Sermon Cloud

There are about eighty grade nine students at Saint Charles College this weekend.  Along with some of their teachers and some of the senior students, they are experiencing an Antioch weekend.  On Friday evening, they began this journey which includes oral presentations, time for private reflection and lots of time for activity and interaction.  The goal of the experience is to introduce participants to the possibility of a personal encounter with God and his Son Jesus Christ.

For many of the students who are present, this is a very unique experience.  This may very well be the first time that they are invited to think about faith and about God on a personal level, and to consider the possibility that Jesus is not a far-off reality only spoken of in Church.  In some cases, having lived a personal encounter with Jesus, and having experienced the deep tender love that he offers to each of us, Antioch and other similar experiences can be catalysts to awakening students to a whole new dimension of life.

Over the past seven weeks, we have experienced our own Antioch.  We have been invited to reflect on the risen Christ and the fact that he loves so tenderly that he will never leave his people alone.  The commissioning that he presents to his disciples and to us in today’s gospel is the culmination of his earthly teachings.  It is also an invitation to recognize the depth of his love and commitment.  Having experienced a personal encounter with him in prayer, and having been nourished at his table, he sends us out as he sent the disciples to preach the good news in our world, to make disciples of all nations, and to call them to a baptism of faith (Mt 28:19).

Having begun the journey on the day of our own baptism, we too continue throughout our lives to experience the mountaintops where we hear God’s word, and the valleys where we put this word into action.  According to Saint Augustine of Hippo, the Eucharist is one of the mountaintop experiences and each time we participate in the celebration of the Eucharist, we lift our hearts in prayer to the Lord.

Life is a constant process of encountering God on the mountaintop, and sharing our experiences in the valleys of our daily lives.  The young people who are at Saint Charles College this weekend, and many others like them, youth, children and adults today, have a profound desire to reach for the transcendent, to discover the true meaning of their life and the mission to which they are being called.  The irony is that those who seek for God are often the first ones to rebel against him.  Luckily for us, he never gives up though.  He promised the disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide them (Acts 1:8), and he makes the same promise to us.

Like all other relationships in life, a personal relationship with God has the power to change us, to change our outlook on life, to allow us to see life through the eyes of the heart (Eph 1:18), to appreciate the immense riches of our faith and the great virtue of hope which has the power to sustain us.  All we need to do is lift our hearts to the Lord in prayer, ascending with him to the promise of new life, and trusting that our ultimate thirst for acceptance, love and understanding from the one who has created us and continues to love us into life.