made the move and suppose I was too young to notice much of a change between these two very different environments. Although I have many memories of those earliest years in Nichols, Connecticut, almost all center around our home and family. I can recall quite vividly every room of our house, and in my mind's eye can even picture the view from the window-seat in the living room. I remember well our dog, Clipper, a large German Shepherd who, despite his friendly, engaging nature, had developed one bad habit: a taste for a neighbor's chickens. For my brother and me, the highlight of our day was Dad's return from work. We would wait for him at the foot of our long driveway where he would stop so we could stand on the running board of his Packard sedan. He would then move up the driveway, at about two miles per hour, with the two of us joyously hanging on. I remember, too, our immediate neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Scalzi, who with their children and their collie, Laddie, lived in a lovely Tudor-style home. And the smells...how can one forget the smells? It's the scents of the past that seem to linger longest in the memory. Even today, whenever I smell a wet dog, my thoughts rush back to a day when I helped my mom catch Clipper who stubbornly refused to come inside during a heavy rainstorm. I can still smell the ripening apples on the trees in our backyard as my brother and I watched Dad standing on his stepladder picking them. And when the wind was right, who could forget the ripe, tangy, homegrown odor of Parker's Dairy Farm next door? We lived in a wonderful place and I've often wondered how my life might have differed had we remained there.

But these and the many other memories of those early years in Connecticut never take me beyond our home and its immediate surroundings. I have no recollection of any other place at that time of my life. I know, for example, that I spent some months at a local nursery school, run I believe by a Mrs. Curtis, but can recall nothing of it. I'm also certain Mom took us on occasion to Beardsley Park in Bridgeport; I have photographs, but no memories. Indeed, my earliest memories of places outside the home are of school and church, later memories from our life in New York. I find this very odd, but I suppose memories, especially those of early childhood, are fickle, capricious things. Who knows? Perhaps, as I enter this last phase of my life, memories of those earliest days will come flooding back and overpower the recall of more recent events, like what I had for breakfast.

In the midst of all these, my earliest recollections, one other memory is remarkably clear. It's the memory of a cross, a crucifix really, over the altar of a church. It's a very early memory, a pre-New York memory, and so this crucifix might well have been in the church we attended in Connecticut. I'm not certain about this since I don't even know the name of that church. It could have been in another church somewhere else. I simply can't be sure. But the image, this visual memory of that cross, is very intense. I can picture it as if it were right here on the wall of this room. Strangely, I can see clearly every aspect of the image. I can see the expression on the face of our Lord, one of victory colored with extreme sadness. I can see the nails, the wounds, the crown of thorns, the rough wood of the cross. And I can actually recall my child-like thoughts as I gazed on this symbol of our faith, wondering why someone would do such a thing to Jesus, the one Mom had told me was my friend.

I think it interesting that the very first symbolic object I can recall is a crucifix, the Cross of Calvary. This is particularly pleasing to me. I'm happy that I was blessed with this early memory, a memory that has never faded. For some, as St. Paul reminds us, the Cross remains a stumbling block, and for others a folly [See 1 Cor 1:18-24]. But for the faithful, it is the overpowering sign of our faith and calls to mind St. Paul's wonderful words to the Christians of Corinth:

"For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" [1 Cor 2:2].

Sometimes that's exactly the way I feel. When something triggers the early memory of that crucifix I can think of little else. The image fills my thoughts. The Cross exerts power not just over you and me, but over all of creation. St. Paul, of course, recognized full well the tremendous power of the Cross of Christ:

"But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" [Gal 6:14].

And I find myself  pitying those who reject the Cross, those who actually despise it; for St. Paul also address them in his unambiguous way:

"For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the Cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things" [Phil 3:18-19].

More on the Cross of Christ in my next post; but in the meantime, pray for those who "conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ."

Pax et bonum...

World Youth Day - Madrid

Popemobile makes its way through the crowd

"But I am not the star, I am only the vicar. I point beyond myself to the Other who is in our midst." -- Pope Benedict XVI on the eve of World Youth Day

I'm a little late commenting on World Youth Day, that spectacular gathering in Madrid of faithful youth from all over the world that took place August 16-21, but life's events conspired against me. Our long-planned trip to Iowa to celebrate the wedding of the son of our good friends and then Diane's surgery this past week monopolized much of my time. As it turned out, because we were on the road during most of World Youth Day, I didn't even get to watch the events on TV. I did catch a few reports on the mainstream media and was once again amazed at how they willfully distort religious news. Almost two million young people come together to celebrate their faith and the media coverage I saw focused on a few hundred protesters. My, my...how so many in the media despise the Church. Not to worry, though. Were not the last words of Jesus to His apostles, "And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” [Mt 28:20]?

Young people greet the pope in Madrid

In recent days, as I reviewed some of the coverage after the fact, the joy and faith of these young folks was so apparent. Joyfully, singing and waving the flags of their homelands, they filled the streets and the squares of Madrid, and when they greeted Pope Benedict XVI they seemed almost to burst in their enthusiasm.

A few years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, I met the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on a Roman street not far from St. Peter's Square, and had the opportunity to speak with him for a few minutes. He is a very unassuming man, a rather small, shy man. I expect he's more at home in the role of professor than as Vicar of Christ, the leader of Christ's Church on earth. But setting aside his personal desires, he responded to the call of the Holy Spirit and these young people responded to him with the kind of exuberance you'd think they reserved only for rock stars.

What brought these young people together? What could possibly draw so many of today's teens and twenty-somethings to Madrid to celebrate their faith, the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church? Why would hundreds of thousands of the world's youth look to the Catholic Church for direction when everyone who is anyone knows that the Catholic Church is a repressive organization determined to impose its medieval morality and ancient rites on a progressive world? And why would these same young people express such enthusiasm for this old man, this defender of the Faith, a faith rejected by so many of their parents?

Pope Benedict greets the youth of the world

Interesting questions, aren't they? And what's more interesting is that today's faithful youth seem also to have rejected the liberal, relativistic version of their faith espoused by so many of my generation. Instead, they have turned to the Church and its magisterial teachings in search of the "permanent things", the unchanging truths that provide a stable anchor in this unstable world. They look at the world we have handed them and they say, "Thanks, but no thanks. You have given us a world that ignores its holy roots, a world cluttered with material goodies, but void of real meaning."

Do you remember that TV show from the 80s called "Fame"? It featured the students attending a high school in New York City devoted to the performing arts. The show's theme song included the following lyrics:

I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly.
I feel it comin' together. People will see me and cry.
I'm gonna make it to heaven. Light up the sky like a flame.
I'm gonna live forever. Baby, Remember my name.

The words point to a human desire, one that is especially evident in the young, for something greater than what the world seems to offer most of us. "I want to live forever..." are words that seek immortality, but these children of the 80s could see their fulfillment only in the fame that comes from being a celebrity, a false form of eternal life, one that crumbles into dust along with everything else in the material world. And yet, tucked in among the lyrics is the statement, "I'm gonna make it to heaven...", words that betray what the human heart seeks above all else, true eternal life, the happiness that comes only from being in the very presence of God.

Kurt Cobain

I believe many of today's youth have come to recognize this. They see the unhappiness and despair of those who were promised so much by the world. They see their celebrities, their supposed heroes, the ones who "made it", and they see them self-destruct right before their eyes. The despair of a Kurt Cobain is very real when he says, "The finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came", and then kills himself.

Or they watch a talented Amy Winehouse dissolve into absurdity on a series of public stages as she is eventually overcome by drugs and alcohol.

They see these finders of fame and others like them and ask, "Is that what comes from material success? Is that what I want?"

Amy Winehouse

The wise ones among today's youth are searching for something that transcends the ephemeral pleasures offered by the world, and in doing so they have turned to what their ancestors bequeathed them, a bequest long ignored but retrievable. They have found the Faith, and in the discovering they can hardly believe the joy it has brought them. For now their lives have real meaning.

Interestingly, while these thousands of joyful young people were gathering in Madrid, many of England's youth were engaging in a collective temper tantrum, burning and looting and assaulting. Given so much in the way of material benefits, they simply want more. Pampered, not required to work for anything, continually given whatever they demand, they are continually dissatisfied. Since their society has rejected Christianity and by extension its moral values, why should they feel any need to adhere to a morality deemed obsolete by their parents?

Young looters in London

If we're not careful, we can see such increasingly common riotous behavior and believe it to be the future. We, too, can be led to despair for the world. Don't let this happen to you. Remember, the world was changed once before when twelve men were sent out by Jesus Christ to evangelize a troubled planet. From a human perspective the odds against their success could not have been higher, but they carried with them the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will not be denied. In the same way, today's young evangelists have been sent from Madrid to bring Jesus Christ's message of salvation to an even more troubled world. And they, too, will carry the gifts of the Spirit. They, too, will be instruments of God's grace in the lives of those they encounter. Pray for them always.

This is why I never despair, regardless of the chaos that seems to rule the lives of so many in our world today. These young people who joined Pope Benedict in Madrid have the kind of faith that moves mountains. They are natural evangelists for they approach their world unafraid, filled with the confidence that comes only from the Holy Spirit. We old folks can learn from them. One 18-year-old American girl in Madrid, Hannah Davidson from Kansas, told a reporter, "My faith is definitely stronger and I am going to promote it a lot more." Simple words but can you think of a better way to say it? I can't.

A "Young" Pope Benedict XVI

As Pope Benedict told this global gathering of youth during one of his homilies,

"They will wonder what the secret of your life is and they will discover that the rock which underpins the entire building and upon which rests your whole existence is the very person of Christ, your friend, brother and Lord, the Son of God incarnate, who gives meaning to all the universe."

This call to evangelize, then, must be realized not simply through our words, but through the lives we lead as Christians. As the pope stated, "They will wonder..." It is Jesus Christ, this light of our lives, that must shine through the gloom of the world, calling others to want to know the secret of our Christian joy. It's an open secret, one that the Church has preached and taught for 2,000 years.

Here's a brief video on World Youth Day in Madrid. I think you'll enjoy it.

A few days after World Youth Day, the pope, speaking to a group of his former students, apologized for the many Catholics who have ignored the call by Jesus to evangelize. "We who have known God since we were young, must ask forgiveness...we bring people so little of the light of His face, because from us comes so little certainty that He exists, that He is there, and that He is the Great One that everyone is waiting for." This, of course, echoes the pope's frequent call for radical Christian discipleship, repeating the call issued by Jesus again and again in the Gospels. It is a call we cannot ignore.

God's peace...

Sardana -- Dancing at the Monastery in Montserrat

In my last post, earlier today, I included two photos of a Catholic youth group we encountered when visiting the Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat in the hills west of Barcelona. I've included here a video I took of the group dancing in the square adjacent to the monastery. They were joined by many others who just jumped in and danced along with the crowd. I hope you enjoy watching.

Home Again...At Last

Isn't it interesting that the older I get, the more I look forward to returning home from travels? It's not that I didn't enjoy our recent trip to Spain and the week-long cruise we sandwiched in the middle of our visit. Not at all. Diane and I had a wonderful time and found Barcelona to be a remarkable city. But I can't recall a happier return home than this most recent one. Perhaps the series of flight delays, the marathon-like hikes to make our connections, the inexplicably altered seat assignments, the misdirected baggage that arrived two days late, the ever-decreasing legroom of "economy" class seating, the horrendously bad food (bad even for airline cuisine), the incompetent and surly TSA agents, and the fact that we had been awake for 25 hours...perhaps all of this colored my emotional state by the time we arrived at our front door. Yes, as the young Dorothy made clear before her departure from Oz, "There's no place like home." Unlike Dorothy, however, I had neither ruby slippers nor the assistance of a good witch and had to rely on Iberia Airlines for transportation.

Naturally, when I returned home late Thursday night, I returned to a full schedule. Friday evening I spoke to a local neighborhood group about the needs of the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. In exchange for this simple task Diane and I were privileged to join these good people in a tasty dinner catered by a local barbecue restaurant. Then these nice folks handed me a generous check for the soup kitchen and filled the back of my Kia SUV with canned goods and other foodstuffs. We thank God daily for His bounty!

Early Saturday morning five deacons from the parish drove to Orlando to take part in the dedication of St. James Cathedral. The Mass was celebrated by our former bishop, now Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who was joined by our bishop-designate John Noonan along with several other bishops. It was a wonderful event and only the second time I had witnessed the dedication rite of a church. For the deacons of the diocese, however, our trip turned into an all-day affair since lunch was followed by a mandatory three-hour workshop on the plague of human trafficking, particularly as it exists in Florida. It was certainly interesting and valuable, but it made for a long day. And then, when I returned home, I had to glue myself to the keyboard for several hours as I prepared a homily for a Sunday afternoon Mass.

For Diane and me, the next few days will be monopolized by our preparations for the Thanksgiving Day meal at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. As the Thursday cook, Diane is always responsible for preparing and serving the Thanksgiving dinner. As is usual on Thanksgiving, we are blessed with many extra volunteers to help us before, during and after the event. As Diane's husband my task is really quite simple: do whatever she tells me. I find that when I do this and refrain from making any suggestions whatsoever, things go a lot more smoothly.

The other event that will occupy my time is my preparation for the Advent Mission that three of us deacons will conduct on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Fortunately, my talk is scheduled for Wednesday, so I have a few extra days of preparation. I am also blessed to follow two excellent homilists, both seasonal residents here in Florida: Deacon Richard Radford of the Archdiocese of Boston and Deacon Claude Curtin of the Diocese of Rochester. Please keep us in your prayers as we strive to help our parishioners, and ourselves, prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I  will post more about our trip in the days to come, and even include a few (only a few) of the nearly 2,000 digital photos I took. I may even add a few videos.

Let me just say that Europe, the cradle of Christendom, needs our prayers. In large numbers Europeans have turned their backs on Jesus Christ and His Church and unless they turn back to the Way, the Truth and the Life, they run a great risk, a risk of self-destruction. It's a very sad thing to see the majority of this formerly Christian people living as if God doesn't exist. But there are signs of hope, especially among the youth, a generation that appears to be rebelling against the nihilism of its parents, a generation that is searching for and remarkably open to the Truth. One day, early in our visit to Barcelona, we took the train and cable car to the Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat. While there, in the spiritual center of Catalonia, we witnessed a group of Catholic youth, accompanied by several young, enthusiastic priests, processing out of the basilica into the adjoining plaza where they sang and danced in praise of God. It was a wonderful, inspiring sight.

Catholic youth process from Montserrat basilica to the adjacent square

Youthful musicians at Montserrat

Pope Benedict's message to the youth of the world seems to resonate with so many as they experience the tremendous dissatisfactions that result from the material enticements which the world holds up before them. As he told the youth of Malta in April:

"God loves every one of us with a depth and intensity that we can hardly begin to imagine. And he knows us intimately, he knows all our strengths and all our faults. Because he loves us so much, he wants to purify us of our faults and build up our virtues so that we can have life in abundance. When he challenges us because something in our lives is displeasing to him, he is not rejecting us, but he is asking us to change and become more perfect...God rejects no one. And the Church rejects no one. Yet in his great love, God challenges all of us to change and to become more perfect...And so I say to all of you, 'Do not be afraid!'...You may well encounter opposition to the Gospel message. Today’s culture, like every culture, promotes ideas and values that are sometimes at variance with those lived and preached by our Lord Jesus Christ. Often they are presented with great persuasive power, reinforced by the media and by social pressure from groups hostile to the Christian faith. It is easy, when we are young and impressionable, to be swayed by our peers to accept ideas and values that we know are not what the Lord truly wants for us. That is why I say to you: do not be afraid, but rejoice in his love for you; trust him, answer his call to discipleship, and find nourishment and spiritual healing in the sacraments of the Church."

Sometimes, as I look at my own generation, I fear for the salvation of those who have created all sorts of false gods and idols in an attempt to taste the "good life" that the world has promised them. I'm afraid we missed our opportunity to change the world. Perhaps this new generation, this seeking generation full of questions and desiring reasons to hope, will be the ones to evangelize the world. I think, perhaps, they are more attuned to receiving Christ's message of hope and love than we ever were. Pray that it is so.

(Oh, by the way...I didn't post much from Spain for a number of reasons. First, the hotel's WiFi signal simply didn't reach our room during our last four days in Barcelona and I really didn't feel like sitting in the lobby with my netbook when I could be napping in my far more comfortable room. Second, posting from the iPhone was just far too tedious. And third, the cost of internet access aboard ship was prohibitively expensive...at least for my budget.)

God's peace...

Increasingly Pro-life Youth

Here's some good news. An internal poll conducted by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) is causing them and the rest of the pro-abortion crowd no end of concern. It seems that young folks are becoming increasingly pro-life, and that's not all. They are also much more passionate in their beliefs than those who call themselves pro-choice.

I've always thought that a majority of young folks will eventually come around to the pro-life cause. After all, anyone born after 1973 is alive only because his or her mother chose life and not death. And do you think that more than a few twenty-somethings wonder whether they might have lost a brother or sister to abortion? One's views can change pretty quickly when the subject matter becomes personal.

To read more about the NARAL poll, click here.

Pax et bonum...and pray for respect for all  life.