August 12, 2009

Amazing grace

By Christopher Stefanick

I recently had the privilege of reading a key moment in a young woman’s conversion to the Catholic faith.  It had been captured on pieces of scratch paper over 15 years ago.  She had rejected the faith she was raised with and had been attempting to find spiritual depth by living like a hippie as a young college student in Santa Cruz.  But as she sat in a field not far from my Denver office, every wall she had built up between herself and the faith was crumbling under the weight of an old man’s words.  He was struggling with early Parkinson’s and a thick Polish accent, but what he represented and what he said caused her to see her whole life in the context of something eternal. 

She wrote: “I find myself in an awkward situation … this is difficult … my passion for the Catholic Church was re-ignited. … Not just agreement with the beliefs but faith in them.  That Jesus is the Son of God; the Savior of the World. … A real human who loves me so fully. … Listening to the pope (was) amazing. …He truly is the Vicar of Christ because when I hear him I believe.  His words are direct truths about Jesus … and to hear him speak in his quiet way, yet with such vigor and strength … fueled, of course, by Christ himself. …It is as if denying his message of Catholicism would be to deny my own name. …I felt the beauty of this truth. … So I ask the Lord, my sweet friend Jesus who is real—I want the door to be open, which I believe that it is—and I ask for the courage to take up your cross. … Here goes. … Be with me. … I feel as though I am falling in love with Christ again and yet for the first time—really.  I am.”  

What a sacred piece of paper in my hands.  It was the snapshot of a miracle.  Miracles are signs that God is alive and well and at work in the world.  This story, like every conversion, is a miracle.  Perhaps a greater miracle is that the woman who wrote this married me five years later, though that’s another story. 

I’ve seen this same miracle echoed in the lives of countless teens.  This past summer I had the privilege of working with Steubenville Youth Conferences around the country.  I saw thousands of teens kneeling in total silence for adoration—all their attention fixed on the Eucharist.  I passed a long line that had already formed by 7:30 a.m. on my way to breakfast one morning.  I asked someone what had gotten them all out of bed so early.  They were waiting to make a good confession.  I saw rooms full of awkward teens become intimate families of faith.  I saw a fire of hope ignited in the eyes of young people, with the power to set the world ablaze with a new sense of purpose and love—it is the same fire that was lit in the eyes of my wife 16 years ago and hasn’t gone out since. 

Watching the Gospel change lives never ceases to amaze me.  The tendency of us adults is to assume that truth needs to be watered down in order to entice youth.  We assume that prayer will bore them or a straight challenge to turn from sin will turn them off.  We are tempted to highlight the fruits of Christianity—the community, the peace, the joy—and downplay the tree all these fruits come from: the cross.  But the reality is that young people are hungry for something of real depth, meaning and challenge. 

According to the Center for Disease Control, 17 percent of young people have considered suicide.  There is no doubt that some of that can be accounted for by chemical imbalances and cured with a simple pill.  But a percentage that high can only be attributed to by a cultural crisis in hope.  Young people are dying for something worth dying for. 

In a world offering them nothing, the simple message of the Gospel has a way of breaking through a web of incessant background noise from Twitters to texts, to drugs and sex.  There is an irresistible power in the message that life has real meaning, and it’s not just the meaning we assign to it—the message that we are part of an eternal story, created, redeemed, and called by a God who is madly in love with us.

From the teens the apostles preached to, to the teens of today, the message of the Gospel has lost none of its power to change lives.  And to everyone from the Servant of God John Paul II to parish youth ministers, I tip my hat to you.  You are miracle workers. 

Speaker and author Christopher Stefanick is director of Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministry for the Denver Archdiocese. Visit chris-stefanick.com.