Easter Sermon

Naw, I wouldn't do that to you. I'm talking about the one I heard in church. Delivered by the priest. A young priest. Very, very young. He's not a teenager, but I'll bet he still remembers every day of his senior year. He's afflicted with the optimism of...the young. I hope he never loses it. He says the Church is growing. And that vocations are increasing among both priests and religious. At the place where he studied, the young men are packed three to a room, which I took to mean that the dorms are overcrowded. More like him are on the way, young men and religious sisters who love the Church, the Pope, and everything Catholic. He must know something I don't. I sure hope so. (All this was being related to the Resurrection, a rebirth, a new springtime.) He's on fire with a zeal for Christ. I hope a complacent laity and the clerical bureaucracy don't grind it out of him. When he asked us during the renewal of our baptismal vows if we renounced all of Satan's promises, he didn't like the half-hearted response. "Let's try that again." Unless you don't renounce them, he said. He didn't want us to lie. "DO YOU RENOUNCE SATAN AND ALL HIS EMPTY PROMISES?!!"

"YES!!" they all roared.

I don't know how he led into it, but at one point he said, "If you, as Catholics, aren't willing to go to jail for your faith, then you don't understand what this next election is all about." And that was it for the politics. I'll bet some butts squirmed in their seats, though.

Right now, I think this kid (no disrespect intended) would go to jail for the Faith. And maybe further. I just hope he never has to labor under the likes of a Cardinal Wuerl.

Good luck, Father.

I guess we should do more than wish such young men luck. We're supposed to pray for them, aren't we? As if I didn't have enough to do, but okay.