In the past year I’ve been blessed to put my priestly ministry to work on the campus of York University, where my community, the Companions of the Cross, actively ministers through the Catholic Chaplaincy at York.

Seeing a 34-year-old priest walk around in clerics on campus rocks the world of a lot of people. Many students think Catholicism, celibacy and living a consecrated life for the Lord are a thing of the past. I get to help shatter that illusion.
The students are amused by some of the things I do, such as rollerblading into school every day and walking on my hands. They also tease me because I own an iPhone, which they can easily relate to. In many ways, I can also relate to them, but not just when it comes to gadgets.

A large percentage of the students at York come from Catholic schools or households, yet most of them no longer practise or “aren’t into” their faith. Many of them also consider themselves agnostic or atheist.

My own life was not unlike the lives of so many of the students on campus today. I grew up in what most people would call a good Catholic family. When I entered my teenage years I began to question the existence of God. It seemed to me that science could easily explain the phenomena of religion and religious experience. Historians, I thought, made it clear that most of the stories of the Bible were simply myths and legends. I too went through a stretch in my teen years where I wasn’t sure if God was real and where I saw the Church as irrelevant.

I started getting into the party scene and eventually found myself at a crossroads when it came to making moral decisions. Either I follow the rules of the Church and live like a good Catholic or I go the way of the world and allow my feelings and fallen passions to be the guiding forces in my life. Eventually I had a conversation with my father about whether or not a person could really experience God in this life. He pointed me to a few books on saints. Their example had a huge impact on my life. Inspired by the saints I established a discipline of daily prayer. Slowly I too began to experience God’s presence in my life. I also  began to study my faith more carefully and found answers to the questions I had.

The saint who had the biggest impact on my life, St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, was named patron saint of all priests last June by Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death.

I love working with students on the university campus. And in many ways the challenges we face at York are similar to those Fr. Vianney faced when he began his ministry in the French village of Ars. Everyone was Catholic in Ars; they just weren’t practising their faith. They had become lukewarm or indifferent and Fr. Vianney knew it was his mission to rekindle the faith among parishioners.

That’s what we’re trying to do at York. Reaching out to these young people is an urgent need. As a church we are losing our young people. It’s not an exaggeration to say that most young Catholics see their faith as irrelevant.

If we young priests don’t respond to the critical situation with young people in the church, who will? I don’t suggest that it’s all up to the priests. But certainly we have a responsibility to offer some leadership in the re-evangelization of our young Catholic people.

Oftentimes they’ve been taught incorrect things about the church or have developed misconceptions and misunderstandings about church teachings. So our main strategy is to offer different faith studies in the faith study room at the chaplaincy. We have a dozen students leading other students through the faith, mainly through Scripture. It’s a study group but it’s also an opportunity for students to disciple and mentor other students.

Christ is the centre of these studies, to bring students into an encounter with Jesus who is risen and alive. If the students open their hearts to the Lord, the Lord will come in and transform their life. Our job is to introduce them to the Lord and let the Lord do the work through the work of the Holy Spirit.

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