Wednesday 17 March 2010

Free and faithful



The recent Campion College Retreat was a true high-point in the College year; a way of asking God to fill us with grace as we begin our academic studies. We expressed in our demeanour during the retreat and by our happiness, what it is to be free and faithful in Christ. What it means to be Christian men and women today, open to God and open to one another. This retreat was just the beginning of a process of human and Christian maturity - that it is in seeking to live the Christian life at the heart of the Church that we are building the Catholic identity of Campion College.

During Sydney World Youth Day the Holy Father said that "the grace of the Spirit is not something we can merit or achieve, but only receive as a pure gift. God's love can only unleash its power when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires."

As chaplain to the College, I do believe that the Holy Father's words took real shape for us during the retreat, and that Christ's company during those days has lead us all to know that building our relationship with Him is our greatest and truest challenge. A challenge that will lead us to make Campion College a seed-bed of the life of the Church, and for each one of us to desire to make a truly human contribution to the world in which we live. But we ask for that gift of the Spirit to continue to make our lives and our studies bear fruit for God. That "power", the Holy Father said, "which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within [us]."

2 comments:

torchofthefaith said...

Dear Father

Thank you for posting these items. It is so good to read about these quality Catholic institutions helping young people to come to Christ and mature in Him.

It's great you're there for them.

These places truly represent fundamental building blocks forming the hope of the West.

In Christ
Alan and Angeline

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