At the Church of the Holy Trinity in Cheyenne, we just wrapped up a two-week religious education series for elementary students. I spent those two weeks trying to keep junior high and high school students entertained and engaged with the younger kids. On top of that, something I tried to do every day was lead a short Bible study, yet as the joke goes, Catholics don't read the Bible, so I hope the teens got something out of it because I did.
There was one study in particular that I wanted to share with the readers of Odyssey. We talked about the future, the opportunity the week presented for growth and life outside of our youth group. We honed in on a quotation of Pope Saint John Paul II: "The future starts today, not tomorrow," and jumped in.
Proverbs 14:23 taught us that "in all labor there is profit, but mere talk tends only to penury." Penury, the protestant New International Version of the Bible reminds us, is poverty. (For all intents and purposes, I will use the Catholic New American Bible translation, but our friends of the protestant tradition may have had a better translation here.) Though this proverb obviously has a very practical, literal application, i.e. you labor, you earn profit, our group decided it carried important spiritual implications as well. We sat and asked ourselves, in our faith are we walking the walk or just talking the talk? When we volunteer at a summer religious education series, are we actively participating or just showing up to brag that we went, earn those all important resume building service hours, or because our mom said to go. It goes so far beyond this though too. Are we just showing up to work just to show up or to make a difference, are we practicing to make our team better at soccer or are we self-interested and focused on scoring a goal to score a date with the cutie on the sideline? These examples, often overused, are not the end-all-be-all of course, and we should ask ourselves are we actively participating politically, in our relationships, in our friendships, with our family? The list goes on.
We spent the next several minutes reminding ourselves that our foundation as Christians is "namely, Jesus Christ" and that what we build on that foundation ultimately determines what "profit" (see above) we make. As Christians, this must always be our foundation, when we work, vote, date, volunteer. This foundation was outlined in 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 and helped delineate those things that would hold up on such a strong foundation, and those that would not. To separate Jesus from this life is a dangerous thing for Christians, especially in the modern age of relativism, yet that doesn't mean you are a bigot. It means you love your neighbor as yourself, which should always be with respect. As Mother Teresa aptly put it, and I paraphrase, when you seek Jesus you often find him in disguise, within the people around you.
If I had moved a little off topic in that second section, we brought it right back, turning to Galatians 6:7-10, which begins, "Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will only reap what he sows," and ends by challenging us to never "grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap a harvest, if we do not give up...let us do good to all." When we came to this point in the study we reflected on those things above that are the seeds that ultimately return a harvest: practice, camaraderie, study, active participation, and these, coupled with our recognition that we were almost done with the two-week series, reminded us to finish strong, not only in the religious education but also in life. I constantly remind myself that "tomorrow may never enter my soul," something highlighted by Saint Faustina but a mentality acutely present throughout Catholicism (see "Muero porque no muero" by Saint Teresa of Avila), so this finish strong mentality has every application in our daily life.
I'm lucky enough to be working in a church setting and thus staying busy by taking the Youth Group to St. Paul's Newman Center at the University of Wyoming, attending the One Bread One Cup conference in Louisville, Indiana, and leading another two-week session in August, but I asked the teens to actively seek out opportunities to grow and change and create themselves anew as they transition into junior high, high school, and even college. Now is always the time to do good, to grow in faith, to decide who you are because "the future starts today, not tomorrow."
