Westminster Record
February 2019 | 20p
Youth reach out in West London
Christian Unity
Small Communities for Mission
Page 5
Pages 8 & 9
Page 12
‘Do you wish to change the world?’
That was the question Bishop Nicholas Hudson asked his audience in Panama at the catechesis he gave at World Youth Day on 24th January 2019. Challenging these young people to change the world, he said it was ‘because the world needs to change; it needs Christ more than ever; and it needs you, to tell people why you love and worship and wish to serve him.’ He inspired them with the stories of three remarkable individuals who have done just that. Beginning with the founder of L’Arche, Bishop Nicholas explained that Jean Vanier set out to do ‘something irrevocable’ by following the Lord’s call to serve him. ‘What’s important is
that you seek to find the place where Jesus is calling you to be his disciple.’ ‘Finding our calling isn’t easy,’ said Bishop Nicholas, but ‘it matters to us profoundly because it touches on who we are at the very deepest level of our being. ‘It comes back to what Pope Francis says about mission. Remember: the whole of your life is a mission; what’s important is to ask the Holy Spirit at each step to help you make choices which are to true to the mission with which you’ve been entrusted.’ Entrusting ourselves to the Lord is key and ‘there can be no better moment to entrust ourselves than when we’ve just received Holy Communion.’
‘If we wish to grow in discipleship, we need to grow in love and reverence for the Eucharist…because the Eucharist is an invitation not just to be with [Jesus] but to go with him.’ ‘We receive communion in order that we might receive strength for mission. But if communion is for mission, then mission is also for communion because when we reach out to those in need, we meet Christ in them; we experience communion with him.’ ‘Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is a marvellous role model for us if we seek to be generous.’ He shows us ‘how much a human being can achieve if he or she allows God’s grace to course through their veins.’
He ‘teaches us that mercy is the key to holiness. Because it was mercy which led Blessed Pier Giorgio to return time and again, even risking his life for it, to those who were most in need.’ Likewise, when St Oscar Romero became Archbishop and began visiting the parishes in his diocese, ‘his eyes were opened to the poverty of his people.’ Despite repeated threats from the military, ‘still he denounced their violence, going on radio time and again to speak for those who had no voice.’ Although he was afraid, St Oscar told his friends, ‘“I trust that, if they kill me, then, as I take my last breath, I shall feel God holding me in his loving embrace.” And so it happened.’
These three servants of the Lord ‘teach us that our own life is a mission too’. ‘We may discover that mission sooner; we may discover it later; it may never be that clear to us. What matters is that, at every important stage of life, we entrust, re-entrust ourselves to him; and he will lead us to do great things for him.’