Before I sign off for the night, I have to quote my friend Fr. James Schall, prof of govt at Georgetown University, lo these many years. He has a marvelous essay on a recent conversation Pope Benedict had with a group of students.
“You asked me questions with great frankness and at the same time showed that you have firm points, convictions. And this is very important. You are young men and women who think, who question themselves, and who have a sense of truth and good. In other words, you know how to use your minds and your hearts, and that is no small thing.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, To Young People in the Cathedral in Sulmona, July 4, 2010 (L’Osservatore Romano, English, July 7, 2010.)Both John Paul II and Benedict are at their best in youth audiences. Imagine anyone else in the world telling young men and women that it is”no small thing” to use their minds! Benedict adds:”I would say that it is the main thing in this world: to use the intelligence and wisdom that God has given to you properly.” This again is a theme that is typical of Catholicism at its best. It recognizes that our minds are not our own original creations. We are given them by God in the very being we have received, a being that does not originate with us. …
The students also asked the delicate question of “How we can be in the world but not of it?” Praying in our room, meditating, going to Mass, Benedict says, does not “remove” us from the world. It rather “helps us be ourselves,” not subject to pervasive forces
“Dear friends, faith and prayer do not solve problems but rather enable us to face them with fresh enlightenment and strength, in a way that is worthy of the human being and also more serenely and effectively.”
