Quit Cheating Young Catholics
Ever heard of Shane Clairbourne? If you haven’t, WHERE have you been?
Shane founded a movement called The Simple Way. At first, I sort of dismissed the movement. After all, people pop up with all sorts of protests these days. But the way that these groups are living their faith, regardless of their so-called “disenchantment” with “the Church” is admirable.
Something Shane said that caught my attention:
I’m convinced that if the Christian church loses this generation, it will be not because we didn’t entertain them, but because we didn’t dare them, you know, with the truth of the world. And it won’t be because we’d made the Gospel too hard, but because we made it too easy, and we just played games with kids and didn’t actually challenge them to think about how they live.
As a young person of this generation, and as a high school catechist, I concur. He’s right on the money.
One of my beefs with catechizing youth these days is that very issue: babying young people who face tough issues and situations whether they want to or not. This is one of the reasons why I love it when my class of now-sophomores has questions that would make a forty-year-old cringe; they want the honest truth. Our generation does not need a lasershow. Anyone can give us a lasershow – or a circus, or a striptease, for that matter. No - our generation wants the truth. We understand that life has difficult questions; we want the answers. We are sick of the lollipop Sunday school teachers and cushioned homilies. WAKE UP, WORLD! Your youth are in desperate need of the truth! Will you have the guts to give it to them?
If you love someone, you do what is best for them. Tell me, what is best for your sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, godchildren, neighbors, students… – the Truth of the Gospel wrapped in a shiny box? or the Truth of the Gospel and a magnifying glass?
Love. That’s what it comes down to.
