Compare and contrast:
Bishop Kieran Conroy of Arundel and Brighton, in an interview with the Catholic Herald:
A Youth Mass with a liturgy designed to appeal to youngsters had been proposed. The website for it displayed the bishops’ logo. Suggestions included distributing tips on high-energy light bulbs, handing out Fairtrade chocolate and in a list of things to be sorry for in the penitential rite: leaving water in your kettle.
Did the bishop think any of the suggested liturgy was a bit silly?
“Well, it might be. But it’s youth. We’re not going to switch light bulbs on in young people’s heads, not at a single event. But it was felt some of that would be appropriate for young people.” Leaving water in the kettle? “For young people that’s an issue – energy saving.”
Could the Church be more radical? Talk about the serious questions – repentance, salvation?
“You can’t talk to young people about salvation. What’s salvation? What does salvation mean? My eternal soul? You can only talk to young people in young people’s language, really. And if you’re going to talk to them about salvation, the first thing they will understand is saving the planet. You’re talking about being saved and they will say: ‘What about saving the planet?’ “
Now another fellow, speaking to a group of young people:
When I was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, in a meditation on Pentecost, I was inspired by a film entitled Seelenwanderung (Metempsychosis) to explain the Holy Spirit’s action in a soul. The film tells of two poor friends who, because of their goodness, do not manage to make any headway in life. One day one of them had an idea: since he had nothing else to put on sale he would sell his soul. His soul is purchased cheap and enclosed in a box. From that time on, to his great surprise, everything changes in his life. He begins a rapid ascent, becomes richer, obtains great honours and by the time of his death is a consul very well endowed with money and possessions. From the moment when he freed himself of his soul he no longer had any concern or humanity. He had acted unscrupulously, caring only for profit and success. Man no longer mattered in the least. He himself no longer had a soul. The film, I concluded, shows impressively how the facade of success often conceals an empty life.
Apparently, the man had lost nothing, but he lacked a soul and with it lacked everything. It is obvious, I continued in that meditation, that the human being cannot literally dispose of his own soul since it is his soul that makes him a person. He remained, in fact, a human person, yet he had the frightful possibility of being inhuman, of remaining a person while at the same time selling and losing his own humanity. There is an immense gap between the human person and the inhuman being, yet it cannot be demonstrated; it is the truly essential thing, yet it is apparently unimportant.
The Holy Spirit, who was at the beginning of creation and who, thanks to the Paschal Mystery, was poured out in abundance upon Mary and the Apostles on Pentecost Day, also cannot be proven to external eyes. Whether or not he penetrates a person, he cannot be seen or revealed; but this fact changes and renews the entire perspective of human existence. The Holy Spirit does not change the external but rather the internal situations of life. On the evening of Easter Day, Jesus appeared to the disciples, “breathed on them, and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit'” (Jn 20: 22). On Pentecost Day, in an even more obvious manner, the Spirit descended upon the Apostles as a wind that came with a rush and in the form of tongues of fire. This evening too, the Spirit will descend upon our hearts to forgive our sins and renew us interiorly, clothing us with a strength that will also embolden us, as it did the Apostles, in proclaiming that “Christ has died and is risen!”.
Dear friends, let us therefore prepare ourselves with a sincere examination of conscience to present ourselves to those to whom Christ has entrusted the ministry of Reconciliation. Let us confess our sins with contrite hearts, seriously determined to repeat them no more, and above all resolving to always stay on the road of conversion. We will thus experience true joy: the joy that derives from God’s mercy, which is poured out in our hearts and reconciles us with him. This joy is contagious!
(snip)
Dear young people, this city of Rome is in your hands. It is your task to make it spiritually beautiful with your witness of life lived in God’s grace and far from sin, adhering to all that the Holy Spirit calls you to be in the Church and in the world. You will thus make visible the grace of Christ’s superabundant mercy that flowed from his side pierced for us on the Cross. The Lord Jesus cleanses us from our sins, heals us from faults and fortifies us so that we do not succumb in the fight against sin or in witnessing to his love.
Penitential liturgy with the young people of Rome, March 2008.
There is much of interest in the Bishop’s interview, elements which I’m sure liturgically-oriented websites will focus on, as well as others reacting to his rather direct questioning of various Church teachings, but it was this part about young people that struck me, since it betrayed, I think, such a lack of understanding of young people to a level that was almost insulting. I mean, I was insulted, and I’m so far away from being a young person it’s not funny anymore.
Young people only understand “salvation” if you hook it into “saving the planet?” Has the bishop ever spoken to an actual young person and listened to them speak about their deepest questions…why am I here…what is this life for…what in the world am I supposed to do with this life? …am I an accident…is there any point…death? Death?
Both the bishop and the Pope put God’s love at the center of discourse, but the difference is that when the Pope speaks of God, the soul and the pull of divine love, you get the clear sense that something is at stake here beyond finding a comfort zone or a group of like-minded, good-intentioned friends. That if we turn from that love, something definitive, important and..yes…essential..is lost. And in turning towards it, accepting it, letting that Love dwell within, something definitive, important and essential is found.
We are…how shall we say…saved.
(N.B. – Also of interest is a recent talk by J. Augustine Di Noia, OP of the CDF on preaching to young adults, given at the PNAC.)
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