CHARLOTTE — Students crowded into the gym for Mass at Charlotte Catholic High School this morning to hear from Bishop Michael Martin, who urged them to focus on Jesus with enthusiasm.
But first, the teens got a wake-up call from their new bishop at the start of the Mass. When the group responded with a weak “amen” during the introductory rites, he channeled his former coaching self.
“We’re going to try again!” he exclaimed. “Let’s put some heart and desire to praise our God into it and sound like we mean it! Our God deserves our attention!”
The students immediately perked up, responding with a loud “Amen!”
In his homily, the former Catholic educator and coach focused on three characters described in the day’s Gospel from Mark, which recounts the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist. (Aug. 29 is the feast day, or memorial, of his death.)
The story of John the Baptist’s beheading may not seem relevant to students today, the bishop acknowledged, but it offers important lessons for navigating life’s challenges.
The Gospel story features three characters, he explained: Herod’s cruel wife Herodias, her daughter Salome, and St. John the Baptist himself.
Herodias wanted John the Baptist to be killed for criticizing her illegitimate marriage to Herod. She symbolizes people who ruin their lives by making wrong, selfish decisions, Bishop Martin said.
“None of us ... ever starts out thinking that we’re going to do something really, really bad,” he said. “Don’t think you’re not capable of doing something really, really wrong. You are, I am. It’s all part of the broken human condition.”
The bishop then asked the students to repeat after him: “I am one poor choice away from disaster.” Then he reminded them that everyone is accountable for their actions – to one other and to God.
The teenaged Salome, the bishop continued, was about the same age as many of the students and spent her time “gliding through life dancing for everyone, without ever thinking what she’s doing.” She ended up dancing for Herod’s guests and following Herodias’s suggestion to ask Herod for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.
Anyone could easily end up in a similar situation of being dragged without thinking into bad situations by their friends or others, the bishop said. He urged them to seriously consider their decisions so they can make good choices.
The martyred John the Baptist offers a model way of life, Bishop Martin said.
“John the Baptist focused on proclaiming Jesus as Lord – he recognized Jesus even from the womb,” he said. “Focus upon Him along the course of this year…show who you are and what you’re about. Be singularly focused on Jesus and willing to take small steps each and every day to say, 'This is who I am, this is who my God is, and this is how I choose to live.'"
At the end of his visit, Bishop Martin granted Charlotte Catholic students the following day off from school – in keeping with a tradition when the bishop visits a Catholic school.
— Christina Lee Knauss. Photos by Troy Hull and video by César Hurtado.
