This implies that everyone is at risk. Vulnerability is an uncomfortable and unnecessary situation. As Christian's we learn that we must treat others the way you want to be treated. Put yourself in the other persons shoes, in treating someone with contempt , think first, would you like to be treated that way?

This is an adversity we must constantly face everyday. If we put God in the forefront He could say to us: "My Child, everything which I allow in your life is something for which you can thank Me. You can take full advantage of the opportunities in each situation." This can be difficult, especially during negative situations that were not your fault. However, if we view life as a journey and God as our guide, He could say to us: "To find your joy in Me in all situations must be learned quickly. At times of great uncertainty be especially sure of My activity for you."

In our recent Seeker event, representatives of the L'Arche community shared that Jean Vanier and his Spiritual Director, Pere Thomas were alienated from their Catholic community. However, because God was their centre, the emergence of the L'Arche community grew. From its humble beginnings in France with the simple message, that disabled and abled people live in commune, there are now 137 communities in 40 different countries on every continent.

"Let the world see in you the patience and cheerfulness of the heart which looks to Me for everything; let it see what My victory over evil has achieved. All the things after which men strive are not worthy to be set beside possessing Me."

Lets us all find strength through God.

The problem is complex and has many dimensions grounded in different levels of social and personal life. One of the dimensions, in my opinion, has to do with what we know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Scriptures and their relationship with our lives.

The Catholic Church, at least as far as I have seen and read, provides general religious education in preparation of the different sacraments. With the exception of marriage, most of this formation is experienced when we are very young. If somebody attended a religious school or was part of a Parish group they may have received further formation, but even this ends when schooling ends. The consequence of this situation is that most of what we know about God was learnt while we were children, explained to us in terms we could understand at that point. And sometimes we have even misunderstood some points, with no opportunity to be corrected.

What people call “our Image of God” is in many cases grounded in concepts acquired in childhood. In addition, it is not very common to learn about God on our own and the demand and supply of serious religious formation courses, besides formal programs in universities, seems to be lower than the demand and supply of learning about yoga, dances or martial arts.

Young adulthood is a complex period in life. For many of us it is a period of intellectual development through our higher education. It is also a period of emotional development thanks to our first serious love relationships, break ups, disappointments and the experience of new relationships. For many of us, demographically speaking is also the moment of life in which we lose our first beloved people. It is also a moment of important decisions that define what is going to happen in our future. And for many of us, is also the moment of life in which we meet and become close to people from very different background and beliefs from ours.

So the question is obvious: How can a childish concept of God, Faith and their relationship with our lives survive through all these changes of our age? In my opinion, the childish concept will hardly survive, it has to grow up and mature with us. This probably did not occur for our current non religious but former Christian friends.

Faith is a gift, but it is a gift that we have to take care of. This care has many dimensions as well, but one of them has to do with learning more about God, Christ and Their message.

For example, pain is probably one of the hardest challenges to Faith. Many people ask “Why does God allow this to happen?” A person, who believes that the love of God consists of protecting him or her from every problem if he or she prays for it, can easily lose his or her faith if the problem persists. Actually, many of the criticism to Faith by atheists are grounded in the same concept: “He prayed and nothing happened”.

This “problem solver if I behave and pray” image of God is a very common case of a non mature and not well understood relationship with God, just like the “punisher God”, the “God who limits our freedom”, and many other ideas that create a false distance between people and God.

Thus, it is important to understand, not only know, in a deeper way the meaning of our Faith and how it is related to our lives. By reading the Holy Scriptures, talking to people, going to talks, reading outreach or spiritual books among other ways, we are making our Faith stronger. We need to put in our own effort, which is always better with the help of others. As Christ told us, we have to build our Faith over solid rock. If it is built over rock, is going to resist all the storms of our lives, and we will keep on being his witnesses in the world.

In addition, lack of knowledge is usually one of the dimensions involved in lack of lay people participation in the Church. An incomplete understanding of our Sacraments, our beliefs and our history creates the danger of a purely formalistic and/or passive Christian life, which may not be very strong. A deeper understanding may allow us to live our Sacraments in a different way, to explain and make sense of our beliefs, and better understand our role as Christians. It may also help us to awake in some of our friends and relatives some of the emotions and ideas about God that they believed at some time of their life.

Note: Probably none of these ideas are mine. They are based on lectures, readings and conversations with current and future priests and sisters and other “spiritual people”, as St Ignatius would say.

It mentions that a group the Barna group based in California has spent the last five years researching in America why young adults leave church. It revealed that most leave after the age 15 not to return until maybe when they marry again. However, if those who do return, tend to sway towards the evangelical churches.

The survey also revealed six key reasons:

Churches seem overprotective: Teens and young adults want their faith to connect to the world, but one quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds said that Christians “demonize everything outside the church,” that the church ignores the problems of the real world (22 percent) and that “my church is too concerned that movies, music and video games are harmful” (18 percent).

Teens’ and young adults’ experience of Christianity is shallow: Many said something was lacking in their church experience: “it’s boring”; “it’s not relevant to my career or interests”; “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” and “God seems missing from my church experience.”

Churches come across as antagonistic to science: Three out of 10 young adults said “churches are out of step with the scientific world” and “Christianity is anti-science” and 23 percent said they have been turned off by the creation versus evolution debate.

Their church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic and judgmental: Many young adults struggle with how to live up to the church’s expectations of chastity and sexual purity in this culture. Research indicates that most young Christians are as sexually active as their non-Christian peers. Among Catholics, 40 percent of young adults said the church’s “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.”

They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity: Younger Americans have been shaped by a culture that esteems open-mindedness, tolerance and acceptance, and they want to find common ground with people who are different from themselves. Three out of 10 young Christians said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths,” and 22 percent said the “church is like a country club, only for insiders.”

The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt: Young Christian adults say the church does not allow them to express doubts. This includes “not being able to ask my most pressing life questions in church” (36 percent) and having “significant intellectual doubts about my faith” (23 percent).

Do you relate to any of them? If so lets change things through the Ministry of Seekers, so that more young adults can either remain faithful to the church or lets bring some of them back!

'Real' fellowship is Biblical fellowship. 'God’s method for the outworking of His will through the church.' Fellowship is not just about being together, it is doing together, but doing God's will together.

For this reason we should stop thinking of Christian fellowship as just doing things such as social dinners or watching a DVD. These have their place but they are only fellowship to the extent that rest, exercise, and eating are doing the work of the Lord. Fellowship involves actively doing God’s will. The things we usually think of as fellowship are certainly not the primary meaning of the word!

We can say that: “Fellowship is the relationship of inner harmony among believers that expresses itself in outward co-participation with Christ and one another in accomplishing God’s will on earth.”

At the Ministry of Seekers our events are a mixture of socials, discussions and prayers. If we remember that as we come together in fellowship, we are offering ourselves the opportunity to grow and discover how to 'fellowship' in the true sense of its Biblical meaning.

Our small but growing Ministry has seen how one focus, offering Haiti hope can really bond people together. Through each and everyone person we encountered in spreading our mission of helping the people of Haiti, God's graces shines through, in the warmth and generosity of all our supporters.

This encouragement gives rise and meaning in progressing Seekers Initiatives, in its bid to become a charitable trust. Through the love from the parishioners of St Patrick's Church and our newly acquired backing from the Council of Churches Together in Trinity and Goldenacre, an ecumenical group of local congregations, our realization of giving something back to Haiti directly, is becoming a reality.

You may well think that you are just an individual without influence but as shown by Mother Teresa and the founders of Bethany Christian Trust amongst others, you can realize how one person can make a difference to many people.

I leave you with a Haitian proverb, 'Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou,' translated as 'Many Hands make the load lighter.'

This was soon made clear that this tradition was not only for monks but is especially relevant in today's Modern society. He saw it as a way for the renewal of the church and the world.

In our Lenten meditation series this year, we heard a recorded talk by John Main OSB about our commitment to reality, the reality he talks about is to leave 'self,' to leave our thoughts and analysis behind and to be grounded in God. Through meditation we can discover a stillness and a silence where we learn to accept who we are.

Unfortunately he says "the real tragedy of our time is that we are so filled with the desire for happiness, for success, for wealth for power or whatever it may be, that we are always imagining ourselves as we might be, rarely do we accept ourselves as we are and our present position."

So why not take the time out to become still and learn to appreciate who we are, to be rooted in God who is the ground of our being.

Meditation is simple and practical. It is about experience rather than theory: a way of being rather than a way of thinking. Because of the profound effect meditation has on one's life it is even more than a method of prayer; it is a way of life, a way of living from the deep centre of one's being in every situation.

Auschwitz was the work camp. It housed between 13,000 to 16,000 prisoners , once reaching a maximum of 20,000.The concept of this much evil housed in such a relatively small acreage was something I had anticipated to be tangible especially having heard others speak of the place as having an unnatural stillness – even the wildlife seemingly in mourning. I shockingly found the opposite to be the case. Auschwitz for me held a very creepy beauty.

Above the entry gates to Auschwitz is written the ironic phrase “Arbeit macht frie”, meaning “work brings freedom”. It was by these gates that an orchestra would be playing morning and evening, accompanying the workers as they left and returned from their jobs.  A pleasant idea until you realise the workers (slaves) were often so weak caused by the intense labour inflicted on them daily, resulting in many deaths, not to mention those slaves who were murdered for no reason. Those in the orchestra would have to wait in suspense to see if their friends and family were alive, or became a corpse which would be left as an example to the rest under those very gates.

The camp itself is situated in a fairly quiet but beautiful area of Poland. It has a very orderly layout, consisting of many large, identically built beautiful red brick buildings surrounded by grass, trees, directly linked with smart gravel pathways. This description alongside a well taken photo really wouldn’t seem amiss in the window of an estate agent or in a holiday camp catalogue. In hindsight I suppose this layout was a rather cunning ploy to encourage a falsely positive propaganda campaign used during the war to cover up the actual atrocities that took place within.

Birkenau situated 3km from Auschwitz, was the death camp. It housed as many as 100,000 prisoners at the height of Hitler’s reign. It was this sheer magnitude which I found most shocking and still to this moment almost impossible to comprehend. The practical and physical organisation of the place was such that panic wasn’t caused and people didn’t necessarily suspect what it was designed for.

Shockingly some prisoners arrived into the camp under their own free will. They were encouraged to buy their own train tickets and pack one suitcase each with their possessions (many anticipated being able to return to their homes after a short while being in the camp).

The physical layout would not have been as beautiful as its partner camp Auschwitz. Sanitation was unbelievably poor, only one lavatory for each building which housed as many as 700 prisoners at any one time (67 of these buildings existed), the stench was unbearable. Plus they had a serious rat infestation. It is only thanks to the fact that half the buildings have been knocked down leaving only their hearths visible that I was able to see the sheer magnitude of the Birkenau estate – 425 acres of evil!

To sum up how I truly felt during the visit can’t really be expressed through words. It is more of a felt emotion that one needs to experience, it is a onetime experience only. I invite you to feel this for yourself and remember all those who suffered through no fault of their own. May their souls rest in peace.

I recall coming across this article in the Singapore Catholic News talking about chastity and how Father Ronald Rolheiser says that ‘chastity needs to be properly understood.’ He refrains from the normal misconception that chastity means celibacy; in fact he says it is not even a sexual concept.

‘Someone can be chaste but not celibate, just as someone can be celibate but not chaste.’

So what is chastity? Fr. Rolheiser says ‘we are chaste when we stand before the world, others and God in a way which allows them to be fully themselves without letting our own impatience, selfishness, or unwillingness to remain in tension violate their reality and their natural unfolding.’ In other words, to be chaste is to allow things to naturally happen, to let time unfold in its own way, but more simply, it is about patience.

Fr. Rolheiser uses three key examples to illustrate what he means:

‘In her book, Holy The Firm, Anne Dillard shares this story: One evening, alone in her cabin, she was watching a moth slowly emerge from its cocoon. The process was fascinating but interminably slow. At a point she lost patience and needed to get on to other things, so she picked up a candle and applied a little heat to the process. It worked. The added heat sped up the process and the moth emerged more quickly from its cocoon, but since a natural process had been interfered with and unnaturally rushed, the moth emerged with ill-formed wings which didn’t allow it to fly properly. A fault in chastity led to stunted growth.’

‘The movie, Sense and Sensibility, based on Jane Austen’s classic novel, presents its leading character, a women played by Emma Thompson, as someone who is asked to carry an extremely painful tension for a long time, one having to do with unrequited and unconsummated love. She has no one with whom she can really share her pain and her circumstance requires her to carry on as if she was not carrying this pain. She carries that tension for a long time, sublimating her pain into a graciousness that she extends even to the very persons who are the source of her tension. Only after a long time is the tension finally resolved and her forbearance in not forcing an earlier, premature resolution, her willingness to carry the tension to term, helps bring about deeper life for everyone, not least for herself. This is the essence of chastity.’

‘After the Italian spiritual writer, Carlo Carretto, had spent a number of years living as a hermit in the Sahara desert, he was asked what message he would give to the world if someone asked him the question: What, in your solitude and prayer, do you hear God saying to those of us who are living active lives in the world? Carretto replied: God is saying, learn to wait, learn to wait for everything – for love, for fulfilment, for consummation, for God! Learning to wait, giving God and life the space to unfold as they need to, is the very essence of chastity.’

Nikos Kazantzakis asserts: ‘God, it seems, is never in a hurry, while we are always in a hurry.’ How true is that statement? I think it doesn’t help that our society is always pushing us to get things faster, don’t waste time as time is money! However, we should allow ‘life to unfold according to its own innate rhythms which try our patience and it will not let themselves be rushed, except at a cost.’

We have to keep in mind that, though it may be a struggle, life is not about instant gratification, ‘nobody gives birth to a baby without a long period of gestation, nobody writes a doctoral thesis in two hours and nobody creates an artistic masterpiece without long hours of sweat and labour.’  However, always remember this, ‘Jesus only got to the glory and freedom of Easter Sunday by first sweating blood in the garden.

‘Chastity is the virtue that invites us to live in patience, to wait, to respect what’s other, and to carry tension long enough so that the other can truly be other and gift can unfold precisely as gift.’

St Alberto was born in Vina del Mar, Chile in 1901. He became a Jesuit priest after studying Law. He died very young, at the age of 51. The people who were alive at that time say that at the moment of his death, a big cloud with the shape of a Cross was alone in the sky.  He was canonized in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI.

I want to share the life example provided by the life and ministry of this Saint, not only because he was Chilean, but also because he is a modern life saint and his legacy may be very meaningful for us. Two main insights explain his work: The first, to see Christ in your neighbour, primarily in the one who is suffering, no matter who, he or she is. Before he died he said: <As I leave to return to God, my Father, permit me to confide to you one last desire: that you strive to create a climate of true love and respect for the poor because the poor man is Christ. “What you do to the least of my brothers, that you do to me” (Mt 25,40)>. The other key motto of his life and Ministry is to ask, in every situation “What would Christ do in my place?” Probably this last phrase is what explains all what he did and why he did it.

He spoke loud in the context of a very conservative, classist and unequal society. His discourses about social justice and the ideas and data presented in his book “Is Chile a Catholic Country?” were considered communist by some people at his time and he had to face many painful moments because powerful people consider him a social activist. He was very patient and every time he felt tired he said to himself “happy, Lord, happy”. In the long term, he contributed to change the minds of Catholics in Chile and other countries of South America, considering social justice one of the main task of Christianity and Christian life.

During those years, many poor, abandoned and homeless children were in Santiago. St Alberto built a house thanks to donations and looked after those children in order to give them shelter, nutrition, hope and an education. This home was called Hogar de Cristo “The home of Christ” because Christ lived there in the shape of those kids. Hogar de Cristo expanded very soon across the whole country and is still, by very far, the main charity in Chile, and one of the largest charities in Latin America, now sheltering also old people, sick people, and other disadvantaged people.

He also knew that charity was not enough, so he also worked through social justice by other means. He founded a Christian oriented Trade Union Association in a moment when workers had very little rights and also created the foundations for the later “university of workers” (INFOCAP), where workers can complete their school and learn a new profession.  He said that “the workers have the right to a place of honour in society”.

He was also involved in intellectual work, being part of the founders of the Theology Faculty of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, which is still one of the most important Theology schools in Latin America. He also founded Mensaje magazine, the magazine of the Jesuits, which is still very influent and relevant. He was not only concerned by the situation of poverty and inequality in Chile, but also about the horrors of  the War in Europe , Africa and Asia, and the raising of materialism and lack of meaning of life in western society.  After his intellectual legacy, also present in his books, the Jesuit University in Chile is called Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

He also was very commited to the pastoral activities of his priesthood. He was one of the founders of the Jesuit House of Retreats, close to Santiago (Now located in the town Padre Hurtado), where he gave spiritual exercises and retreats on a regular basis. His homilies were famous.  He was also a teacher in Colegio San Ignacio and spiritual director of several young people.In addition, he was, thanks to his personal charisma, the leader of the Youth of Catholic Action and also spoke on the radio from time to time.  His personal spiritual life was great, praying many hours every day, even when he was very busy doing his several works, finding in prayer new directions, consolation, discernment, Grace, and meaning for his life and works.  He was very important for bringing new vocations to the Church, to encourage lay people to involve directly in social justice and to change the mind of good part of the Chilean Church, and in long term the Latin American Church.

St Alberto taught us that “charity starts where justice finishes” and the task of the Christian is to love and give “until it hurts”. His example of patience, true love for the neighbour, humility and bravery could be very important for us in the moment of history we are in, when is very difficult to leave our comfort zone, to think outside the box and give ourselves to  help. St Alberto was able to identify the task of the Christians of his time (in many different fields), do them and encourage others to do them as well, no matter what it cost and how painful that should be. That is why during his funeral he was described by the Bishop as "a fire who lights other fires". Most of his works are still there. He found his way always asking himself what would Christ do if He would face the situations and decisions he found in his life. And, even when he was a real man of action, he always stated that everything is useless if is not oriented by prayer.  If any of you are interested in knowing more about his thinking, here are some writings translated to English

http://www.mdsj.org/hurtado/writings.shtml

I highly recommend this writing, is really beautiful.

http://www.mdsj.org/hurtado/hurtado_12.html

Labyrinths originate from Greek mythology, yet are still a form of prayer walk used by many Christians today. Although after a cursory glance, a labyrinth could easily be mistaken as a maze, after closer inspection a labyrinth unlike a maze has no multiple paths or dead ends. Instead it consists of one, surprisingly long path, which slowly meanders to its climax in the centre of the design and then back again to the start.

Walking a labyrinth is a way of taking a pilgrimage in daily life, without actually having to travel too far. They can even be ‘walked’ in the home by tracing your finger around a labyrinth design as a form of meditative prayer. Similar to taking a pilgrimage, walking a labyrinth is a means of praying not just in our minds but also with our feet and bodies, the outer physical progress symbolising the faith journey within; the return journey symbolising our return to our reality.

Whilst walking the Labyrinth at George Square with other young adults from Seekers, I felt a deep intensity of prayer and meditation.  Surprisingly, the entire length of the labyrinth took a while, especially with 15 of us following the path to and from the centre.  I felt the walk was a metaphor for life, though we were all effectively walking the same path we all had different experiences, with our pace, timing and intention.

As is true for Christianity we share our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This metaphor was made clearer by the hold ups and crossing along the route. Some walked slower than others, leaving a train of people behind them. Some were already on their return journey before others had started which meant their paths crossed. Some were even sent off course and had to return to the narrow path after dealing with the fact someone had accidentally locked us in the garden!

However, I found all these similarities prophetic of the way we as Christians live our lives together, in relative harmony. There wasn’t impatience; there wasn’t a race to be to first to finish.