By Eric Martin
Arguably one of the most down-to-earth Australian Bishops, Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green, from the Wilcannia-Forbes Diocese in Western NSW, was tasked with equipping the young pilgrims of the Australian Catholic Youth Festival 2019 (ACYF), with strategies that would enable them to take something from ACYF and keep it going once they get home.
“What happens after you go from here? I mean this is pretty cool: you get to pray together; you’ve got good music; you’ve got good talks, good energy; the Holy Spirit is all around you – you can almost feel that energy from the Holy Spirit; and then you go home…” Bishop Columba asked in his laconic drawl.
“For some of you, home might be you go to your parish church, with 20 people in the church, and Betty, who’s 106, playing the organ with music that’s not all that inspiring. And you look around the church and there’s people who are not particularly that inspiring [either].
“Or, you go back and then life weighs you down,” he said.
“You’ve had three days of “this is great,” but then you’ve got to go back to school, or you’ve to go back to work and all of your problems are waiting for you back there: the assignments, your colleagues; your family, your friends, your enemies; they’re all there waiting for you to get off that plane.
“So you’ve got to have some strategies to take your faith, that’s been enlivened over these last couple of days, to take it back home with you, that’s really, really important or otherwise it’s just going to be a waste.”
Bishop Columba used the example of the disciples on top of Mount Tabor to describe the pilgrims’ return home: the disciples were so enraptured with their experience with Jesus atop the mountain that they asked to make some tents and stay there.
But Jesus answered, ‘No, you’ve got work to do. You have to go back down the mountain.’
His first point was that we are always responsible for our own actions.
“You are responsible for you and your choices. Yet today we’re always victims, we’re always making excuses for ourselves – our world does this continually,” Bishop Columba said.
“No, you are responsible for yourself.
“You’re not responsible for all of the things that happen to you, but you have control over what you do from now on and for how you respond to what happens in your life.
“You can say, ‘I don’t like the way that my life is going right now,’ and I’m going to make some changes: Yes!”
He explained to the youth that mankind is made with great dignity, but being made in the image and likeness of God, we all have to make the decision whether or not to follow Christ Jesus: God is not going to make you love him, if he did then there would be no love.
“We can choose to say, ‘No, I don’t want to repent; I don’t want to change my life.’ You can choose to say no – but own that, because one day we will be called before the Lord Jesus Christ and we will have to be accountable for our choices.
“It’s through difficult things that we grow, so don’t worry because it’s difficult, ‘Aw it’s all too hard.” No, it’s not too hard: it’s difficult, but you grow through difficulties,” Bishop Columba explained.
“It’s ok to fail at things, it’s what we do when we fail: How do we learn from that failure for next time? We need to fail at things in order to grow.”
Bishop Columba shared a story that had the audience in stiches, regarding how God also works to ensure that we also stay humble, as well grow and develop into our true selves, in relationship with God.
“If we grow out of ourselves and we get to big, sometimes God will give us opportunities for grace and for humility,” he said.
“So don’t worry about that, humility is just being truthful. When we get out in the world, be humble and say, ‘I can’t control everything, I need God.’
“That’s humility, to see where you are in God’s creation, you need God’s grace each and every day.
“And there’s somethings you can’t do, and you realise that it’s not the end of the world. Don’t be afraid of humility out there.
“Be confident in the love of God. This is just a little glitch, it’s not the end of the world.”