Archbishop Vincent Nichols, President of the Bishops’ Conference, has told thousands of young people from across England and Wales to listen to the call of the Lord to avoid losing their inner selves to simply become “part of a mass movement”.
Speaking at the Flame Youth Congress at Wembley Arena, the Archbishop said:
“The Lord’s knocking upon our hearts isn’t the noise of one demanding entry, rather the enquiring knock of one seeking us out in gentleness and love. I hope that during this day each of you has both heard the Lord knocking on that door and opened it to him. This is a crucial experience which shapes our entire lives, our understanding of who we are and who we’re called to be.
“The one who knocks is the light of the world, by which we see things as they truly are: ourselves, our actions, our neighbours, our family, our society, and our pathway ahead. Others try to cast a different light on all these things. There are some very bright lights around: blinding lights whose brightness stuns us, causing us to lose our sense of balance; strobe lights beguiling and seducing us with their rhythm and effects so that we lose our inner self and become simply part of a mass movement; customer-designed lights, leading us to think we can each provide our own light, our own values, our own individual pathway through life.
“The light of Christ is none of these: it’s steady, warm, inviting. It’s a revelation, not a personal invention. It’s a gift offered from outside of us, yet longing to find a home within us, to penetrate the darkness we so easily sense within ourselves.”
