The emeritus bishop of Palmerston North, Peter Cullinane, has written a letter to senior secondary school students.
Entitled It’s All About Becoming, Cullinane says the letter is aimed at closing the gap that often exists between Church language and people’s lived experience.
He believes it is easier for young people to experience the wonder and joys of life and easier to navigate its troubled waters if they understand life as a process of becoming.
The bishop says people don’t merely live their lives on the planet as if on a stage, until time to exit. We are part of the life of the planet and the planet finds expression in us.
“Your life is not a chance in the long history of the universe. It is a calling, and it has a purpose.
“No other person could ever substitute for you.
“I hope you to be able to see that, and wonder at it!
“Each of us needs to come alive to the miracle of our own life and our place in the universe”, he writes.
Cullinane proposes a theological understanding that comes from our being part of a universe that is still a work in progress; unfinished business.
“In various ways, we are all incomplete. The important thing is that none of the dents and kinks in our lives (the ones we don’t choose) stands between us and God’s love for us”.
He concludes by citing the example of two young teenagers whom Pope Francis recently put on the path to sainthood; Alexia Gonzales Barros and Carlo Acutis. Each had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and rose above their sufferings to help others.
In living their lives to the full they were not defeated by their serious set-backs, he says. Seeing life as always unfinished, Cullinane encourages young people to talk about those disappointments.
“It’s easier to talk about our set-backs when we see our lives as part of an unfinished world, and our life as a process of becoming”.
It’s All About Becoming examines twelve of the ways in which we become, including the significance of the choices people make.
Later editions of CathNews will feature chapters from “All about Becoming.”
Sources
Supplied
Image: pndiocese.org.nz