We thirst to be free, to be loved, for an authentic life. As we read in Romans 6, the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. How do we cast off the sin that keeps us in death? Jackie Francois-Angel’s talk on Sunday morning invited us to ask the Holy Spirit into our lives.
“God loves you.” We’ve all heard that phrase hundreds of times; we have probably all said that phrase. Kris Frank’s keynote address on Saturday night challenged all of us to look at God’s love with new eyes by pondering the cross.
Searching for Love
Kris shared the story of being in high school and not understanding God’s love. Instead, he sought love by figuring out how he could fit in with different groups of kids at school by wearing different masks. Despite learning how to fit in, Kris realized he never was really happy. We can all relate to Kris’ experience as we all find ourselves acting less than our genuine selves sometimes.
Pete Burds said that we can have a tendency to reduce Catholicism to being just a moral compass. We can think that there’s a “bunch of old guys sitting in their ivory tower, trying to annoy me, keeping me from what I want to do on a Saturday night.” But he insists that Catholicism is more than that. It’s about a person, Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Light. Jesus actually intended to establish a church. And his love for the Church can be compared to a husband’s love for his wife. He loved it enough to die for it. He told us Peter that he was the rock, and “upon this rock I will build my church.” A succession of Popes have followed Peter for 2000 years.
Jackie Francois-Angel began by sharing that she grew up as a cradle Catholic; she went to youth group and church faithfully on Sundays, but her faith didn’t really impact her life the rest of the week. It was pretty much all about her.
When she was 18 years old, she had a conversion experience at a Steubenville Youth Conference. After that she started attending daily Mass, reading the Bible, tithing, and asking every tough question she could about the Catholic faith. She quickly found out that the Church is not afraid of our questions, and the Church actually has some amazing answers. She also began the important process of giving God everything – including all of her gifts and talents.
