Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne: Archbishop: Homilies: Mass for the Pupils of Salesian College, Chadstone

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
for the Pupils of Salesian College, Chadstone,
on Friday, 12th September, 2003 at 11.45am

Introduction

My dear young Friends,

I have long admired the vibrant enthusiasm which has characterised Salesian schools. You have directly involved young men in the things of faith as well as challenging them as human beings.

I am delighted to be with you today to congratulate you and your teachers and all at Salesian on what you are doing to educate young men to know and love Jesus Christ.

Today we bring our lives and our studies to God, who not only hears our prayer, but inspires us to recognise and use the gifts with which we have been blessed. A time of schooling is a time of great opportunity and enrichment and I pay tribute to all of those who work with you as teachers and other staff members, so that you may grow in knowledge and in readiness for life.

My dear young Friends,

I am delighted to be here with you at Salesian College and to share with you a few moments of reflection.

The time you spend in Catholic education is above all a wonderful opportunity to discover, to enrich and to use the talents that God has given to each one of us. We are all unique, unrepeatable, gifted, and the important work in education is to discover those gifts. Naturally, we are grateful to your teachers and leaders and fellow students, who often help you in that exciting work of discovery and in the challenging work of developing those gifts. The greatest gift that we have from God is a gift of faith and I want to talk about that today.

Hundreds of years ago a young, teenage girl living in a hot, dry country received an extraordinary offer. She did not find the offer easy, but she knew there was much more at stake than her own pleasure and satisfaction. Who knows what her friends and family thought of her strong, determined response?

But in any case she exercised her own will, her God-given power of freedom, and said ‘yes’ to the wonderful opportunity offered to her. Because of her courage and her deep care for others, a Child was born. He lived the rough-and-tumble life of any youngster, then for a few brief years astounded the people of his country with his words and deeds. He died while still a very young man—but death could not hold him. He went on and by his conquest of death and despair he changed history and taught all of us what it really means to live in the freedom of the people of God.

I want to speak briefly this morning about the sort of freedom faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, makes possible and the sort of possibilities which his Church offers to us all.

Perhaps you have faith in a best friend, a parent or a beloved relative. Having faith means we trust them, even if we find it hard to accept what they tell us. We stay with them: we are not just ‘fair-weather’ friends who disappear when the going gets tough.

Well, Christian faith is trusting God’s words, even when we find this difficult and challenging. And it is a challenge. After all, the things God tells us include the most amazing claims ever made: that the Universe was created from nothing and is held in being by a loving God; that he loved us enough to trust us with our own freedom; that when this trust was broken, he was not angry but heartbroken—heartbroken enough to send his own Son to suffer in place of us; and that this Son now offers a vision of life that has inspired billions with its promise of happiness in this world and an even greater happiness in the world to come.

These are supernatural claims, claims about God, destiny, immortality, and salvation. We all have a sense of the supernatural and though people may ridicule it; we should not let anyone cheat us out of belief in God and in our real destiny. If there is no God and no everlasting life, then we live only for the latest fashions and ideas. These will pass away and leave us with nothing—or just with the craving for even newer fads and fashions. Saint Teresa of Avila, one of the great women saints who support us by their prayers, wrote: ‘Let nothing worry you; let nothing disturb you; everything passes away; only God never changes.’

We all have a sense of this God and as we reach maturity we need to ponder just what his words mean for us.

Some think that to have religious faith is irrational, superstitious or irrelevant. But it is not. Each year thousands of young Australian Catholics join millions of other young people around the world in exploring our Christian heritage and refusing to accept cynical attempts to discredit it. Unprecedented numbers of young women and men crossed the world on the Jubilee pilgrimage for World Youth Day or attended the great schools’ masses here in Melbourne.

Every Thursday evening young people flock to St Patrick’s Cathedral, the mother church of our Archdiocese, to pray before the Blessed Sacrament and to discuss what their faith means for their lives. These young students do not feel Christianity is irrelevant or passed its sell-by date. They find here truth, honesty and a real freedom—freedom from the empty promises and desires our society whips up in us; freedom to think for ourselves about the deepest questions and puzzles of our lives; freedom to gaze into the face of Jesus Christ and to take seriously the bolder options he places before us.

Christian Life

The Church not only proposes beliefs to us; it also suggests some extraordinary actions and heroic life-choices. It can be all too easy to allow others to choose for us: we all feel the pressure to follow our peers, to take the easier option, to go for the fast buck, to put career and appearance before all else. But the human spirit is a noble thing: especially when we are young, we are capable of much more than we might first appear to be, much more than the pop culture or the media or many adults give us credit for.

The Catholic Church rejoices in the spirit of youth that moved the young woman, Mary, to respond to her God and then to take off, running through the hills to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, unable to keep to herself the great news that the world was to have another chance, and that she was asked to help make it all possible. We often forget the many ways in which this is a young person’s religion: Mary gives birth to a boy who lives and dies a young man, and who calls from their hum-drum lives a group of pretty rough-and-ready working lads to become the Apostles who would carry forward responsibility for his Church, as well as a group of even more colourful girls like St Mary Magdalene.

This spirit of youthful action is uplifting and beautiful—we must not let it become selfish or reckless. When we face a difficult choice—about family, relationships, career, temptation—we are not alone: we should stop and think carefully. We have the words of Christ in the Scriptures, and also two thousand years of wise reflection, which can guide us concerning choosing well, avoiding harm and reaching true, lasting happiness.

We have places to pray and ways to pray, above all through our great sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, which are much more than just repetitive rites: they are a space to think and a divine power to do that which is noblest and most beautiful.

Perhaps we Church people have not always been as clear as we could have been about what our tradition says and what resources it has to offer. Sometimes we have allowed the opportunities the Church offers to appear drab and second best compared to the fun and high jinks offered by designer goods and consumer products. But, as I said earlier, these things do not last.

All too often the bright promises of our world are ugly inside—designer labels can lead to designer drugs - consumerism comes at a cost of injustice for the poor and marginalised of the world who suffer to provide us with our luxuries, the pop culture entertains but sells us short.

In my time as Archbishop I promise you that I will do all in my power to place before you what the Church has to offer—the riches of your very own tradition—as truthfully and as compassionately as I can. The Church’s message is not always what we most want or expect to hear, but who would be content to be told just what they want to hear? If we continue to keep our eyes on the truth, then when things get difficult we can trust each other and move forward confidently together along the path so many have taken and continue to take.