By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — The archbishop of Philadelphia reminded a sold-out men’s conference here to stand strong for the work of the Gospel despite allurements of the passing age.
“Just as memory anchors each person’s individual story, history plays the same role for cultures, nations and communities of faith. History is our shared memory,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap.
“When we Christians lose a strong grasp of our own history — our own unique story and identity — others will gladly offer us a revised version of all three — a version that suits their own goals and bigotries, and not necessarily the truth.”
Chaput was one of the speakers to an audience gathered at Xavier College Preparatory school for the Catholic Men’s Fellowship Conference here on February 3.
Between 1,200 and 1,500 attended, according to the hosts of The Catholic Man Show, Oklahomans Adam Minihan and David Niles, who brought their program for the day out from Tulsa to join in the faith-building activities and enthuse about the sunny, warm weather.
The archbishop said in his prepared text: “In the end, protecting and building up the Gospel witness in our age is the work of God. But He works through us. The privilege and challenge of that work belong to us. So, we need to ask ourselves: What do I want my life to mean?”
He continued: “If I claim to be a believing Catholic man, can I prove it with the patterns of my life? When do I pray? How often do I seek out the Sacrament of Penance? What am I doing for the poor? How am I serving the needy? Do I really know Jesus Christ? Who am I leading to the Church? How many young people have I asked to consider a vocation?”
Chaput commented later: “By the way, we Americans should remember that the words novus ordo seclorum are stamped on our own Great Seal of the United States. A ‘new order of the ages’ — that’s what the Founders intended this country to be. The potential for good in those words is exactly matched by the potential for vanity, ambition, and evil. And the less biblical we become as a people, the more the balance tips in the wrong direction.
“There’s only one way any of us will ever become a genuinely new man — a new man right down to our cell structure; the new man our families, our culture and our world need. It’s by giving ourselves totally to God. It’s by putting on the new man in Jesus Christ that Paul describes in Ephesians 4 (22-24) and Colossians 3 (9-17).”
Like it or not, Chaput said, “as Catholic men, we really are engaged in a struggle for the soul of a beautiful but broken world.”
The archbishop concluded: “Maleness, brothers, is a matter of biology. It just happens. Manhood must be learned and earned and taught. That’s our task. So my prayer for all of us today is that God will plant the seed of a new knighthood in our hearts — and make us the kind of ‘new men’ our families, our Church, our nation, and our world need.”
Other speakers on the conference schedule included Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted, Phoenix Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Nevares, Catholic expositor Hector Molina, Phoenix diocesan director of vocations Fr. Paul Sullivan, and diocesan vicar of evangelization Fr. John Parks.
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