Highlights
Highlights
ROME, 19-21 OCTOBER 2018
Created for Heaven: the mission of young adults in today’s world
W
e have what the entire world needs. Never lose sight that it is a grace, it is an absolute gift from God for you to believe today with everything that is going on. Gratitude is the answer to everything you will ever have to face in your life. The greatest thing we can do is that which God has called us to, and give our all, nothing less. Do I feel like a religious? No. I am consumed to love Him, to be what He
wants me to be and to tell the world about Him at every opportunity He gives me. And what he wants to do with this is His business. ‘Be you perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect’…Does perfect mean that we do not sin, that we do not make mistakes? Perfect is wholeness. To be perfect is to be complete, to be whole. On this side of Heaven we will always have flaws. St Paul begged God to take his infirmity from him. God said no, my grace is sufficient for you. He want-
ed Paul to never lose his dependence on God. ‘My power is made perfect in your weakness.’ Every time you feel incapable, say: ‘Bless you Lord!’ Your failures are the way for you to learn. The only failure is to give up. Never ever give up. Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, OSB
Discerning God’s will for our life
T
he main question about entering into marriage with someone is whether this person is going to help me and my children get to heaven? This is the number one most important question when you are selecting your spouse. Your decision to marry is also your decision about sanctity. Your call to marriage, to priesthood or religious life is to discern what is God’s will for your sanctity. He does have a plan for you! We are all called to die. We all will die. But we are all called to die to ourselves. In married life – which is a calling to your sanctity, that is what it primarily is – but it is also a calling for the purpose of marriage and that is for procreation and education or rearing of children, rearing them to God. We are called to procreation and that means openness to life. The first commandment given to men is “be fruitful and multiply”
(Gen 1:28). That is something hardly ever talked about. We often hear it talked about in the negative: don’t use contraception. Actually, the teaching is: be open to life, welcome life, life is a gift. Sr Lucia, one of the three Fatima children wrote to the late cardinal Caffarra saying that the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be over marriage and the family. This is where the decisive battle lies. Dr Peter Kreeft once asked: Have you ever noticed that almost the whole of the culture war is about one issue? Abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception, pornography, promiscuity, sex education, divorce, homosexuality, in-vitro fertilisation, embryonic stem cell research are all about the attack on marriage. In the Scripture, St Paul tells us: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.” But the next line is: “This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church.” So there is this image that God wants to give us of His own relationship with His Church in the relationship of the husband and wife that is to bear fruit in our souls. It is the relationship between us and Christ. And wouldn’t Satan want to attack that first? Because that is what we are called to – eternal relationship with Christ in Heaven. John-Henry Westen Truths about Catholic marriage you won’t hear from the pulpit
