My Experience of Young Life Camp As a Catholic Adult Guest

This guest post was written by Hugo de la Rosa, a Catholic teacher and campus minister in the diocese of Brownsville, TX. Hugo and a delegation of other Catholic leaders from S. Texas, participated at a special YL-Catholic Adult Guest Program at Camp Buckner in February.

Twelve brave souls made a pilgrimage from the Diocese of Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley (very bottom of South Texas) to Camp Buckner over Valentine’s Day weekend. We were invited at the request of Michael Havercamp and Bishop Daniel Flores, head of the over 1,000,000 Catholics who live in our area. Our goal was to experience a Young Life weekend camp as adult Catholic guests.

I’d never heard of Young Life before this invitation, so I was entering the experience with no preconceived notions of what to expect. We had the pleasure of meeting with Michael the morning of the weekend, and I drove over to the Camp with him; these were my initial impressions after those two conversations:

• Young Life’s stated mission is to intentionally & passionately reach kids at the margins – the unchurched, the ones who do not have an active connection to Jesus and his church (in whatever denominational flavor that happens to be; Young Life is non-sectarian and not focused on any one Christian tradition)
• This initiative to reach out to the Catholic Church goes hand in hand with Pope Francis’ desire for a new evangelization, using methods and steps that may be new, risky and messy; doing everything in a “missionary key,” going beyond the confines of what is safe and comfortable, reaching out to kids where they’re at
• It aims to tie kids back into their own faith traditions, or, as sometimes happens, have kids join the faith tradition of their adult leaders if no connection to another faith tradition exists
• The basic message of the Gospel is delivered in engaging, age-appropriate ways to help foster a response that ultimately leads the child to a relationship with Christ and his Church
• Young Life aims to bring young people to Christ through attraction, and only later will they receive appropriate catechetical / liturgical formation in their own faith traditions
• They aim to foster one on one relationship between adults (college age and up) and kids (middle school / high school / college)
• This relationship is fostered through one on one meetings, small group meetings, and weekly/monthly Club meetings
• Adult leaders will spend at least 4-6 hours each week with direct contact to their kids (visiting schools at lunch, attending extra-curricular activities, etc.)
• This investment of time and attention gives the adult leader the “right to be heard” in the child’s life – eventually leading to conversion experiences at weekend or week long camps (such as the one taking place this weekend)
• The Catholic Church, while being very good at sacramental and catechetical instruction, sometimes lacks in helping to foster a prayerful, direct relationship with Christ
• A partnership with Young Life can help bridge that gap
• Because much of Young Life is led by evangelical / non-denominational adults, having a Catholic presence (i.e. developing Catholic Young Life leaders) is crucial to leading Catholic students back to their parishes

The rest of the weekend bore out those initial impressions. I saw staff greeting teens with enthusiasm and genuine care, using music, costumes/personalities & humor to create an engaging and non-threatening environment for the campers. I saw leaders gathering together to plan and pray, intentionally choosing their teenage friends to be part of activities that would help bolster their self-esteem and bring them closer to God. I saw a definite Young Life culture that leaders and participants shared, bridging generational, cultural, denominational and economic differences.

At Club I saw youth and adults who were joyous and joyful. The music, games and antics started at a fast pace, eventually moving towards a short message that introduced elements of the Gospel to the gathered crowd. I then saw youth being led by their mentors for some reflection time. And then, most powerfully of all, I saw youth and adults spending free time together, playing games, and simply talking one on one or in small groups.

It strikes me that this goes to the heart of Catholic social teaching – leaders were engaging with these adolescents not as a ploy to “get them to church,” but because of their inherent worth and dignity as people lovingly hand-crafted by their Creator. Even if the gathered young people never grace the hallowed halls of a church building, they will have experienced the love of God through the love of their adult leader. While the end-game is eventual Church membership and church service / activity, even if that doesn’t happen we have still loved and served them as Jesus loves and serves us.

The specific charism of Young Life – reaching out to disenfranchised youth with no other purpose then to love them as they are; the no-pressure environment, the pre-evangelistic nature of it; the acceptance of meeting them where they’re at, going to their schools, going to their games, getting to know them; investing the time to “earn the right to be heard” (a phrase that I love!) – it sounds so very . . .Jesusy to me. J

I think that all of us came out of the experience with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the ministry that Young Life leaders are exercising all over the country. I came back humbled by the willingness of the staff and leaders to share with us as Catholic adults. I came back personally challenged to incorporate the culture of Young Life into my own ministry as a teacher and campus minister at a PK-8^th grade Catholic school. I came back energized and excited at the prospect of partnering with such a vibrant and obviously Christ-centered community.

I think that a partnership between Young Life and the Catholic Church (specifically in my area, but all over the country as well) has the potential to be life changing for both adults involved in ministry and the kids that are ministered to, and I’m grateful for the opportunity I have to be a small part of making that a reality.

Remembering

How great is my God,

and how I love to sing His praises!

Whereas I am often frightened

when I think about the future,

and confused and disturbed

by the rapidly changing events about me,

my heart is securred and made glad

when I remember how He has cared for me

throughout the past.

When I was brought forth from my mother’s womb,

God’s hand was upon me.

Through parents and people who cared,

He loved and sheltered me

and set me upon His course for my life.

Through illness and accident

my God has sustained me.

When I became rebellious

and struck out on my own,

He waited patiently for me to return.

When I fell on my face in weakness and failure,

He gently set me upon my feet again.

He did not always prevent me from hurting myself,

but He took me back to heal my wounds.

Even out of the broken pieces of my defeats

He created a vessel of beauty and usefulness.

Through trials and errors, failures and successes,

my God has cared for me.

From infancy to adulthood

He has never let me go.

His love has led me – or followed me –

through the valleys of sorrow

and the highlands of joy,

through times of want

and years of abundance.

He has bridged impassable rivers

and moved impossible mountains.

Sometimes through me,

sometimes in spite of me,

He seeks to accomplish His purpose in my life.

He has kept me through the stormy past;

He will secure and guide me

through the perilous future.

I need never be afraid,

no matter how uncertain

the months or years ahead of me.

How great is my God,

and how I love to sing His praises![1]

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[1] A contemporary interpretation of Psalm 105; Leslie F. Brandt, Psalms/Now (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1973), 166-67.

Playing Not to Lose: Why the Church is Losing Before It Starts

In perhaps the most pronounced and pointed language to date, Pope Francis told Catholic leaders on Sunday that the Church stands at a crossroads and there are only two options: “We can fear to lose the saved or we can want to save the lost.” His words are powerful and precise, diagnosing a deep ill that has plagued the Church for centuries. “What’s that?” you ask?

We’re not playing to win, we’re playing not to lose.

There’s a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. Ask any basketball team who tried to coast through the last minutes of the game resting on what they thought was a secure lead. Ask any golfer who made the turn ahead of the pack and choked down the stretch because he was trying so desperately not to lose. When you take your foot off the gas making sure you don’t make a mistake in the final lap, you end up losing the checkered flag.

The same could be said for the Church when it places maintenance over mission, when it tries to keep what its got instead of seeking what is lost, and the pope knows it. In what has been called the Holy Father’s “mission statement,” Pope Francis made it abundantly clear on Sunday that the Church’s very identity cannot be passive or defensive or indifferent or on cruise control. If you’re using the language of “retention strategies” you’ve lost the game before you started. We cannot sit in our church buildings just trying to maintain what we have. We can’t continue to post things in the bulletin, run programs and settle into our committees. If we want to change the world, we’ve gotta go out!

“The way of the Church,” Pope Francis says, “is precisely to leave her four walls behind and go out in search of those who are distant, those on the outskirts of life.” In what might be understood as the fundamental gauntlet of his papacy, Pope Francis repeatedly reminded Church leadership to get out of their “close caste” societies, their “mental boxes of ritual purity” which isolate them from the world.

The essential mark of the Church, and Pope Francis couldn’t say it any more emphatically, is to go. Go, Pope Francis is telling all of us, and seek the lost. “Go out and see, fearlessly and without prejudice, those who are distant” from the Church. We can’t be neutral or indifferent or lukewarm anymore. “Charity is infectious,” the pope exclaimed. “It excites, it risks, it engages!”

“Go!” Pope Francis is saying.

Using the Gospels reading of Jesus healing the leper, Pope Francis reminds us, “What matters above all is reaching out to save those far off.” He urges us not simply to pursue the outsider but to see in every non-Christian or fallen-away believer Jesus Christ crucified. “See the Lord present even in those who have lost their faith, or turned away from the practice of their faith, or who have declared themselves to be atheists."

Jesus said, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’”[1] Pope Francis declares, “For Jesus, what matters above all is reaching out to save those far off, healing the wounds of the sick, restoring everyone to God’s family. And this is scandalous to some people!”

Scandalous indeed.  There is often a palpable resistance to this kind of missional thinking in the Church. Fueled by a completely consumerist and parochial mentality which feels entitled to certain privilege, seasoned Catholics assert, "We have been here. We have put in our time. We've sent our kids to this school. We have served on committees. We've earned this."

Jesus' Luke 15 "lost parables" offer a beautiful corrective to the "elder son" syndrome. The “elder son” won’t rejoice with the Father when the wayward son returns. He feels slighted that more attention wasn’t paid to his constant faithfulness. The Father must remind the elder son that “everything I have is yours.”[2] In the same way, the elder sons of our own parishes and Catholic institutions bristle at the thought of turning everything toward the outsider, those atheists and fallen-away believers and those whose Sunday Mass attendance isn’t quite as stellar as theirs.

Pope Francis says to us, “True charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous!” It’s not something you earn. It’s a free gift you receive. And if we were really sons of the Father, we wouldn’t need the prodding. We’d be right there with Jesus, filled with compassion, running, not walking, running toward the sinner. This is the mark of the Church. “Total openness to serving others is our hallmark,” the pope says. “It alone is our title of honor!”

The choice is ours. We can fear losing the saved or we can do everything we can to save the lost. We can join the Father in seeking the sinner or we can sulk in our own sense of self-righteousness and miss the heavenly banquet. We can follow the clear, unequivocal teaching of Pope Francis or we can continue with business as usual. We can play not to lose or we can play to win.

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[1] Lk 15: 4,6.

[2] Lk 15: 31.

How Do You Pray?

Pope John Paul II was once asked how to pray. He responded, “This is a simple matter. Pray any way you like, so long as you pray.” This is a reassuring thought for those of us who can get caught up in the “right” or the “wrong” way to do just about anything. Shall I recite a traditional prayer or use my own words? Catholics wonder if they should recite the Our Father or thumb through a decade of the Rosary. Evangelicals have so many acronyms for prayer it’s hard to keep them straight (is it F.A.C.T. or A.C.T. or P.R.A.Y. or P.R.A.I.S.E.?). Long before Nike coined the phrase, Saint John Paul the Great’s approach might’ve been summed up in three words, “Just do it.”

The point is not to get too caught up in forms. Perhaps prayer, best articulated, wasn’t meant to be formulaic at all. The “Little Flower,” Therese of Lisieux once described prayer as a “surge of the heart.” Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite mystic and reformer, suggested that “prayer is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it is taking time to frequently be alone with him who we know loves us.” Nehemiah records the longest prayer in the Bible.[1] A penitent sinner babbled one of the shortest prayers in Scripture, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”[2] Not to be outdone, the ever-impetuous Peter manages an even shorter prayer, “Lord, save me!”[3]

Pope Francis, in a recent homily, turns the question on us. “How do you pray?” he asks.[4] And there are many answers. For those who pray the prayers they learned as children, he responds, “Good.” For those who pray the Rosary, “It is good to pray the Rosary,” he says. For those who talk to the Lord conversationally, “This is good too.” It seems that Pope Francis is simply swimming in the same stream as his Polish predecessor. Pray any way you like, as long as you pray.

And then he surprises us.

If you really want to know the Lord, Pope Francis says, “pick up the Gospel and pray in contemplation.” Letting his Ignatian colors shine, he continues:

“Pick up the Gospel, a short passage, imagine what is happening, and talk to Jesus about it.” In doing so, “your eyes will be fixed on Jesus and not as much on soap operas. Your ears will be fixed on the words of Jesus and not as much on the gossip of your neighbor.”

This is the way Pope Francis prays and he urges us to do the same. With his heart buried in the Gospels and his eyes fixed on Jesus, Pope Francis compels us all with this simple, biblical, Christ-centered practice: “Read the Gospel, imagine, and speak with Jesus. Nothing more.”

So pick up that Bible. Every day. Open the Gospels. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Spend some time in contemplation. Then talk to Him. Let your heart surge. Be alone with He who loves you. Truly contemplate the Savior. Simple. Powerful. Transformative. Just do it . . . today.

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[1] Nehemiah 9:5-38 suggests that in addition to this most verbose prayer, the Israelites also spent at least 3 hours reading Scripture (OT) and 3 hours in confession and worship that day.

[2] Luke 18:13.

[3] Matthew 14:30. This is the shortest recorded prayer in the Bible.

[4] Pope Francis, homily from Santa Marta Mass, February 3, 2015.

Why Evangelization Is Falling Flat

“Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?” I was on a conference call when I happened to glance over at an opened copy of The Joy of the Gospel. This single question nearly jumped off the page. It began to gnaw at me. What does an outsider see when looking in at church people? What do non-Catholics see when gazing into the world of Catholicism?

The more I thought about it, the more it all came into focus. As the Church struggles to retain its aging population, much less to attract the younger generations, we routinely point to outside factors which, we argue, are making it nearly impossible to do the one thing that Christ sent us out to do (for those of you questioning what that is, I’m talking about evangelization!).

Yet I sometimes wonder if non-Christians (or non-Catholics) look at the Church, at the way we live, at the way we act, and say to themselves, “Why would I want to be a part of that?!” In the ninety-ninth paragraph of his evangelical reflection, Pope Francis wonders the same thing:

It always pains me greatly to discover how some Christians, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, even to persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts.[1]

In a litany of vice that reads more like a mob story, Pope Francis is talking about us! He’s talking about those who have been baptized and confirmed, those every Sunday church-goers that Jesus called “the light of the world.”[2] We are the motely crew that Jesus has chosen and appointed to bear fruit, the kind of kingdom fruit that will last for eternity.[3] Yet when the world looks at the way we act, is it any wonder that we’re finding a hard time convincing people to join our club?

John the Evangelist asserted, “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did” (1 Jn 2:6). Now for those of us who almost unconsciously begin to wag our fingers at those other “so-called Christians” who clearly do not live up to the demands of the Gospel, the following verses are for us:

Anyone who says, “I am the light” but rejects another Christian is still in darkness. But anyone who loves other Christians is walking in the light and does not cause anyone to stumble. Those who reject other Christians are wandering in spiritual darkness and don’t know where they are going, for the darkness has made them blind.[4]

Our dis-unity in Christ (as Christena Cleveland puts it) is a sign of spiritual darkness that has already blinded us. Our enmity for one another throws water on the flame of God and renders us wandering in the cold ourselves, unable to inspire the hearts of others or lead them to the safe haven of the Church.

“Let everyone admire how you care for one another,” Pope Francis urges. “Let them admire how you encourage and accompany one another.” This is the pathway to evangelization, the Scriptures say. This is Jesus’ heartfelt prayer to the Father: “That they all be one . . . in us. . . so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). There is a direct relationship, according to the Word of God, between our unity in Christ and our ability to evangelize. So what are we waiting for? “We are all in the same boat and headed to the same port!” Pope Francis reminds us.  “Let us ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts of each, which belong to all.”[5]

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[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 99.

[2] Mt 5:14.

[3] Jn 15:16.

[4] 1 Jn 2:9-11.

[5] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 99.