As baptized Catholics, we are called to be missionaries and tell the world about Christ and His saving grace. What does this mean, and how do we answer this call to be missionaries? What does it take to be a missionary in today’s world? Do we have to travel to faraway lands to do missionary work, or is this something we can do in our own community?
While dating is an exciting part of growing up, our culture’s expectations of us are often quite different from what God desires for our relationships. In many ways, our dating experiences shape us and help us grow as people. The dating experience can also give us tools to help us love one another honestly and completely in all of our relationships. But God wants us to find true love that is more amazing than we could ever imagine and this is only possible if we let Him lead us to it and if we learn to put others before ourselves.
Our country celebrates “Thanksgiving” to remind us that gratitude is something to be shared and shown in our words and actions. How can we make this feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving a habit throughout the whole year? How can we be a greater witness of Christ by letting go of our feelings of entitlement, the feelings that we deserve to get everything we want? In what ways can we grow to appreciate what we have and to recognize the more important things in life? The things that money can’t buy!
God has created each one of us to be our best self; nothing less, nothing more. There can be a lot of pressure for us socially to be something we’re not, or to do something that really isn’t who we are. Compromising who we are for the sake of popularity is never worth it. As Catholic Christians we are not called to follow the ways of the world, but to follow Jesus. We are called to be our true self.
As followers of Christ we are called to be peacemakers. But how do we make peace in a world that sometimes seems like it is full of violence and hate? On the news we witness wars and violence. Even in our schools and communities we witness fights, disagreements and actions that are not working toward peace, but toward unrest. So, is peace something we can ever find? In such a big world of people who don’t agree, can peace ever be something we reach?
No generation is immune from the violence and devastation of war. As Catholics, are we in opposition to our faith if we decide to serve our country in the military? Are we in conflict with the 5th Commandment if we are responsible for lives lost during a war? What does the Church’s “Just War Theory” tell us? Can war – in any way — truly be justified? With special guests from Our Lady of Good Counsel Youth Group in Moorestown, New Jersey
