Pope: "The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ"

EWTN.com - Pope Tells Young People: You Are the Hope of the Chruch

"As he did with Augustine, so the Lord comes to meet each one of you. He knocks at the door of your freedom and asks to be welcomed as a friend. He wants to make you happy, to fill you with humanity and dignity. The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ, the living Person Who gives life a new horizon and thereby a definitive direction."

"The Lord calls each of us by name, and entrusts to us a specific mission in the Church and in society'. He constantly renews His invitation to you to be His disciples and His witnesses. Many of you He calls to marriage, and the preparation for this Sacrament constitutes a real vocational journey. Consider seriously the divine call to raise a Christian family, and let your youth be the time in which to build your future with a sense of responsibility. Society needs Christian families, saintly families!"

"...And if the Lord is calling you to follow Him in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life, do not hesitate to respond to His invitation. In particular, in this Year for Priests, I appeal to you, young men. ...The Church in every country, including this one, needs many holy priests and also persons fully consecrated to the service of Christ, Hope of the world."

"Hope! This word, to which I often return, sits well with youth. You, my dear young people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope."

-Pope Benedict XVI, message to young people at Melnik, Czech Republic, 28 September 2009

Fr. McBrien: embarrassed at Jesus' Presence?

Perpetual eucharistic adoration - National Catholic Reporter

"...there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually. Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward."

-Fr. Richard McBrien, Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame

I feel badly for Fr. McBrien, but at least now much of his past dissent from the Gospel message makes more sense. He admits that Jesus is "sacramentally" present in the Eucharist, but he speaks as one who does not believe Jesus is "really" there, perhaps not really anywhere.

And if, as he says, "The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually", then why did Jesus bother to give us the other sacraments at all? And why ever bother praying, outside of Mass?

Fr. McBrien, what misery must You feel if You -a priest beloved of Jesus- not only despise Jesus' teachings, but no longer can even recognize His Presence? How black must be that night.

I pray You will find Him, know Him, and love Him, before You finally have to give an account to Him. Perhaps meditating on this prayer may help You:

May the sacred Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, now, and until the end of time.