High school students from all over the United States and Canada came to New York City to meet with Fr. Julián Carrón on Saturday afternoon at the New York Encounter. They came excitedly, with the awareness that this was a privileged moment for them. Entering the assembly filled with questions, they seemed to carry a sense of the greatness of their desires and an expectation that Fr. Carrón would help them grow and understand the questions that were born within them. “It depends on how much we love ourselves and are interested in answering all the questions reality places in front of us,” Fr. Carron insisted. “It’s a problem of affection for ourselves. Life urges us to take seriously the questions that arise.”

"Christ is a presence that doesn’t solve the questions according to our own ideas. He is a companionship."

Sara from Toronto told Fr. Carrón of the sadness that she experiences, a sadness that does not originate in any bad circumstances, but from a nostalgia that came about after having encountered Christ in Rimini this past summer: “I do not know what to do with this sadness. Nothing seems to make me happy I found Christ in Italy this past summer, but I haven’t been able to find Him that way again. How do I face this sadness?” Loyal to her experience, Fr. Carrón went to the root of the mystery of her sadness, saying, “What we desire is greater than all that we can do with our own energy. This is grace: that you are not able to overcome this sadness. You need some kind of answer to this nostalgic sadness. Our development makes us more aware of this mystery. We are made for something so big that nothing can answer this nostalgic sadness.” He then continued, not with a solution, but offering a promise: “What is your advantage? You have met someone: Christ. You have the intuition that Christ could be an answer to this nostalgic sadness. Try to verify that, by accepting Him as a presence, and you will have an experience that He is the fullness of life, and thereby overcome this sadness.”

In a technological age when a teenager can quickly find answers to questions by a single touch, Peter from New York asked Fr. Carrón if there is a faster way to find the solutions to the questions of the heart. Fr. Carrón responded, “The solution is not to solve the questions. The solution is a Presence that awakens again and again the desire to see someone you love. Christ is a presence that doesn’t solve the questions according to our own ideas. He is a companionship with which we can face everything and make everything interesting.”

Even though access to information can be easily obtained, all their doubts have not been resolved. John from Minnesota asked, “I start to doubt everything when I am down. I get angry at myself and I am overtaken. Why do I have so much doubt?” With a fatherly gaze toward him and everyone in the room, Fr. Carrón answered, “Your questions are related to this beautiful and dramatic moment of your life–you are growing and your needs are exploding! So we are so confused. We are becoming men and women. You are feeling the greatness of your desire! We need to recognize this is part of the mystery of our life. The mystery of our life is a Person, a mystery creating you now! Accept that your life is open to this mystery. We know His name–Christ. No one else can answer this desire. What is the meaning of this moment? Who is the companion who can answer this dramatic moment? If you remain alone you can’t bear the situation.”

The mystery of our life is a Person, a mystery creating you now! Accept that your life is open to this mystery.

The GS students are becoming young adults, with a great sense of expectation from life, while at the same time feeling the fragility of not being able. They want to see Christ at home just as they see Him in the presence of their friends, yet distractions leave them forgetful of Him. They want to love just as they are loved, yet find themselves hurting those to whom they wish to be close. What the GS students expressed as their poverty–of having a great desire to be true and yet not being able to fulfill this–Fr. Carrón saw as their greatness. “We need to recognize that the answer is not to keep forcing ourselves but the contrary: it is to accept that you are loved by somebody else. Jesus asks you, ‘Do you accept being embraced by Me?’” The path to maturity that he proposed is the childlike attitude of accepting love, of recognizing that what we receive is greater than what we do. “This is openness to being loved: to receive the only One who can fill our lives and make us able to share this love with others.”