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Rev. Robert Ketcham
Not long ago, Father Benedict Groeschel asked me about my teenage years and what they were like. I replied, "They were perfect". Well, apparently my mother overheard the exchange because she nudged me and said, "Don't lie to him". She was serious, and of course, she was right. But, so was I.
It is true that those years were not "perfect" in the sense that they were without fault or ugliness, but I have nevertheless become a man extremely grateful for everything, even the most painful of memories. I wouldn't trade any of it, because throughout all of it Jesus was seeking me with an understanding love, even to the point of calling me to the priesthood. And if I heard the call to follow him, other young men can too.
I was one of those young people you see in Church who look like they were literally dragged; their clothes are ripped and they seem to be in pain. I know the temptation is to laugh, but it is not funny to them. While teenage suffering may be mostly self-inflicted, their suffering is no less real and they deserve no less compassion than any other poor person of unfortunate circumstance and unhealthy environment.
 Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. How would you feel if your friends spoke to you the way their friends speak to them? All day long they hear vulgarity and profanity. Maybe you've been betrayed by someone during this last year; can you imagine it happening to you every few weeks? Even the entertainment they claim as their own, and the popular culture it creates, betrays them. They aren't stupid; they are suffering because deep down they resent the world for letting things become so absurd.
And so, rightly they blame the generation before them, just as the previous generation blamed the one before it - all the way back to Adam and Eve -
and all of them justified in doing so. It's perfectly good Theology: blame Adam and Eve. After all, who could fault a child for becoming sick at a diseased breast? Mtv may exploit young people in the throes of their adolescent insanity, but we do well to remember that Mtv is produced and funded by "big people".
And all day long these teens hear "act like an adult!", but then walk out into a world that treats them like children. The Church may have buried the idea of Limbo, but teenagers seem to have resurrected it in a kind of solidarity with what the term was trying to convey; they are like people trapped in a cellar who, having overheard the plan of the search party to stop looking for them, become frightened and begin to act unreasonably.
They are justified in their alarm. The cold winds of mediocrity are blowing and there is very little good, solid, moral support for them these days and they know it, even to the point of doubting that there is an objective truth, let alone a truth that is also good and personal. But, thanks be to God for those Christians and people of good will who refuse to give up on them, for many of them are future priests.
To be sure, some men will have remained pure. Every generation births these precious few, preserved and innocent from youth, shining like stars in the night and inspiring their friends with the same grace; these become holy and dedicated priests. But still more will emerge from the cellars of this culture, cold and damp. Christ will find them tax collectors and vulgar fishermen, wounded soldiers and playboys, murderers and adulterers. But, he will make them holy priests also, even pure. He will love them into love and he will warm their hearts. They will become, in and through his priesthood, beautiful men with the courage to call life good.
in Jesus and Mary
- fr robert
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