My Dear Young Friends
My son just made his Confirmation. About a month or so ago, my wife and I where trying to decide what to get him as a gift. We didn’t want to just give him something secular. We wanted to give him something meaningful to make this special sacrament something he would remember. My wife had heard about a book for young people that had something to do with Pope John Paul II. We did a little searching on the web and we found “My Dear Young Friends” edited by John Vitek. We ordered the book and luckily it arrived in advance of his Confirmation. It was late on the day of his Confirmation when we gave him his presents. Our son was about to go to bed when we gave him the book. He looked disappointed. All of his friends were getting “good” gifts like money and video games and all he got was a “lousy” book. We then gave him a video game and, as we expected, his face lit up. That night is when the magic happened. He is allowed to read in bed before he goes to sleep, so he decided to read a couple of pages of the book. Well, the quotes caught his attention and he ended up reading all 52 quotes before he finally fell asleep. The next day he told me that he liked the book and had put in bookmarks for all of his favorite quotes. He also told me that starting in January he is going to read a reflection a week and try to put the recommended actions into practice. Well, my son is 12 and come January we will see how much he actually follows through on his promise. I for one am going to keep my fingers crossed and say a few prayers. However, his comments certainly act as a pretty good recommendation for the book and so far it looks like getting him the book was one of my wife’s best ideas.
The book contains 52 weekly reflections for young people. Each reflection is broken down into 5 parts. They include a quote from Pope John Paul II, something to think about related to the quote, some recommended action to take, a short prayer and an interesting fact about Pope John Paul II. Here are a couple of my son’s favorite quotes.
- “What must I do? What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do so that my life may have full value and meaning? The youth of each one of you, dear friends, is a treasury that is manifested precisely in these questions.”
- “To be truly free does not at all mean doing everything that pleases me or doing what I want to do. . . . To be truly free means to use one’s own freedom for what is a true good.”
- “Little by little you recognize the ‘talent’ or ‘talents’ which each of you has, and you begin to use them in a creative way, you begin to increase them.”
- “Be in this world bearers of Christian faith and hope by living love every day. Be faithful witnesses of the Risen Christ, never turn back before the obstacles that present themselves on the paths of you lives. I am counting on you. On your youthful energy and your dedication to Christ.”
posted by CatholicFatherOf2 @ 2:01 PM
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