World Youth Day Pilgrimage: Preparation for Life-Giving Decisions

My journey with young people as a priest began with my first assignment at St. Mary’s Parish in Houston, Texas. It is a predominately African American parish. The pastor at that time was Fr. George Artis, SVD. The parish hall had just been built and was used for dances for the teenagers which I used to chaperone. There was also a very active young adults group and a gospel choir that attracted people from around the Houston metro area. Involvement with NFP as such was not prominent at that time, but the pro-family aspect was not absent either.

Years later I was serving in a rural parish in Chile in a prelature where the local bishop and some religious were promoting NFP. I remember a talk given to the priests of the prelature by a medical doctor who shared his experience of working with couples who practiced NFP. He found that people who were not affluent had less difficulty with NFP than those who had a comfortable lifestyle because they were used to self-denial or doing without.

Fast forward to the year 2000. As parish administrator of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Blythe here in California I encouraged young people to take part in the World Youth Day in Rome that year. I was able to accompany a small group including young people from the nearby farm community of Ripley who were part of the numerous Sanchez family. We were able to join with a Lifeteen delegation leaving from Phoenix. It was an unforgettable experience. We were able to make a pilgrimage to see the shroud of Turin with about 3000 young people from France and Italy. Accommodations were simple in accord with the thinking of Pope John Paul II, that young people need to be challenged to deal with hardship. I see that experience as remote preparation for NFP which makes demands on a couple that can make their love resilient. Our young people and their chaperones weren’t always thrilled with the challenge, but I believe it was good for all of us.

I was struck by how young people responded when given the opportunity to spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in an informal setting. When we arrived in Rome we tried to make it to the welcoming ceremony at the plaza at St. Peters. The plaza was packed with young people. The magnetism of Pope John Paul and his demanding proposal for young people was evident. His recurring theme was Christ and His cross lead to the fullness of life. As he told them at the vigil at Tor Vergata University, where two million young people gathered from around the world, including 700,000 from Italy alone, in today’s world it is not easy to believe in Christ and His cross, but by the grace of God it is possible. He told them the question confronting them is not what but who. Who can they entrust their lives to? Who has the words of everlasting life? And he reminded them that St. Peter answered that question. Only Jesus has the words of everlasting life when He tells us whoever tries to save their life loses it, but who ever loses their life for His sake saves it. Jesus lays down His life for us in the Eucharist so that we can have life to the full by doing the same.

This is the foundation of NFP which is more than a technique, but a kind of pilgrimage of growth in self surrender. So without ever making it explicit, He was preparing young people for the theology of the body, in which dignity of the human body is in making visible the mystery of love and communion. Any kind of manipulation of the body tends to reduce it to an object rather than a personal subject. And the World Youth Days in which I have participated with young people from the Diocese of San Bernardino promote this awareness among the younger generation, that we are all called to something greater than the prevailing convenience culture, or what Pope Francis calls the throwaway culture. I have been privileged to participate in the World Youth Day not only in Rome, but also in Toronto, Cologne, Sydney, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Krakow, and Panama City. What is striking for me is to be part of a huge crowd of young people who can be completely silent before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. The risen Christ continues to gather the young to Himself and to make their own the words of Peter, “Lord, only You have the words of everlasting life.”

As George Weigel points out in his biography of Pope John Paul II Witness to Hope, young people do not like to be pandered to. They want to be challenged to something more than mediocrity. The theology of the body is that kind of challenge to the young people of the new millennium. The body not dedicated to service is more dead than alive. The self denial of a pilgrimage like the World Youth Days is preparation for the tough decisions that are life-giving and life-transforming, such as the decision to be faithful to God’s design for human love. There are numerous stories of young people who found their future spouse at World Youth Days, and others who have found their calling to serve the Bride of Christ as priests or religious.

Currently I’m doing a personal pilgrimage to the California missions by bicycle here in California in piecemeal fashion. I ride from one mission to the next in the chain. So far I’ve done all the missions from San Diego up to San Miguel as well as Santa Clara to San Francisco, San Jose to Santa Clara, and now Our Lady of Soledad to San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel and from there to San Juan Bautista. I hope the pilgrimage will bring blessings on California and on CANFP and all young couples who are going against the tide by going down the Royal Road (Camino Real) by practicing NFP. It helps me to recall what happened to the missions after they fell into ruin and by the grace of God have seen some degree of restoration.

I’m currently chaplain at Notre Dame High School in Riverside, CA. We’re still doing distance learning and I live-stream daily mass on school days from the chapel on campus. One of our former religion teachers has become a Certified Practitioner of the Creighton FertilityCare System, and did her training at Three Rivers retreat center. I was able to obtain the funding for her training from a retired priest who is a believer in NFP. She until recently was giving talks under the auspices of the Family Life department of the Diocese of San Bernardino. She is a graduate of the University of Steubenville. She participated in the World Youth Day in Madrid along with her husband and newborn child. I see young people like her as the mustard seed that Jesus used as an example in the parable about the amazing growth of the Kingdom of God.

I hope to continue to find ways to foster awareness in young people that Christ and His cross, that includes NFP, are not our enemies, but our salvation.