Archbishop Eamon MartinWe need a Church where young people minister to one another says Archbishop Eamon Martin
The Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise is often translated as ‘My soul glorifies The Lord’, or sometimes ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of The Lord’. My favourite version has always been: ‘My soul Magnifies the Lord’!
Maybe it’s because, as a young boy, I loved to play with a magnifying glass, marvelling at the way the lens made everything bigger – like leaves and insects and the hairs on my arm! At school, our boys’ choir sang: ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’, and I thought: What a wonderful idea that is – to magnify The Lord; to make God bigger! And that is the challenge I want to share with young people – to ‘make God bigger’ in their lives and in the world.
Firstly, how might we magnify the Lord in our own personal lives? When I look at my own life, I can easily think of the ways that I restrict God, ‘make God smaller’. I can sometimes squeeze Him out of my life altogether by clogging up my day and mind with so many preoccupations and wasteful distractions that there is little space left for God.
I encourage young people to keep saying a clear and intentional ‘yes’ to God in their lives. The challenge is to become an ‘intentional disciple’ of Jesus. For example, by spending time each day in prayer or Eucharistic adoration; or, by meditating more often on God’s Word or on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
In becoming a disciple, we should not be surprised if God calls us to change our life. An intentional ‘yes’ to God is usually accompanied by an inner conversion experience. In this context, young people will want to turn their back on some sinful habit or unhealthy relationship. But, above all, do not be afraid! God will grant the grace and strength that is needed to change.
Example
To find a great example of a wholehearted ‘yes’ to God, we should look to our heavenly mother, Mary. If we can, like her, say a clear and intentional ‘yes’ to God’s Word, and become lowly servants, magnifying God’s presence within us, then who knows what marvels the Almighty can work through us!
The family is a vital nucleus for our Church and society. I call young people, then, secondly, to magnify the Lord in the family. There are huge pressures on the family nowadays, not least here in Ireland: cultural, social and spiritual pressures. Pope Francis has called an Extraordinary Synod of bishops in October to discuss the pastoral challenges to the family.
To magnify the Lord in the family, to proclaim the Good News of the Family, is an integral part of our mission in the Catholic Church. I believe that, despite the many challenges that face family life, the people of Ireland still treasure the intrinsic value and beauty of the family unit of mother and father together with their children.
Many young people search for someone with whom they can commit their lives in faithful love, someone with whom they can have children and build a family. For Catholics, the family is the domestic Church where a man and woman choose to live a vocation to faithful love, open to the gift of children. And what an added privilege it is, to be able to pass on to those children the precious gift of faith!
I am not saying that marriage and the family is somehow a ‘bed of roses’, all romantic and without challenges. We are all well aware, from our own families and relationships, of the intense pressures – from within and without – that face couples who commit their lives to each other in marriage. We are conscious that, despite their best intentions, some couples find themselves no longer able to sincerely live together in faithful love.
Many Catholics find themselves in this situation and our Church must find new pastoral ways of reaching out to them with God’s abundant mercy and love so that they do not feel themselves as ‘outsiders’ in their own Church.
The consultation process that has taken place all over the Catholic world in preparation for October’s Synod on the family, has unfolded a panorama of pastoral challenges to marriage and the family. The pressures we face in Europe are not altogether the same as the challenges faced by Catholics in Africa or Asia.
Difficulties
Despite the difficulties and problems, the universal Catholic Church still wishes to proclaim to society that the prophetic beauty of a man, woman and their children united in marriage and in family, is something special and well worth protecting, for the common good.
In a particular way, I encourage young people to bring the Good News about Jesus to their fellow young people. The future of youth ministry in the Church in Ireland will be about ‘youth ministering to youth’. The motto in Youth 2000 sums this up perfectly ‘Youth leading youth to the heart of the Church’. Young Catholics who engage with their faith are gradually coming to know how joyful and fulfilling it is to live out the Catholic faith. The mission of young Catholics now, is to ‘magnify the Lord’ by their lives, by sharing their faith with others, and by leading their peers to Jesus Christ, who is the source of all love, joy and happiness.
‘Making God bigger’ will sometimes mean young Catholics becoming a critical friend to their peers, pointing out to them the contradictions and empty promises that society, so steeped in individualism and relativism, can tend to offer them. Young Catholics must also be a critical friend of the Church as it begins a humble renewal here in Ireland. As I have often said young people are not just the future of the Church, they are its present too! We need more than ever their gifts and charisms, and that includes their constructive criticism!
Pope Francis in The Joy of the Gospel calls on the young Catholics of the world, to show leadership, even to become ‘preachers’ of the Good News, “joyfully bringing Jesus to every street, every town square and every corner of the earth!” It is vitally important that no matter how we answer the call to discipleship, we always present our faith in a positive, rather than judgemental way.
Young Catholics must not be afraid to speak out with conviction in the public square on matters about life, marriage and family, poverty and injustice, peace and reconciliation. But, we must always be mindful of God’s mercy, as Mary’s Magnificat tells us – “His mercy lasts from age to age”. Positivity magnifies. Negativity suffocates the Spirit.
Commitment
A young person in her early 20s wrote to me recently. She told me that in the past two years, through her university chaplaincy, she has rediscovered her faith for herself. It has changed everything for her. For the first time she has become an ‘intentional disciple of Jesus’. For her, this has meant a commitment to Sunday Mass, daily prayer, regular Confession and Eucharistic adoration. She finds her faith speaking much more clearly to her now about what she values in life and her own sense of personal morality. God’s presence has been truly magnified in her life. And this, in turn, has made her acutely aware of the public implications of her faith.
She has become active in the pro-life movement; and St Vincent de Paul Society – she is much more attuned to the injustices she sees around her and the needs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. She rediscovered her faith through the encouragement of a friend who was a member of Youth 2000; at the end of her letter, she mentions her favourite prayer as Mary’s Magnificat.
If young Catholics, like her, can become ‘magnifiers’ of God’s presence in their own personal lives, in the family and in society, then the Almighty will truly work marvels for Ireland and, through them, help to change the world.
This article is based on a homily Dr Martin gave at the Youth 2000 summer festival in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary.