diocesanoffice@paisleydiocese.org.uk

3rd Sunday of the Year A - Monthly Youth Mass

Holy Family, Port Glasgow 27th January 2008

We have heard Jesus call Peter and Andrew, James and John. “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This invitation to follow Jesus was the start of a new and unexpected enterprise for these men, the core of which was their friendship with Jesus, which directed and illuminated their whole lives, the things they did, the choices they made, the life they lived and the death they died.

The call they experienced had two sides to it. In the first place, it was intensely personal. Each one felt that he had been addressed directly by Jesus and called by name. Each one felt that this was an invitation and a call he could not ignore. At the same time, each one was called into a group. That group was the Twelve Apostles who were the core of the disciples of Jesus and the foundation of the Church of which you and I are members.

I want to suggest to you this evening that each one of us has received a call that is similar to the call of Peter and Andrew, James and John. Each one of us has received a call which is intensely personal. When I was baptised, the priest said my name. He said, “Philip, I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But I received that baptism as part of the family of the Church and was at that very moment called into the family, the community of the Church. Jesus calls each one of personally and directly to follow him. At the same part he calls us to be part of the fellowship of the others he has also called. That fellowship is the Church through which the Lord’s call continues to come to us.

Your family, your parish, your school, Sunday Mass, your gathering here this evening all confirm that experience of how the Lord calls us as individual persons into the group and into the community of his followers. For myself, I have always found the presence of Christ in his Church in so many ways. Even when I thought I was alone, I know now that I was sustained and guided by the prayers of so many, and not least by the intercession of the Blessed Mother, the angels and the saints. Even when I thought I was making my own way, I was inspired by the good example and wise words of so many others. Even on those very few and wonderful occasions when I sensed that God was speaking to me very personally and very directly, his voice was coming to me in the experience and in the words I knew from being part of his Church, and He was directing me always more into his Church, never away from it.

In speaking as I have done, I realise that I have raised the issue of young people and the Church. Sometimes people will say that they admire and even love Jesus, but they do not want to be part of any church. Some young people may be influenced by that kind of reasoning. There may even be reasons why people might feel like that. Equally there are lots of things one could say against that to present the Church in a good light. But I will only say one thing because I know this to be incontrovertibly true. Jesus, in calling us to himself, also calls us to his Church. So I encourage and invite you to be part of the Church. I invite you especially to be faithful to Sunday Mass. I pray that your involvement with the diocesan youth group will be a positive and lasting experience for you of the presence of Christ in his Church. More than that, and maybe this will come as a surprise to you, I ask you to love the Church. I say this to you, not so that will you overlook failings and difficulties and problems, but because the Church is the chosen instrument of God, the great mystery of the Lord’s presence, by which Jesus will continue to say to you, “Come, follow me.”