Cul­ture is made up of be­liefs and be­hav­iours of a par­tic­u­lar group, be it eth­nic, so­cial, age or re­li­gious.For those of us born in­to and raised in a Catholic house­hold, there was no es­cap­ing Sun­day Mass at "un­god­ly" hours (awake and out of bed by 5.45 am), first com­mu­nion and con­fir­ma­tion.While as chil­dren we felt that our time could have been bet­ter spent, I for one could not help but feel a part of some­thing very im­por­tant. One could not ig­nore mom's ur­gency and ex­cite­ment.

For many of us, Catholic cul­ture end­ed with con­fir­ma­tion. We en­tered adult­hood and life hap­pened. The pres­sure was fi­nal­ly off, and we could get away with the bare min­i­mum. At­tend mass at Christ­mas, for New Year's, Palm Sun­day, Good Fri­day, East­er Sun­day, wed­dings and fu­ner­als. At best, we would be at church every Sun­day, in our usu­al spot, ful­fill­ing our oblig­a­tion to be present.

In the re­cess­es of our mind, we know that this rou­tine is not enough. For our true and rich Catholic cul­ture to sur­vive, there are some key el­e­ments that must be present in our way of life.We must re­claim our Catholic iden­ti­ty. Ac­cord­ing to Bish­op Ja­son Gor­don, we must be will­ing "to ac­cept or adopt what is pure and life-giv­ing, chal­lenge what is in­con­sis­tent or at vari­ance with our val­ues and re­ject or trans­form what is against the dig­ni­ty of hu­man­i­ty or the truth of God". (cf Re­vi­tal­is­ing Catholic Cul­ture and Iden­ti­ty: A Frame­work)

It is not enough just to have a pic­ture of Je­sus over our front door, or be in pos­ses­sion of a rosary. Our very lives, in thought, word and deed must re­flect our core be­liefs.The Word of God guides us in 2 Pe­ter 3:14 (NIV) "... make every ef­fort to be found spot­less, blame­less and at peace with Him."This is where prac­tice comes in­to play. We can­not be ef­fec­tive mis­sion­ar­ies if we do not per­son­alise and in­ter­nalise God's mes­sage. Psalm 85:10 (NIV) ex­plains it beau­ti­ful­ly, "Love and faith­ful­ness meet to­geth­er, right­eous­ness and peace, kiss each oth­er."

This be­hav­iour­al trans­fer starts in our fam­i­lies. We must be the ex­am­ple for our chil­dren, sib­lings and even par­ents. Re­mem­ber, we are not born this way, but as sin­ners need­ing sal­va­tion.God wants us to turn our lives around, to re­new the promis­es made at Bap­tism to re­ject Sa­tan, his works and pomp. And re­new our com­mit­ment to our faith at Con­fir­ma­tion; and so re­vi­talise our Catholic cul­ture.

Mark 1:4 tells us that John the Bap­tist came "preach­ing a bap­tism of re­pen­tance for the for­give­ness of sins."It is the ul­ti­mate pur­pose of our time here on earth, to spread God's mes­sage to the world. We are all aware that con­vey­ing this mes­sage is no easy task, but part of the re­ju­ve­na­tion process de­mands cre­ativ­i­ty.

For me, a great in­cen­tive for heed­ing the call to re­new­al is not know­ing the hour of His com­ing. Do we want to be caught out of char­ac­ter and out of sync with His plans? Do we want to be blamed for a lost soul?

You al­ready know the an­swer, and you al­ready know what must be done. Our Catholic cul­ture and iden­ti­ty must be seen in the choic­es we make and the things we do. And ever so of­ten, ask your­self as in 3 Pe­ter 3:11, "... what kind of peo­ple ought you to be...?"

Trudy Phillip

Catholic Youth Com­mis­sion

Bible Says

"Look, I am go­ing to send my mes­sen­ger be­fore you; he will pre­pare your way." (Mark 1: 2)

Fam­i­ly In Fo­cus

The Catholic Youth Com­mis­sion adopts a holis­tic ap­proach to the de­vel­op­ment of young peo­ple. It pro­vides re­sources and of­fers sup­port to parish youth co-or­di­na­tors and lead­ers of Catholic youth or­gan­i­sa­tions, and en­cour­ages the de­vel­op­ment of com­pre­hen­sive youth min­istry. For more in­for­ma­tion, call 624-0454; e-mail: rcytt@gmail.com; or vis­it their Face­book page at: face­book.com/rcyctt

A Catholic Me­dia Ser­vices Ltd fea­ture ar­ti­cle.