Lessons from a boy about to be Canonized

http://aleteia.org ^ | 10/12/2016 | Fr Robert McTeigue, SJ

[heterosupremacist]

For the last four weeks, I have been writing here about our collective failure to raise our youth to Christian maturity. The many efforts to make the faith “fun,” “exciting,” “relevant,” etc., over the past 45 year have not resulted in two generations of mature and confident Catholics who live for the Faith, can hand on the Faith, and are ready to die for the Faith.

In the United States, the second largest “denomination” of Christians is former Catholics. Clearly, what we have been doing isn’t working. Who would be willing to wager that what we’re doing now will produce the next generation of saints and martyrs?

So we have to ask: How did young Jose become Saint Jose? Through “clown liturgies”? Through dancers at Mass? T-shirts and light sticks at retreats? Homilies celebrating “diversity, tolerance, acceptance and inclusion”? I can’t say for sure—I wasn’t there.

But whatever else he may have received from those responsible for his spiritual formation, I’m willing to bet that more than once he heard, “We proclaim Christ Crucified!” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24) I’m willing to bet that more than once he heard about “The Four Last Things” (Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.) And I’m willing to bet that he knew how and why to be reverent at Mass, pray the Rosary, make a good Confession, and attend Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction.

[Tax-chick]

LOL! (I’m known for my vivid presentations of Tolkien and the Greeks.)

[Fightin Whitey]

You’re a good sport and a good wit as well.

Cheers!

[Tax-chick]

Cheers back! (I’m not out of wine yet.)

I should go to sleep, but I’m reading the Ron Chernow biography of Alexander Hamilton, and it’s riveting. However, I have another 400 pages to go, and I’m not going to get through it tonight ...