by Bishop Nicholas Hudson

This morning you find me with the Westminster group of the first Catechesis of this World Youth Day. We were in the parish of San Francisco de la Caleta on the outskirts of Panama city and our catechist was Bishop Edward Jack Burns of Dallas.

Bishop Burns was opening up one of the major themes of this World Youth Day, ‘Here I am Lord, I come to do your will’ and he took his cue from the reading about young Samuel, who on hearing the Lord calling to him as he rested said, ‘speak Lord, your servant is listening.’ He said, ‘We should have a similar attitude in our hearts’ when we feel the Lord calling us to do something special for him with our lives.

Bishop Burns amused us by saying, ‘Don’t fall into the trap of when the Lord is asking you to do something really special for him, to reply, Lord this is your servant speaking to you and telling you what I should be doing with my life’. He added something touching about Jesus’ first disciples, how they abandoned Jesus in his moment of need and blended into the crowd.

Never blend into the crowd. Have the courage to stand out. That’s the message for each one of us today at any stage of our life.