Spiritual GPS: Advice to Youth and to the Rest of Us!

Spiritual GPS: Advice to Youth and to the Rest of Us! August 18, 2011

Young people attending World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid need a “Spiritual GPS” tuned to three things:  the Word of God, the Bread of Life, and the Virgin Mary.

So says Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and president of Caritas Internationalis.  The cardinal also served as president of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) from 1995 to 1999.

The Honduran prelate is one of the bishops selected to offer catecheses to the youth gathered  in Madrid this week.  In the first of his three talks, he urged Spanish-speaking teens to get their lives on track and to become living stones, to “build on a rock, listening to the Word and putting it into practice.”  Using the familiar gospel passage, he reminded young people to build their lives on a firm foundation. 

Using the metaphor of the Global Positioning System, the Cardinal reminded young people that

 
 
 
 
 
 

“If the point of reference is no longer God, society is disoriented.  And it is striking that a world such as the present one—which has such advanced technology for orientation as the GPS—is disoriented.”

It’s not just the young who need a pathfinder to navigate the cultural climate.  This is good advice for the rest of us, too.


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