Well 'Jesus Week', the time when we unite with our other Christian friends on campus to pray and praise our common Lord, is over. I'd like to know what you think.
All week we've heard Mr. Curt Harlow speak, answer questions and inspire us to ask the deeper questions in life and I found personally that I was pretty impressed with his speaking, his humor and his heart. I do hope with my whole heart that many who go about their daily lives avoiding the 'big questions' took a minute to stop and ask them this week.
Tonight we joined together in common at the Bayou Bijou to sing and listen to Curt one more time before we closed out the week. His stories were funny and his message was inspiring. At the end he spoke about the necessity of being 'born again' and then called all those who had never accepted Jesus into their hearts to do so if they felt compelled and to come up to the front and pray with their respective ministries.
I stood alone and was not surprised or upset because of that. I was pleasantly surprised that none of you came to pray with me for two reasons. First because I know all of you and I know you have as young adults all personally made that decision to follow Christ with your whole lives. I was also happy because it showed me that you are all well formed.
It may have been an awkward moment for you if you were were there and I am sorry if you felt out of place. Hopefully you were still able to appreciate the community with our brothers and sisters in Christ and get something positive from Curt's message.
That being said I feel like this is a good moment for some Catechesis and discussion about the subject. What do we believe about this Altar Call? Do Catholics believe we need to be 'born again?'
You may be surprised that the answer is yes, but not in the same way that our protestant friends believe. We believe that we are born again, of water and the spirit in the moment of our Baptism, whenever that may have taken place. Another aspect of this call to accept Jesus in this moment stems from a belief that once you are 'saved' you are always saved. If you were at Newman Night this week you know that we also believe that we need to be saved but considering all the ways that Jesus speaks of salvation in Scripture we can say with certainty that we 'have been saved', we are being saved, and we have great hope and even certainty that we will be saved.
(If you want to read the reasons in greater length this is a great source.)
Now, THAT being said, we certainly believe that accepting Christ into our lives is a great thing and a lifelong duty of the Christian. We believe that we have to confess our sins and we do in a powerful and sacramental way and we believe that praying with friends and our Priests and Campus Ministers (only the cool ones) is a wonderful thing.
What I'm saying is, the reason we don't do that is not because at face value we disagree with committing our lives to Jesus, or confessing our sins, or praying but that the practice, history and theology behind the act is one of the things that we don't see eye to eye on.
I noticed that Curt spoke alot about 'really' being fed, about the power of serving, about the power of a meal that really satisfies (in bread no less) and about really touching Jesus. I also noticed many of you smiling when he mentioned all of those things.
What a gift we have in the Eucharist! Thank Jesus tomorrow in Mass when you DO approach the altar and literally receive him into your life and body.
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