For over a hundred years we’ve heard the foolish obituary, “God is dead!” The Enlightenment enlightened us to this truth and told us we were alone in the Universe. No God! We men are in charge and the center of all things. We shape our destiny, we create meaning for our existence, we can rid ourselves of old-fashioned religion and squash the Catholic Church (the source of our oppression and dillusions).
But now we are in the 21st century and the young people in Brazil with others flocking in from around the world have a message for the dusty old philosophers: “God is not dead! We experienced him on the beaches of Copacabana!”
They were there to experience the living God and to hear his vicar on earth. They were there to celebrate the same Mass that had been celebrated by the Apostles and the first Christians – and done so continuously for 2,000 years. The Pope said these young people are our future. He is right. And they are right – they’ve scorned the secular ideologies and “God is dead”.
They want and have found the truth. Religion is not dead. Secularism is dead. The Catholic Church is more relevant and alive today than ever.
I am proud to be a Catholic!
From Steve Ray in Lourdes France. I am watching thousands upon thousands of folks on the other side of the planet from Brazil, also reveling in the Faith of the Church and many of them being healed by the power of the very God who exists and is working in the world in the 21st century. Picture below taken this morning at the Grotto of Bernadette.
