As I write this rather a large part of me feels that being a young catholic today is in fact very much like being a catholic of any age. It brings, I assume, much the same joys, struggles, hopes and fears. In fact I consider one of the most beautiful aspects of my Catholic faith the unity it gives me with so many others of all ages, of all walks of life.One thing that surprises me however is how a path that has been trodden by so many before does not get any easier to follow, you would have thought the track would get wider and smoother over the years! It seems not. It can be tempting to wonder why I cannot live by the lessons that others have learnt, why I cannot be satisfied by the solutions that others have come up with. The more I journey the more I find that it is only in allowing my heart to ask again that I truly encounter God. It is the search for truth and life that makes faith meaningful, and it is the discovery of meaningful faith that makes my life true.
It is that discovery of true life in Christ that enables me to follow the narrow path, challenging though it is in today’s society. I have found one of the gifts of youth is the freedom and flexibility I have to commit time to His ends, and in offering what I have my life takes on a whole new dimension. True, there are exhausting weeks when I wonder if life wouldn’t be easier some other way, but as my favourite young saint Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati wonderfully expresses “To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.”
