Called to a vocation of love and service

Pope Benedict on Valletta's waterfront (thanks to Attila Koncz for the photo )

At the Waterfront, in a ceremony that was similar to the boat-a-cade in Sydney for World Youth Day 2008, Pope Benedict was brought by boat through the harbour to meet the young people of Malta and Gozo. Bishop Mario Grech of Gozo spoke about the changing country, saying that Malta’s young people had questions to address to the Pope. Using the parable of the rich young man, Bishop Grech echoed his question “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Some of the young people he said needed more support and encouragement than others because:

like the rich young man of the Gospel, some may have built a false sense of security in their rigid observance of the law and ritual norms and refuse a loving commitment to God and neighbour, even at a high personal cost. In such cases there is the hazard that belief turns into an empty religiosity, a matter of culture and tradition rather than a choice of life;

like the rich young man of the Gospel, compelled by the materialistic culture and the pressures of our modern economic system, some are finding it taxing to make choices which would guarantee them a treasure in Heaven;

like the rich young man, since human nature is proud and nourishes illusions of self-sufficiency and autonomy, some do not easily understand that they should allow God to infuse their life with His love by surrendering themselves to Him in complete trust and like St. Paul declare that the love of God compels them on.

A group of young people then addressed their questions and concerns to the Pope. I am going to put up the first one because I think it is worth reading in full:

Four types of younger Catholics? Isch don’t think so

Over on the Commonweal blog, Fr Joseph Komonchak has posted an interesting excerpt from an article in the magazine featuring a conversation between former and current Commonweal editors.

In the excerpt Peter Steinfels, who spent many years at the magazine, muses about the Commonweal readers of the future.

He identifies four groups: the fundamentalists “who want something, whether it’s the Pope or particular texts opr certain forms of ritual, that can be relied upon to provide their identity” for whom “things are not to be challenged; they are to be taken literally”, the neo-conservatives, a group which is “much more questioning and intellectually adventurous but whose identity is very much defined over against the secular liberal culture”.

Steinfels juxtaposes these first two groups with two subsequent groups to which he assigns no handle. They consist of “a very large liberal group that has a Christian and Catholic commitment but are not willing to isolate themselves” who want “to be engaged with the culture in conversation with it, not just in battle with it” and the fourth group “is a more radical and political group that forms an identity largely around very personal, radical social justice commitments.”