Jesus wants to meet us ‘where we are’

Jesuit’s gym was the center of praise and worship music, inspirational talks – and quite a few airborne beach balls – at the Sept. 30 NOLA Catholic Youth Conference. More photos of the event can be found on the Clarion Herald’s Facebook page. (Photo by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald)

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

One of the hallmarks of a solid friendship between two people is spending quality time together, with the conversation flowing both ways: you share your own thoughts and you listen to the thoughts of the other person. 

Yet, when it comes to building a friendship with Christ, many people find themselves shying away from spending time with him in prayer – or they avoid the Lord altogether, telling themselves, “I’ll do that later, when I have time.”

Getting one’s friendship with Jesus back on track – slowly, but surely – was the overarching theme of the Sept. 30 NOLA Catholic Youth Conference “Stir into Flame.”

The Saturday gathering drew more than 1,000 teens in grades 7-12 and an additional 200 adult youth ministry leaders to the campus of Jesuit High School for a full day of inspirational talks, praise and worship music, opportunities for the sacrament of reconciliation, a vocations panel and a culminating Vigil Mass and eucharistic adoration with Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

“God wants us all to become saints,”  observed Father Josh Johnson, the vocations director for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, during the conference’s keynote.

“To be a saint is simple! To be a saint is to be a friend of Jesus,” Father Johnson told the teens. “So, why is it that so many of us resist this invitation to be in friendship with Jesus? Why are we so nervous to be a friend of the Lord?”

Father Johnson suggested a reason people are reluctant to carve out time with Jesus: Many of us are plagued by a sense of unworthiness to encounter God.

“We, you, me – we are all aware of our sin,” Father Johnson said. “We’re aware of our mess; we’re aware of our vices and our bad habits; we’re tired of going to confession and confessing the same sins over and over and over again. (We tell ourselves) ‘I can’t be in friendship with Jesus; he won’t want to be a friend of mine; I have to be perfect to be a friend of Jesus.’ This is not true; this is a lie, but so many of us believe it!”

Father Johnson used the metaphor of taking a shower to describe Jesus’ eagerness to be our friend, warts and all: No one scrubs himself clean before entering the shower; the shower washes away the grime of the day.

“The shower cleans you all the time, right?” Father Johnson said. “That’s what God wants! God wants for you to come to him right now, as you are! You don’t have to change to come to be with Jesus. When you come to be with Jesus, over time, Jesus Christ himself will begin to change you! You don’t have to be perfect!”

Father Johnson said Jesus’ welcoming embrace is evident at the beginning of every Mass, when we acknowledge, in front of the priest and our fellow congregants during the Penitential Rite, that “I have sinned.”

“We ought not let our struggles with sin prevent us from spending time with Jesus, from cultivating a relationship with Jesus," Father Johnson urged the teens. “As we come to Jesus, he transforms us, little by little.”

Coming to Jesus is not always a direct path

Father Johnson said St. Peter is an example of someone who felt unworthy to spend time with Jesus – due to his own sinfulness – but ultimately accepted Jesus’ friendship, underwent a conversion, was chosen by Christ as the first leader of his church and died for his faith.

He noted that St. Peter’s human foibles included falling asleep after Jesus had asked him to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane; being so rageful that he cut off someone’s ear in the chaos of Jesus’ arrest; and denying that he knew the Lord three times, just as Jesus was facing his passion and death.

Father Johnson shared a more recent example of the fruits of simply “showing up” for our friend, Christ. When the priest was a campus minister at LSU, he watched a college senior who initially didn’t believe in Jesus and disdained the teachings of the church begrudgingly attend a Bible study, just so she could be with her Catholic friends. Over the space of a year, that small act would snowball into the young woman attending adoration and praise and worship nights, going on a mission trip, receiving the sacraments and telling Father Johnson that she wanted to “come back home” to the church.

“She told me, ‘Father Josh, I think Jesus wants me to be a nun,’” he recalled. “She entered religious life all because she kept coming to the Lord as she was. Over time, she experienced this renewal, this restoration – she became on fire with the love of Christ, just like St. Peter!”

Prayer guidelines offered

To cultivate a friendship with Jesus, we must spend regular time with him in prayer. Also, as with any other friend, the communication has to be two-way, Father Johnson said.

“In prayer, we not only talk to the Lord – we not only share our thoughts and our feelings and our desires – but we also take time to listen to the Lord speak to us,” he reminded the teens. “The Bible is God’s voice, but too often, many of us allow the Bible to collect dust on a shelf; we allow the Bible to be a relic.” 

If we are not familiar with God’s voice, “when God tries to talk to us, we will not be able to perceive God’s voice throughout the day,” he noted.

Father Johnson offered the teens and their youth ministry leaders a shorthand he calls “The Five Ws” to make prayer a more regular and relevant part of their lives:

• WHEN? Write down when you will spend time with God in prayer that week. Praying in the early morning is preferable; if you put it off until the evening, you are liable to be distracted by the day or fall asleep. Start small by saying, “Jesus, I will give you my first 15 minutes of the day.”

• WHERE? Write down the specific location for your prayer time. Whether it's in a church, adoration chapel, at school or at home, “we can speak with Jesus anywhere,'' Father Johnson said, urging the teens to turn off the biggest distraction of the 21st century when they're talking to God. “How many of us allow our cell phones to be in our presence when we go to pray?” he asked them.

• WHAT? Make your prayer time a period in which you open up God’s Word, perhaps by using the Lectio Divina practice of reading, meditating on, praying with and contemplating a particular Scripture, and then putting that wisdom into action. If you’re praying alone, consider vocalizing your prayer; if you’re praying with others, take time to write down what the Word of God is saying to you.

• WHO? Identify someone who will keep you accountable for your relationship with Jesus. “We need an accountability partner,” Father Johnson advised. “We need to share with somebody: When am I praying? Where am I praying? What Scripture am I sitting with today? What is God’s voice telling me? Write that person’s name down today!”

• WHY? “Because I want to be a friend of Jesus,” Father Johnson said, summing up the simple reason for prayer. Over time, “the fruit of that friendship is the kingdom of heaven for all eternity! So, I ask you – sons and daughters, brothers and sisters – how many of y’all want to become saints? If you are to become a saint in heaven, you must become a friend of Jesus on earth!”

The NOLA Catholic Youth Conference was sponsored by the CYO/Youth & Young Adult Ministry Office.

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