From December 29, 2019 to January 3, 2020, approximately 8,500 Catholics hailing from over 300 campuses located in the United States attended the Fellowship of Catholic University Student’s (FOCUS) Student Leadership Summit (SLS) in Arizona to usher in the new year. Some fellow College of the Holy Cross students, Father Gavin, S.J., and I went to the five-day conference, which was held in the heart of downtown Phoenix at the city’s convention center complex.
SLS inspired me. FOCUS’s aim for the event was to instill in Catholic youth an understanding of Christ’s friendship, which He extends to all His sons and daughters. To experience and take delight in such a grace is meant for you, me, a person from another continent, and the neighbor next door to participate in. Through ongoing conversion and discipleship, no one is left out from God’s salvation. Fortunately, we are presented with the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments and the people of faith in our lives. A spirit of charity and building community—imperatives to witnessing to the Gospels—follows from a recognition of the irrevocable dignity of each human being. Such a realization begins with fostering a relationship with Jesus, who continually extends a Love that pierces the shadows of human failure, brokenness, and despair. We cannot face adversity alone. According to a famous old poem, no man is an island.
Bolstered by over 300 priests, countless brothers and sisters dedicated to the religious life, 16 bishops, the archbishop of Philadelphia, the Apostolic Nuncio (a.k.a. ambassador) to the United States from the Vatican, and an important Cardinal from Germany, SLS provided a faith-filled experience centered around the sacraments and the rich tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Also, surrounded by thousands of young college students like myself striving to embrace a life with Christ by sharing the Good News and—by letting God work through them—forming friendships and community, I found my time in the American southwest spiritually and socially invigorating.
Daily keynote speakers included Father Mike Schmitz of the popular Ascension Presents YouTube channel, evangelist blogger Emily Wilson, and the wonderful Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life, among others. Their energy and zeal provided a glimpse of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit that provide a person with one of the three greatest virtues: hope.
Without hope, one cannot persevere through the challenges that life presents. Inspirited and healed through the Mass, Reconciliation, and Eucharistic Adoration, a person can realize a spiritual harmony in life through the music of faith, which quietly comforts and enlivens the soul. Cardinal Mueller, the German cardinal, made this insightful and beautiful analogy in his homily on the third day of the conference. Matt Maher also summed up this message succinctly, which I hope I have recalled accurately: "Without the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, life simply does not make sense.”
In the past few weeks, which have entailed the heartrending loss of beloved members from our own families, colleges, sports teams, and country, this message comes to my mind in relation to literature. The pathos-ridden, 800-page novel, The Cypresses Believe in God: Spain on the Eve of Civil War by Jose Maria Gironella, provides an account of a Spanish family in the city of Gerona before a conflict full of horrors broke out in the Spanish Republic in the mid-1930s. One of the characters, Matias Alvear, had married Carmen Elgazu. Beforehand, Matias was not religious but upon being wedded to the deeply religious Carmen he became Catholic. His motivation followed from his realization that he could not imagine a world where the love, spirit, and radiance of his wife, body and soul, could not survive eternally.
Life is indeed full of wonderful people and surroundings. Thus, the ancient idea—based upon the rejection of the conception of there being a loving designer of the world—that everything passes into non-being disturbs me. Consequently, I believe that life does have a deeper purpose and an end beyond death. The greatest hope, which is also the greatest strength, derives from the truth that we are placed on Earth by a Love that knows no bounds. This is revealed through the everyday miracles of life, a natural order that people can learn from which hints at a Reason behind it, and the almost supernatural demonstrations of selfless love and immense thanksgiving that I encounter. The liturgical life of the Church especially reveals these truths through its journey exploring the relationship of God and His people. Despite the vagaries and trials of life that are found in the bearing of the cross, I pray that I might remain confident in the bountiful promises of the resurrected Christ.