Have you given your life to Jesus? That is truly an important question, but a
positive answer to that question is like Baptism, only a start on the life-long
path to BE LIKE Jesus, as we will fully attain in heaven. And that journey, from a commitment to change
to a happy ending, is a long one, one that many fail at, many fall along the
way, and many get lost. There are
remarkable saints who have made that journey alone --- well, alone except for
the grace of God, which is no small support --- but most of us need help for
the journey. We need friends on the same
journey. We need to grow our minds, to
educate ourselves how and most importantly why to make this journey, from our
own earthly woes and cares, to His.
The call to visible, group commitment is seen early in
Scripture when Moses tells the Jews to mark their doorposts so the angel of
death might pass them by. Why did God
ask them (through Moses) to do that?
Didn’t He know where His people lived?
He did it to have them participate in His saving actions; they did it
together; He didn’t dictate it. It was a
visible commitment to Him, but it was also visible for them to see among each
other. Why do sacraments all have us
come forward, to voice participation and commitment in front of our
community? Couldn’t God just forgive us
our sins, give us graces, hear us when we pray our commitments to Him? Why must we even go to church, or even get
out of bed? Couldn’t He do all of His
wonders while we laid back? Of course He
could; He is God --- but we are not.
That is why we need the visible commitments, to support each other in
our journeys; we need to grow more like Him, so that we might at some point say
like Paul “It is not I but Christ who lives within me.” We need friends for the journey, for “where 2
or 3 are gathered in my name, I am there.”
We need to join groups to support us, to walk with us.
Our journey is never to late to start, but we must also be
diligent in helping the young in their start.
The personal verbal commitment to “give your life to Jesus” is not
unlike the commitment a child might make to his parents to always go to church
on Sunday. But as studies now show, a
huge portion of young people entering college never go to church on Sunday
again, not even on that first college weekend!
Any earlier commitments to Jesus or to their parents are quickly
forgotten when they are alone (as even some adults feel). Many commitments the young made as children
are quickly forgotten when they become, or feel, totally in control of their
lives. For the first time, freedom! Freedom to do what they want, and to
experiment, to try to figure out what that is.
And for many, what they want is freedom itself, to do anything they want
with no one telling them of consequences.
That “I give my life to Jesus” put them on a path, but now when walking
alone, it is easy to “stop and smell the roses along the way,” and to get lost
in the forest of options. In college,
many drop any prior commitments they made, leaving themselves totally
unprepared for life beyond college, where commitments define who you are.
It's like I wrote in an earlier blog posting, about the poor
people invited to the wedding feast of the king. They made a commitment saying they wanted to
go to the king’s feast. But that
commitment to answer the king’s call is also a commitment to change --- to
leave the streets where they lived “as they wanted”, to don the wedding
garments to get ready for the feast, and then to get into the right mindset for
the feast, to take part in the King’s joy, not just eat his food. It is one thing to speak of a superficial
commitment; it is a REAL commitment, however, to change your heart, to want to
always be with the King, to always seek as your primary goal in life to please
Him, to desire to be at His eternal banquet always, to turn from that “freedom to
do anything I want on my street corner” to instead use that freedom to choose
to be what and where He wants you to be --- always with Him.
And as with the college experience example, it is tough to
go it alone, thinking freedom means “to do anything I want” versus “anything I
ought to do”. We need others to help us
make and keep that commitment, to continue to stay on the path. In most colleges there are Catholic or
Christian support groups, like FOCUS.
They help young people to stay on the path by offering support and
education in how to keep to The Path, and why.
But that type of support should have started long before college. Most younger people have no relationship with
Jesus, even in our parishes. They don’t
know Him or feel Him a part of their life, so it’s very easy to ignore Him when
they leave home and start college. They
need to form stronger commitments to Him while younger. We need to help them. The doubling of young suicides in recent
years shows how alone the young feel ---- despite their internet “friends” who
“like” them.
I personally saw a Catholic altar call once at a weekend
conference I attended. The priest
speaker was talking about vocations, and the importance of seriously, seriously
asking God at some point: “What would You want me to do with my life? Why was I created?” Now the speaker could have said “Will you
commit your life to Jesus?” and everyone would have shouted back “Yeh!” and the
talk would have ended on a high note.
But what he actually did was ask “Will you commit to spend some time
asking Jesus, seriously, ‘What do you want of me, Lord?’ Will you come up here, to this stage, now,
and in front of all these people and make that serious commitment? I’m not asking you to commitment to be a
priest or a nun, I’m asking you to commit to seriously asking God ‘What do You
want, Lord?’ Will you come up here and
just make that commitment to ask God?”
It was an altar call, and well over 100 young people came up and were
prayed over. But that wasn’t the
end. The next day I saw in the various
displays outside the conference auditorium some religious order displays, and I
noticed some had sign-up sheets for “discernment weekends” at their religious
house. One told me they now had four
weekends full, and that I could put my name on a waiting list if I wanted,
until they figured out when they could hold more discernment weekends. (Coincidently (?) I noticed on my parish
bulletin board this weekend that the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
are planning 4 discernment weekends in Ann Arbor.)
There is a lack of vocations? All someone had to do was ASK for a serious
commitment to investigate vocations and provide support for those who might
answer, showing them that they weren’t answering alone, and the people came
forward. We need to build support structures
for all young people to learn to learn their faith, to make commitments to God,
to develop a relationship with Him where they can confidently talk to Him.
I think parishes need to initiate something like that altar
call, a means for young people to commit, together, that they’ll learn who
Jesus is, how He really exists in the Eucharist, and how He would have them
live their lives. They need ongoing
support groups as they grow up, like weekly teen nights and masses, and
Catholic summer camps. They need parish
exposure --- and prayers --- that these kids are making commitments to a
Catholic life, as God planned for them.
And the parish support needs to reach out and stay connected even when
kids go away to college. We need parishes
that support community and family, not places where people “might” come on Sunday.
I’ve seen parishes like this. We need to change our parishes to be like
this. We can “give our life to Jesus”,
but it’s hard to walk alone. That
singular commitment is not enough, albeit a good start, to really make a
difference in a life, or in this world.
It needs to be the Primary thing we teach our kids; it needs to be the
primary focus of OUR lives. Young or
old, we need to know why we exist, what our life --- and sufferings --- are
about. We need to develop a relationship
with Jesus. It needs to start early, but
it is never too late.
I myself echo St. Augustine’s words: “Late have I loved Thee
O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved Thee”.
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I would strongly urge any who could, to read some of the
articles in the September 1 edition of the National Catholic Register
newspaper. They should be on the
Internet somewhere. There are a number of
articles on restoring belief in the Eucharist and how the Church combats the
loneliness of young adults. They are
very well written.
And as for this blog post, it is only words I have had in my
heart for a number of months, but there is more. My next post will address the further parts
of the journey to Christ, parts which many never attempt, but to which God
calls me. We CAN move beyond knowing
Jesus --- a head knowledge --- to having Jesus in our hearts. We can know Him as St. Paul did.
