After a long cold winter many people are excited when it starts to warm up and Spring arrives. People even begin to experience ‘spring fever’. Perhaps most of us start feeling like cleaning out cupboards, shampooing carpets, planting that garden and buying flowers! There is this feeling of restlessness experienced at the onset of spring.
An American poet (Van Dyke) reminded us that the first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another! We are reminded that as well taking pleasure in the emerging buds which give hope in spring, we cannot discount the possibility of keen winds, cold spring showers and maybe even sudden storms! However, we do know for certain that bright flowers will bloom and bees will be busy as nature’s new life develops around us.
Yes, spring is a time of change and comes to us here in Australia when many of our children also are preparing for great change in their lives. Families experience some excitement that one phase is finishing and a new focus for the family is in the offing. Small children will soon start school; year six pupils will make a change to secondary school and most importantly our senior students, through the bridge of examinations, move forward from schooling into a new environment in our globalised world.
This period of late adolescence and early adulthood is a time when individual life ambitions and dreams can be tested. We are reminded of the season of spring: its sunshine and showers!
For our senior students the area of values becomes more and more challenging at this time of their lives. As our school leavers encounter individuals whose perspectives on personal morality, religion, alcohol and other drugs, and sex, differ from their own, they will be forced to reflect on their own values and make concrete decisions. “What’s ahead?” is part of the on-going challenge of the secondary school years. For many too, career choice remains hidden during these years and emerges with some clarity a little later on.
However, growing up in a Christian family and participating in the life of the parish, we learn gradually, over many seasons, how Christians respond to life. We observe how Christians feel about others; we learn the intuitive sense of how Christians treat their own bodies; we learn how Christians celebrate and what kinds of things bring us together for celebration. In conscious and unconscious ways, our feelings are formed by Christian values and hopes. Christian communities, such as the Diocese of Sandhurst provide the context, the modeling and the examples for this formation of feelings.
During this springtime, maybe we should reflect on ways in which we, as individuals, may make some changes in our own lives to better support our young people at the end of their schooling. Let us pray for their success in the forthcoming examinations; let us pray that all will be open to God’s call in their lives and that some will take up the invitation to the Priesthood and religious life.
Importantly, as adult Christians in the Diocese of Sandhurst, let us think about what support, and challenge and clarification we might need to offer our young people at this time, as they wrestle with powerful and confusing situations and ambitions. In order to do this, as individuals, we have to be very clear about our own faith and sense of purpose. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and also to ideas of rebirth, re-growth and renewal. In this Year of Grace we are especially conscious of God’s presence in our lives and in the moments of challenge and joy, His Grace lifts us to meet these challenges and heighten our joy. These ideas also invite us to the challenge of re-growth and renewal of faith and in particular to model our Christian faith: to ‘walk the talk’ for our youth.
St John reminds us: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life’. (5:24)
- Bishop Les Tomlinson, Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst, September 2012
