Entering a new stage in life?

It’s graduation season and we have to find ways to help those transitioning from one level of education to the next, or from formal education to professional life.

We have to reassure them everything will be all right, as long as the necessary prudential norms are taken. They have to welcome the new experiences they will have, together with their new freedom and responsibilities.

Nowadays we have to embolden them to face the challenge of many new opportunities with a stout heart, while pointing out dangers these opportunities can have.

To face this challenge, we all need to constantly monitor things, discerning where they come from and where they are going, what spirit and ethos animates them, what messages or warnings the signs of the times give. We have to be pro-active or anticipative, not reactive.

Our faith urges us to be watchful. As Christ said, we need to be shrewd as serpents while remaining innocent as doves. We have to contend with the reality that while we may be sowing good seed, some bad elements will also sow weeds. We have to be patient and strong, but not naïve.

That is why we have to help those concerned to strengthen themselves spiritually, always seeing to it their relationship with God is made more firm.

We need to understand that one’s relationship is established and nourished when he learns how to pray, make sacrifices, have recourse to the sacraments, how to deepen his knowledge of the faith, how to lead a moral life, etc.

What is helpful is for us to be firmly grounded on our faith, which gives us a complete picture of what is proper to us, and to be very open-minded so we can catch the winds of change and adjust our sails accordingly.

We should avoid the extremes of mindless and heartless rigidity and also undirected flexibility. If we know our faith well, this is what we will learn.

Our faith teaches us to be constant in doing good, while patient in going through the twists and turns of our freedom. We have to learn how to flow with the times without getting lost. We should try to be sport in this task. We will make many attempts to win in some way, but we should know how to move on after some defeats.

Our faith will teach us to continue to evangelize the world, always adapting our evangelization to the new sensitivities of the people. “Non novus sed noviter,” we are told, preaching not new things but in a new way.

Everyone should help one another. The families, schools, parishes, and other institutions should be properly equipped to extend the help everyone needs.

Those concerned should be helped to learn how to open up to some competent people so that they can be more effectively helped in their concrete personal issues, difficulties, and problems. The practice of personal spiritual direction should be fostered.

That’s why everything should be done to encourage personal friendship and dialogue inspired by the Christian spirit.

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