ADDRESS GIVEN BY ARCHBISHOP DENIS HART AT THE THIRD CATECHESIS FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY ON FRIDAY, 18TH JULY 2008 AT 9.30 A.M., AT SAINT BRENDAN’S, ANNANDALE.

“Sent out into the world:  the Holy Spirit, the principal agent of mission.”

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.”
(Act 1:8)


My dear young friends,

What are you looking for from your life?  Is it security, happiness?  Is it the relief from injustice?  Is it that the world might become a more just and tolerant place?  Is it that you might make enough money to be very comfortable?  Is it to be happy and have a family?

Pope Benedict touches this theme when he asks in his Message for World Youth Day:  “Many young people view their lives with apprehension and raise many questions about their future. 

They anxiously ask: How can we fit into a world marked by so many grave injustices and so much suffering?  How should we react to the selfishness and violence that sometimes are seen to prevail?  How can we give the full meaning to life?  How can we help to bring it about that the fruits of the Spirit ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’ can fill this scarred and fragile world, the world of young people most of all?  On what conditions can the life-giving Spirit of the first creation and particularly the second creation, or redemption become the new soul of humanity?  Let us not forget that the greater gift of God and the gift of the Spirit of Jesus is the greatest of all, but so much greater is the world’s need to receive it and therefore the greater and more exciting is the Church’s mission to bear creditable witness to it.”  (Message, 7)

If we go back to the upper room, Jesus has ascended to his Father, Mary and the apostles are gathered there praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  They really are afraid that the Jews might come and get them now that Jesus was gone.  They were uncertain as to who the Holy Spirit was.  All they knew was that he is the Spirit of truth, he would stay with them.  Jesus also said:  “It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and in Samaria and to the end of the earth.”  (Acts 1:6-8)

So the answer to our questions has to come from God’s Word.  We know that the Bible has survived, almost unique among literature, for two thousand years.  It has been inspiration to Christians because it has been a living experience of God reaching out into human lives and transformed them.  Just imagine, people in wartime have hidden from hostile armies, the apostles and Our Lady were hiding in the upper room from that situation and immediately there was transformation.  Peter and John and the other apostles went out baptising thousands. 

They were no longer afraid.  We too remember the words of Jesus used frequently in the Gospel:  “Do not be afraid little flock, for it has pleased our heavenly Father to give you the kingdom.”  For this reason, dear friends, it is important for us to remember that the Gospel does not only operate two thousand years ago.  It is just as real and practical in our time and it brings us forward to realise those great possibilities.

In this World Youth Day we are learning that holiness is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  One of the fascinating things I have about knowing Jesus is the way in which he taps you on the shoulder and challenges you to go that little bit further.  That is because he gives us the Holy Spirit.  Bishop Tom Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, said:  “The Holy Spirit and the task of the Church.  The two march together hand in hand.  We cannot talk about them apart. 

Despite what you might think from excited talk about new spiritual experiences, God does not give people the Holy Spirit in order to let them enjoy the spiritual equivalent of a day out.  ….. equally the task of the Church cannot be attempted without the Spirit.  Sometimes Christian people talk as though having done what is done in Jesus, God now wants us to do our part by getting on with things under our own steam.  Without God’s Spirit there is nothing we can do that will count for God’s kingdom.  Without God’s Spirit the Church simply cannot be the Church.”  Or to put it another way:  “The Spirit is given to make God’s future real in the present.  This is the most important point to grasp about the work of this strange personal power for which so many images are used.  Just as the resurrection opened up the unexpected world of God’s new creation, so the Spirit comes to us from that new world, the world waiting to be born, the world in which peace and justice will flourish and the world will lie down side by side - God’s future world.”  (The Holy Spirit in the Church, 29/4/2005)

Holiness following Jesus is not just for us.  It is to engage us in the world.  “The Spirit is the strange personal presence of the living God himself, leading, guiding, warning, rebuking, grieving over our failings and celebrating our small steps towards our true inheritance.  The Spirit is the one who joins heaven and earth together.”  (Bishop Tom Wright, ibid.)

My dear young friends, by coming to World Youth Day you show that you want to do something.  Certainly you love Jesus.  Certainly you are grateful for your membership of the Church and for your faith, but we want to be part of the mission. That is why we want to know the same power that the apostles knew when the Holy Spirit came.  You will receive power  …  only Christ can fulfil our most intimate inspirations and through the power of his Spirit he instils divine charity within us and this makes us capable of loving our neighbour and ready to be of service. 

The Holy Spirit reveals Christ crucified and risen and shows us how to be more like him so that we can be “the image and instrument of the love which flows from Christ”.  (Deus Caritas Est, 33)  If we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit, then we have to place ourselves at the service of the Gospel.  The transmitting of this good news is absolutely urgent. 

The Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelisation (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 75) and the principal agent of mission (Redemptoris Missio, 21).  Loving and following Jesus and being open to his Holy Spirit means above all to let God work in and through us in whatever way is possible.

It is really the love of Christ which urges us on.  We cannot love Christ and be holy and faithful to him without allowing what Christ encourages us to do, where he leads us, to be an absolute top priority.  Bearing witness to the faith is more necessary than ever today.  Some people wrongly think that to present the precious treasure of faith to people who do not share it means being intolerant to them.  Yet the example shown in the early days of the Church is to be Christ’s witnesses in the world.  Evangelisation is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and comes from the heart.

Pope Benedict said in his Message:  “Today too there is a need for disciples of Christ to give unstintingly of their time and energy to serve the Gospel.  There is a need for young people who will allow God’s love to burn within them and who will respond generously to his urgent call, just as many young blesseds and saints did in the past and in more recent times.  I assure you that the Spirit of Jesus today is inviting you young people to be bearers of the good news of Jesus to your contemporaries.  The difficulty that adults find in approaching this sphere of youth could be a sign by which the Spirit is urging you young people to take this yourself.  You know the ideals, the language and all the wounds and expectations and at the same time the desire for goodness felt by your contemporaries.  Each one of you must have courage to promise the Holy Spirit that you will bring one young person to Jesus Christ in the way you consider best, knowing how ‘to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but to do it with gentleness and reverence’”.  (cf.  1 Peter 3:15) 

You need to be holy.  You must be missionaries.  Jesus invites you and supports you with his call.  That is why I will continue with some words about that call.

Part 2

For our life the Spirit gives a strong invitation.  The Spirit is the strange personal presence of the living God himself; leading, guiding, warning, rebuking, grieving over our failings and celebrating our small steps towards true inheritance.  (Bishop Tom Wright, The Holy Spirit in the Church, 29th April 2005)

Today we are being invited to fall in love with Jesus and follow him and to live under the Spirit.  This would always include a consideration of what Jesus wants us to do with our life.  Cardinal Newman reminded us that God has created us to do him some special service.  We are fortunate to know that God loves us as if we are the only person in the world.  For that reason, as we come to know Jesus and find in him a strength for life and for whatever may be our call, it is important that we develop a regular life of prayer.  Sunday Mass is our important public involvement with God.  Each day we should open our hearts to God in prayer.  He invites us to give of our love and our talents in building this world of love when he says, “love one another as I have loved you”. 

Jesus is a great teacher and leader.  He used his power and care as God to draw people to follow him.  He invites each one of us here.  Then he instituted the Eucharist, the permanent reminder of his presence and went on to die but to rise again to show that God’s presence is active.

It is important for each of us to consider whether God is inviting us to some particular work for him.  It may be priesthood for the young men.  It may be consecrated life for young men and women.  It may be holy married life, devoted to God, devoted to family, devoted to children.  It may be to single life and the use of one’s talents, whether in teaching or research.  Whatever it may be God is inviting us to think seriously about his plan for us.  Only in saying ‘yes’ to his plan will we find true and lasting happiness.

Sometimes people comment that there are not as many consecrated people and priests in the world as there were forty years ago.  Remember that God never ceases to give his invitation.  He is looking for generous hearts, in love with Jesus Christ, filled with hope and ready to go on the journey that the Lord will plan.

My own experience of forty-one years of priesthood, eleven years as a bishop, and eight years before that as a seminarian, is that I have had a breadth of experience, many challenges and a great happiness which has come and made all the greater because I know I have been doing those things which were God’s plan for me, never expected.

I have never had an angel come from heaven and tap me on the shoulder.  I have had good people who have reassured me of my abilities, others who have presented challenges and invitations from Jesus and I have had wonderful parents and a family that supported my desire to try and serve God and people in a special way.  God has a special plan for each of you.

Gerard Manly Hopkins, the Jesuit, said:  “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.  Heaven and earth are already full of God’s glory.  While the world has been darkened, for the morning to break again upon it the Holy Spirit must brood over the world.  The Spirit given afresh on the day of Pentecost comes to invite you to share in making creation new, being guided by the Spirit and achieving great possibilities for love and for service.”

Confirmation gives us special strength to witness to God and glorify him with our whole lives.  By allowing us to be guided by the Spirit, each baptised person can bring our own contribution to the building up of the Church because of the gifts given by the Spirit for the common good.  When the Spirit acts he brings his gifts for the soul, namely, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.  (Galatians 5:22)

We are invited to proclaim the beauty and joy of the Gospel to our very secular societies.  When Jesus invites us he invites us to love.  When Jesus calls us he gives us the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he assures us of the power that we can achieve what he wants.

My recommendation is, entrust yourself to Jesus.  Do not be afraid of what he might ask.  Trust him.  He will supply the necessary help.  Mary was with the apostles praying in the upper room, waiting for Pentecost.  Their fear was replaced by joy when the Holy Spirit came. 

My dear friends, remember the Church has confidence in you.  We pray that you may love and lead others to love Jesus more and more and that you may follow him faithfully.  Do not be afraid of giving your life to him through priesthood and consecrated life.  Whatever your chosen vocation may be, make God part of the decision, go forward trustfully and with hope, knowing that Jesus will send you the Holy Spirit, the greatest friend of all, who will never desert you, who will walk with you forever.

May God bless you and give you peace and enable you to know how important are your gifts for God, for the Church, and for the world.


+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.