Br. Sixtus delivers his Church Talk

Good morning, everybody. A couple of weeks ago at the Church Assembly, Antonia Labbe’, or Tuni, from Santiago, shared with us her experience of being in St. Louis in early January. She and the other 6 members of Team Manquehue attended the national conference of FOCUS, and I was also blessed to be there with them. If you’ve never heard of FOCUS, you should know that it is an acronym. It stands for The Fellowship of Catholic University Students. There are FOCUS chapters at 200 college and university campuses all over the United States. Even though you are still in high school, I guarantee that, if you decide to go to college, most of you will hear about FOCUS sooner or later.

(Edward Jones) Dome at America’s Center in 2006

Their annual conference last month was called SEEK23, and the theme was “Be not afraid.” Several times a day, for five days, the seven young women from Chile and I were among the 17,000 participants, mostly college students, who walked under, or around, a large welcoming archway that proclaimed overhead: “Be not afraid.” (I’ve put a photo of it in the front of this ambo for you to take a look at later.) Apparently, that phrase, or variations of it, appears in the Bible 365 times. The New Jerusalem Bible translates it as, “Don’t be afraid,” and other versions might say, “Be fearless,” or “No fear,” or something similar. 365 times in the Bible means that for every single day of the year the message for us is, “Be not afraid.”

Those three words were not picked out of a Bible randomly by some marketing director or a branding expert. It was chosen because it was a favorite quote, throughout his pontificate, of Pope St. John Paul II who just happened to be the patron of SEEK23. His picture was everywhere. And every day for five days we participated in the Holy Mass and other events in the very NFL domed stadium in St. Louis where John Paul celebrated a Mass in 1999, just 24 years ago last month. “Be not afraid” shows up in the Gospels of Matthew (14:26-27) and Luke (12:4) and John (14:1), and throughout the Old Testament.

Br. Sixtus addressing the School

Have you ever had the experience of reading a word, or maybe hearing an old song, and then you keep hearing it again or reading it again in different contexts for weeks afterwards? This is happening to me right now. Two weeks after we returned from St. Louis, I was at the Providence Symposium presented by the Portsmouth Institute. A panelist, Stephen White from The Catholic Project at Catholic University in Washington, began his remarks by, as he put it, “paraphrasing a favorite quote from Pope St. John Paul II.” While he was a young man, a pilgrim, at World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, the Jubilee Year, Mr. White heard the Pope say, “Be not afraid; put out into the deep.” Mr. White reminded us that thirteen months later, in September 2001, the tragedy of 9/11 struck, and most of our country and others ached for the comfort of someone simply saying, “Be not afraid.”

Br. Sixtus with “Team Manquehue” in St. Louis

This week I finished a short book that was given to me at SEEK23 by the author, Greg Hendry, a former U.S. Army Ranger. He titled it, Power Priests: 12 Ordinary Men Who Accepted an Extraordinary Call. One of the power priests whom he profiles is John Paul II and Greg ended that chapter with this thought:

So much more could be shared about this saint and his influence on the church and church leaders who have followed his advice to be not afraid.
• “Be not afraid” to pursue healthy passions while balancing schoolwork.
• “Be not afraid” to share the message of Christ.
• “Be not afraid” to stand up to evil.
• “Be not afraid” to forgive.