My Reaction

Since my senior year of college, I've made every attempt to be a daily communicant, or attend Mass somewhere every day. I get involved at my normal parish and in the local deanery activities. Often, older folks will tell me how good it is to see a young person at Mass and getting involved in their faith. I get showered with compliments and asked if I've considered the priesthood or religious life. People say, "I wish more young people would come." My reaction inside is always the same: 

Sadness.

Sadness because so many others in my generation don't know Christ's love in the way that I do. Sadness that they won't let Him change their life. Sadness because they don't and won't understand our Church. Sadness because I know so many of them fell neglected or chased out of the Church. 

Sadness.

Sadness when older people don't notice the other young people that come or make an effort to talk to them when they walk in the door. Sadness when people get annoyed at a baby's cry. Sadness when I hear conversations about how young people "aren't generous" and "need to know their place in the Church." 

I experience sadness because people feel that a 23-year-old man in Church is rare enough to say something, yet no one seems to want to do anything about it. 

Millennials want what the Church offers. We just need to know what it offers. We just need to experience what it offers. But, most importantly, we need to experience joy in what it offers. Joy in worship. Joy in God's call. Joy in the love of our God and our neighbor. But, for us to experience joy, it must be present already. It must be in the hearts of the faithful from the start. It must be in smiles, in words of welcome, in engaging music and prayers. Young people want to be more than just the strong backs doing the grunt work. We have talents and we want to use them. We want to learn. We want to grow. The Catholic Church can give us these opportunities. The question is, who in the Church will give them to us?