Saturday for Teens: Music!

Speaking personally, modern Christian music changed my life of faith forever. While the Holy Spirit did all the hard work on my heart, for me, music was the vehicle of conversion that helped me to fall in love with Christ, and launched me into an adult life in which I wanted to live boldly as a Catholic Christian! My husband chuckles, but music continues to be a way into my heart today.

So, I humbly share with you a piece of my heart!  For the teens at Saint Agnes, maybe you will find a new artist who inspires you, a song that is relevant, or a hymn that reminds you to pray during a difficult moment.  Only the Holy Spirit can know what difference it might make to you!

In this season of Lent, we are all called to repent of our sins and return to the Lord.  This is such an important season of renewal because Christianity can sometimes become difficult - or even trite - in the hands of perfectionists (like me).  Lent reminds us what is at the heart of Christianity, which is not a race of perfect people. Rather, it is a family unified by their recognition of sinfulness and their salvation in the forgiveness and love of God; the person Christ Jesus. Christians (as we too often forget) should steer themselves away from the image of being a self-perfected person! Lent reminds us that only through repentance and the merits of Christ are we sanctified and drawn closer to the Lord (Hebrews 10). Countless biblical stories teach us that sometimes these failures can have triumphant endings! Christian music, often impassioned with stories of failure, difficulty, and triumph in Christ, carries this compelling message in its lyrics. Accepting failure in obedience to God's will is the realization of many great saints!

Saint Josephine Bakhita, who was enslaved and abused before becoming a religious sister said if she could meet her captives again:

"I would kneel and kiss their hands. For if those things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”

Pope Francis during a Mass in his Americas 2016 trip:

"We are often the slaves of appearances and allow ourselves to pursue appearances: ‘But God knows the truth’.... We have all been chosen by the Lord to be baptized, to be part of His people, to be saints; we have been consecrated by the Lord on the path towards sainthood. Reading about this life [King David], the life of a child – no… not a child, he was a boy – from boyhood to old age, during which he did many good things and others that were not so good. It makes me think that during the Christian journey, the journey the Lord has invited us to undertake, there is no saint without a past and no sinner without a future."

“To your Mercy, O Lord, I entrust my past. My present, to your Love, and my future, to your Providence.”

-Saint Padre Pio-

Here's an article discussing the obedience of Christ to the messiness of the Father's will; a sanctifying act for us all.

"Here the will of God is done, as God wills, and as long as God wills."

-Saint Gerard Majella-