Often it is the case that some older Catholics will lament about how many young people lose the faith after they graduate from high school. Many of these children were taught the Catholic faith from infancy and even attended Catholic schools.
Yet, all that knowledge about Jesus and the Church did not sustain their faith as they navigated the many storms of life.
What was missing in their lives? What could bring them closer to Christ?
An encounter with Jesus
St. John Paul II dealt head-on with this topic in a letter to the youth of Rome in 1997:
You have certainly heard of [Jesus] since you were small. But let me ask you a question: Have you really met him? In faith have you had a living experience of him as a loyal and faithful friend, or does his image still seem too far removed from your real problems to excite any interest?
It's possible to attend Catholic school throughout your entire life and never to have "met" Jesus in an intimate way.
What this means is changing our view of Jesus as a historical figure, but someone who is living and by our side, as St. John Paul II explains:
Jesus is not only a great figure of the past, a teacher of life and morals. He is the risen Lord, the God who is close to every person, to whom we can speak and with whom we can experience the joy of friendship, hope in time of trouble and the certainty of a better future.
Young people are often not presented with this simple reality that God is not "in the clouds," but next to them. He is standing at the door, knocking at their hearts.
Jesus is someone who wants to be involved in every person's life. He wants to be with us in our joys and sorrows and most of all, to love us.
What young people need to do is to open up to that love, as St. John Paul II proclaims:
Dear young people, who does not want to love and to be loved? But to experience sincere love, you must open the door of your heart to Jesus and take the way he marked out with his own life: the way of self-giving. This is the secret to the success of any real call to love, particularly of that call born in a surprising way in an adolescent's heart which leads to marriage, the priesthood or the consecrated life.
If we want young people to keep the faith when they are older, they need to "meet" Jesus on the road of their lives.
Knowledge is good, but it needs to lead to something deeper, an encounter with the Risen Lord.
