Abbey Youth Fest calls teens to truth

Mark Hart decided to stop playing “word games with God” in his early 20s, after surviving an emergency airplane landing in the middle of New Mexico.

Grateful that the pilot had successfully maneuvered his ailing craft onto a narrow airstrip, Hart vowed to take the first possible opportunity to go to confession and to base his examination of conscience on a prayer he had said as his airplane was pitching through the sky: “Lord God, I’m sorry for the man that I have been since I’ve known you. I’m sorry for the ways I knew the truth but ignored it. I’m sorry for the ways that I sinned and I justified it. I’m sorry for the ways I’m still so selfish. Lord, I’m sorry and I love you.”

Miraculously, Hart spied a priest in black clerics minutes after staggering into the tiny,  “middle-of-nowhere” airport.

“I said, ‘Father, I need to go to confession right now,’” said Hart, sharing his story with 4,000 attendees sprawled across a field at St. Joseph Seminary College for the Abbey Youth Festival March 10.

“It was so cool,” Hart recalled. “It was the way confession was always supposed to be, but in my life, up to that point, had never been.”

No more games

As a Catholic school graduate and practicing Catholic, Hart said he was well acquainted with the games people play at confession – tricks like “putting all the big sins in the middle” in the hope the priest would forget them at absolution.

“Or you do that thing when you say you’re sorry for ‘a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember, even though I’m thinking about it right now,’” Hart chuckled. “I was hiding all the sins. There was a timein parochial school that I was so intimidated by the priest, I started making sins up.”

Instead of doing any of that in New Mexico, Hart “just sat down across from Jesus.”

“A great thing about being Catholic is how the priest, at the moment of confession, is sitting in what they call ‘in persona Christi capitis,’” he said. “It means you’re not just sitting with Father so-and-so, you’re sitting with Christ. As I sat there across from Christ, instead of trying to explain all the sins away, I was just honest with him. I said, ‘This is the guy I am; this is the stuff I struggle with. Everything came out: the sins I’d never confessed, never had the courage to confess, the sins that I kind of held onto, that I liked, that were like my friends.”

As the priest’s hand touched Hart’s head at absolution, he felt the “whole world was off my shoulders” and promised to cultivate a more authentic relationship with Christ. The married, Arizona-based father of three went on to create the popular “T3” Bible study series for youth and young adults, and produce a weekly podcast on Scripture as executive vice president of Life Teen International.

Body vs. soul

 “A lot of people play word games with God, like ‘Oh God, I really don’t want to do this (sin),’ but you really do,” Hart said. “We have to get to a place where we admit that there’s a battle going on, that there’s a tug of war going on.”

St. Paul alludes to the battle between the flesh – the body – and the spirit – the soul – in one of his letters to the Romans.

“This tug of war is intense, and depending upon who you’re letting win, dictates a lot of things about your life,” said Hart, reminding his mostly teenage audience of something they know all too well: one’s options widen exponentially after childhood – an independence that’s accompanied by temptations like “Do I go into this room?” “Do I turn on this screen?” “Do I do this thing?” “Do I say this thing?”

“Whether you make saintly decisions or sinful decisions really boils down to who you’re letting win that day,” Hart said. “Is your body leading your soul or is your soul leading your body?”

Even when sin wins, teens should resist the tendency to define themselves by their sins, Hart said, pointing to the woman immersed in adultery who is thrown down into the dirt in front of the Lord.

“Her identity is her sin,” Hart notes. “She believes that what she’s done equals who she is. And you know what Jesus does? He looks her right in the eye and he forgives her. He looks her right in the eye and he doesn’t judge her; he loves her.”

Hart said Blessed Pope John Paul II articulated it well: one is not the sum of his or her sins, but the sum of the Father’s love.

“It’s not about what you’ve done wrong; it’s about you’re designed to do right,” Hart stressed. “God comes and says, ‘You’re more than what you do; it’s about who you are. And if you live the way I’ve designed you to live, you’re not going to have guilt or shame anymore; your soul’s going to lead your body and you’re going to avoid a lot of unnecessary pain.’”

Live out commandments

Hart also spoke to those teens who think they don’t need the grace provided by the sacrament of reconciliation because they feel they are doing “all the right things.” Simply following the rules doesn’t mean you have a relationship with God, Hart told them.

“Just going to church doesn’t make you holy – it helps, but (it) doesn’t make you holy, the same way sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a good mechanic,” said Hart, pointing to how the rich young man who followed all the commandments was advised by Christ to sell all his possessions and follow him.

“It’s not as important to know the commandments like the back of your hand as it is to live them by the front of your heart,” Hart said. “Breaking the commandments is not just about breaking rules; it’s about breaking the Father’s heart. Are you making good decisions because you want to stay out of trouble or because you don’t want to let down your parents? Or are you making good decisions because you love God?”

“We need young souls who are willing to stand up in a high school setting and say, ‘I’m proud to be chaste. I’m proud that I’m discerning the priesthood or the religious life,” Hart added. “We need people willing to stand up and proclaim truth not just with their words, but with their bodies. Guys, you can’t say that you love the Lord, then the minute you get a chance, shred your friends with your words.”

Hart concluded by urging the young people to dust off their Bibles and discover the 4,000 promises God makes to his people in those pages.

“We can’t have another generation of Catholics who don’t know the word of God. I don’t care if you’re 15 or 115, it’s never too late to open the word of God and experience and encounter the God who loves you,” Hart said. “Crack that thing open and God will crack open your heart in a whole new way.”

A ‘hunger for Christ’

Attending his third Abbey Fest with his youth group from St. Alphonsus Parish in McComb, Miss., Rhett Fereday, 16, said he was there out of a “hunger for Christ” and a need to encounter him in every possible venue. Inspired by St. Padre Pio, Rhett goes to confession weekly, and took the opportunity to receive the sacrament at one of the festival’s outdoor stations during lunchtime.

“The best way to rejuvenate your faith most of the time is to come to some form of retreat,” said Rhett, noting that he is often called on to defend his Catholic faith in his mostly Protestant hometown.

“I find in those situations, the Holy Spirit will give you the grace to say what needs to be said,” he said.

Additional keynotes were delivered by Father Kyle Dave, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Lacombe, and Mother Adela Galindo, the founder of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the Archdiocese of Miami. Archbishop Gregory Aymond celebrated the festival’s vigil Mass, which was followed by vespers and eucharistic adoration by candlelight.

In its 11th year, the festival is made possible by a task force of St. Joseph seminarians. Co-sponsored by Dumb Ox Productions, the day also featured live music, vocation-themed “commercials” on a jumbo screen, a pop-up adoration chapel, abbey tours and a fair showcasing Catholic vendors, student centers and vocations.

Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected]