Monday, November 23, 2009

Bishop’s Homily to Youth

The Catholic Key Blog posted a very nice homily Bishop Soto of the Sacramento Diocese recently gave.

An excerpt.

“As I post this, Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto has just concluded his homily for the closing liturgy of the National Catholic Youth Conference in Kansas City. It is the Solemnity of Christ the King. I have had the grace of being able to hear Bishop Soto preach to youth a couple of times on the west coast. He is a powerful preacher who puts Christ at the center of all he says and who strongly connects with youth and young adults. Suffice it to say, his homily was applauded by the 22,000 youth at Sprint Center tonight - Try that at your parish.

“Luckily, I was able to buttonhole Bishop Soto earlier in the day and asked him for an electronic version of his homily. He emailed it to me with the caveat that he may make some changes in the actual presentation. I was able to catch most of his homily live tonight, and below is a very faithful rendition of what Bishop Soto did preach:

“Every second 2.5 million emails are moving across the internet. More than 4 billion text messages are lighting up cell phones in the United States every day. One young woman was reported to have sent 14, 528 text messages in a month. That’s 484 messages a day, one text message every two minutes, not counting sleep time. Her father’s cell phone statement that month was 440 pages long. Welcome to the information age. In this mad search for the answer, in the helter-skelter grab for a connection are we any closer to the truth that will set us free?

“The Lord Jesus is tapping on the homepage of your heart. He wants to text the truth of God’s mercy on your soul. Jesus is the Word, the ultimate Facebook of God and invites you to be his friend. Jesus does not twitter. Rather he humbled himself so that he could meet you, connect with you and serve you in charity and in truth. He is the IP address of the way, the truth and the life.

“This means that truth, any truth worth knowing, is fundamentally part of a relationship with Jesus. Truth is most beautiful when it is part of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the wisdom of Pope Benedict’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Charity in Truth. Truth is most persuasive and most attractively revealed through the new covenant of charity found in knowing and connecting with the Lord Jesus.”