Letter to Pilgrims

This evening some of our high school students who did not go to the World Youth Day asked me why I hadn't yet posted the letter I wrote to the pilgrims. I had planned to post it in the morning, but since they asked for it, it follows:

26 July 2008
The Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne

My dear young friends,

May the Lord give you peace!

After the great experience of these past days each of us has much for which we can be thankful and much on which we ought to reflect.

Certainly the days spent in Hawaii were, for many of us, the most enjoyable days of our journey. Indeed, they are days that I treasure and, having driven along many of these same roads yesterday, have already relived with great joy in my heart. I cannot remember having laughed so much over such a time, and for these days I thank you all (a special thank you goes to the boys who travelled in the car and van with me)!

Already in Hawaii we caught a glimpse of the purpose of our setting out on this pilgrimage in our visit to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, the church of St. Augustine by the Sea and in our attempts – with all of the frustrations and disappointments - to track down the Damien Museum (for which I am still searching). At Mass in the Cathedral we experienced the deep and vibrant faith of the people of Hawaii; our faith is called to be that vibrant, too, even back in Effingham!

After our visit to the Dole Plantation some of us spoke with our guide, Tracy. When we told him we were on our way to the World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney he lit up with excitement and gratitude. Such experiences are common to us all.

Yes, our days in Hawaii were the most enjoyable and fun-filled, but were they the most important of our days? They formed the first stepping stones, as it were, of our pilgrimage and set us off on the path to Sydney, the goal and most important part of our journey.

We joined 150,000 young people from across the globe to welcome His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at Barangaroo. As he spoke to us and reminded us of our Christian dignity that we received in Baptism and Confirmation, he urged us, “step forward into Christ’s loving embrace; recognize the Church as your home.” Could the goal of our pilgrimage have been any different than this? No, this is why we set out on the first place.

When we joined the Holy Father again at the Randwick Racecourse for the powerful Vigil that concluded with adoration of our Eucharistic Lord, the Holy Father reminded us that it is nothing less than God himself whom our hearts seek. He said, “God is with us in the reality of life, not the fantasy! It is embrace, not escape, that we seek! So the Holy Spirit gently but surely steers us back to what is real, what is lasting, what is true. It is the Spirit who leads us back into the communion of the Blessed Trinity!”

From the experience of my own life, filled with many longings and desires as it is, especially to be reunited with my dear parents one day, I can testify that what the Pope says, and so many of the Saints say, is true. Whatever the desire of our heart, it can only be satisfied in God.

As we move toward him he runs toward us and embraces us in his love, filling us with his joy and peace, those two beautiful gifts that the world cannot give, though it tries in so very many ways.

Toward the end of the vigil, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit each of us has received in the Sacrament of Confirmation. These gifts, he said, “require only one response on the part of the receiver: I accept! Here we sense something of the deep mystery of being Christian. What constitutes our faith is not primarily what we do but what we receive. After all, many generous people who are not Christian may well achieve far more than we do. Friends, do you accept being drawn into God’s Trinitarian life? Do you accept being drawn into his communion of love?”

This question I make my own and pose it to you: Will you accept the love of God that has been poured out for you? It is my most sincere hope that the experience of these days has led you to experience the love that the Lord Jesus has for you and that your heart has been drawn to his. If not, the entire pilgrimage has been in vain.

Sunday morning we attended Mass concelebrated by the Holy Father with more than 2,000 Bishops and priests and 400,000 young people. During his homily, Benedict XVI quoted the words of the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins - found on the front of St. Anthony High School - that all of creation is “charged with the grandeur of God.”

Reflecting on the power of the Holy Spirit, the power that is love, His Holiness said:

Yet this power, the grace of the Spirit, is not something we can merit or achieve, but only receive as pure gift. God’s love can only unleash its power when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church. Prayer is pure receptivity to God’s grace, love in action, communion with the Spirit who dwells within us, leading us, through Jesus, in the Church, to our heavenly Father. In the power of his Spirit, Jesus is always present in our hearts, quietly waiting for us to be still with him, to hear his voice, to abide in his love, and to receive “power from on high”, enabling us to be salt and light for our world.

As he encouraged each of us to accept this love, this power, the Successor of Saint Peter posed a question to us:

What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations, building something that will endure? Are you living your lives in a way that opens up space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God, or even rejects him in the name of a falsely-conceived freedom? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the “power” which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you? What legacy will you leave to young people yet to come? What difference will you make?

I pose these same questions to each of you and I urge you to accept the gifts of the Spirit and make good use of them.

In all of this we witnessed the reality, as Pope Benedict has said before, that “the Church is alive. The Church is young.” Yes, there are people like you in every part of the world, youth filled with energy and hopes and dreams, just as yours. There are youth who have experienced the love of God and seek to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. I hope and pray that you will be numbered among them.

We heard in the first reading for the Feast of Saint James the words of the Apostle Paul: “everything indeed is for you” (II Corinthians 4:15). I make these words, too, my own and I address them to each of you. Everything indeed is for you. All of the efforts of these past many months, of planning and guiding, of entertaining and leading, has been for you.

Now that everything has been done for you it is now up to you to take the experience of the World Youth Day 2008 and internalize it, reflecting upon and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you and shape you. I know that for many of you the experience of these days was personally very moving, but that you are yet reluctant to share your interior experience of these days with others. The Holy Spirit desires to make you his witnesses to the ends of the earth by filling you his power, his love; won’t you let him use you?

As I write to you I should also like to personally invite each of you to join the Dead Theologians Society. It meets on Sunday evenings from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the upper level of the parish center. If you enjoyed the experience of WYD you will enjoy the DTS. DTS will resume meeting on August 17th.

This coming October 4-6 I will be the Spiritual Director of a Great River Teens Encounter Christ retreat held in the Gem City and my home, Quincy. I made my first TEC retreat in July of 1995 and that weekend changed my life for the best. I have since served on nearly a dozen additional weekends, witnessing each time lives touched by the deep love of God. I would be more than happy to bring any of you on this retreat, as well. You can find more information at www.greatrivertec.org or simply ask me.

Please know that I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of these days with you and that I will treasure them always, reflecting on them in my heart, keeping each of you in my prayers. If I can ever be of any assistance to you, you need only let me know.

As I look forward to seeing you again in just a few days’ time, I leave you with these words of the Holy Father: “Do not be afraid to say “yes” to Jesus, to find your joy in doing his will, giving yourself completely to the pursuit of holiness, and using all your talents in the service of others!”

Peace and Joy,

The Rev. Daren J. Zehnle