The Lord sends out twelve men today, men each with his own complicated history, his own trials and ways the Lord still needs him to grow. One particularly comes to mind, the ex-tax collector Matthew. When the tax collectors went out to John the Baptist and asked what they needed to do to truly repent, he told them, “Collect no more than is appointed.”

          John gives them the minimum: stop committing sins of injustice by collecting more than people owe, growing rich off others’ poverty. But for one particular tax collector, Christ was not content merely to call him to the minimum requirement of the moral law. To the tax collector Matthew, he makes an invitation to something greater, to evangelical perfection. The same really could be said of any of the other apostles. They each had their professions and regular lives, each of which could be lived to the fullest for the greater glory of God. But for those twelve, the Lord had something greater in mind.

          In the three weeks I have been here, I have seen something similar happening in one beautiful and unique aspect of the character of this parish: a remarkable number of couples embracing God’s call to the vocation of matrimony from a very young age, being open to the gift of life in children from the start of their marriage. In comparison with so many of their peers, to say “yes” to this invitation like St. Matthew, or like Peter, Andrew, James, and John who immediately left their nets and their father and the hired servants in the boat to follow the Lord, this is to accept an invitation to radical trust, in the face of so many doubts about relationships, about commitments, about who you even are.

          Some people would say that marrying young and having children young is “countercultural.” This is how most of my generation, at least the ones who grew up in the Church, participating in youth ministry or going to Catholic school, were formed (best case scenario, that is). There’s a culture out there that’s opposed to your Catholic faith, but you need to be counter-cultural and fight back!

But it didn’t work. The vast majority of us (the millennial generation, the ones currently in our late twenties through early forties – raised mostly by the baby boomer generation) had no interest in being counter-cultural. Even if a spark was there while we were in youth group or Catholic high school, how many of those kids in my youth group or Catholic high school actually ended up being “countercultural” in that way? With all sincere respect for the very well intentioned, very dedicated youth group volunteers, Catholic school teachers, etc.: very, very few.

It turns out that being counter-cultural is not actually a good way to be authentically Catholic. The reason is that what we oppose is not a culture. It is an anti-culture. A culture is something that is alive, that fosters growth – think of a bacteria culture. It is living and dynamic, with the potential to grow and develop into something new. What John Paul II called “the culture of death,” what poisons the minds of our children and ours too with lies about who we are as men and women, and what God made us for, this is not a culture.

I submit that young people in this parish are willing to reject these lies, to live with the joyful hope that young marriage and young parenthood expresses so beautifully and so eloquently, because they have been formed not in a counterculture, but in a true culture. They know, on a really deep level, that they were made for this. It is not a surprise that most of the couples making these decisions come from families that made similar choices (or at least one of them did, and the other has found that vision of marriage and family life to be compelling). Going through drawers and cabinets while getting settled in, I came across our archive of parish directories. Aside from your amusing 90s hairdos and attire, I particularly enjoyed seeing many current young adults in our parish as kids and teenagers, growing up in the same sorts of families that they are currently raising. In 2024, young people marrying and raising children in the same church in which they grew up is exceedingly rare. Again, something beautiful is happening here.

These young people were raised not in a counterculture, but in a true culture, a culture that formed them to see that they were made not for the fear that has entrapped so many people, or deluded them into thinking that a lifetime is too long to give to any one person, or that their plans for their career are more important than being a mother or father. This true culture has inculcated in many people of this parish the joyful hope of trust in God’s plans for their lives, in the power of His grace to give them victory over the forces of darkness – going out two by two like the Apostles, and seeing Satan fall like lightning from the sky.

I have seen people in so many other places trying to do this and struggling heroically, but so often becoming tired. They’ve working in the counter-cultural model of confrontation, or they’re only beginning to till the soil to build up that true culture. I am under no illusion that this place is perfect, but the Lord has done something to build up in this place, for His particular purpose, an authentic culture – “In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will.”

St. Paul writes today of being “destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will.” One of the most important questions you can ask, not just as a young person, but at any stage of your life, is, “What are those purposes of God for my life?” Usually, we find those purposes not by attaining some state of perfect mental stillness, waiting to hear a voice. An attentiveness to the Lord’s work around us is just as important. What genuine culture has the Lord formed in you, or in your family? Maybe you have a culture of service to others, to common prayer, to hospitality – welcoming others into the life of your family with ease and joy – or maybe a culture of joyful celebration, or of hard work and determination (or several of the above, each in its own proper time and place). Whatever that good, true, life-giving culture is that exists in your family, lean into it, in accord with God’s purposes.

Many people have asked me over the past three weeks what my vision is for this parish. Of course, I have ideas. I have programs and initiatives I’ve implemented before with success. I have areas of parish life in which I believe the Lord has enabled me to lead from the strength of my convictions. But this is where I think the Lord wants us to start: What is our culture? What true, good, life-giving cultures does this portion of His flock currently live into? What cultures has He built up here, and what cultures does He want to build up here?

The talents and abilities (the charisms) of the pastor are a part of that, as are those of the many baptized faithful the Lord has called together here. Likewise, so is a prudent look at the needs in the world around us, and the general movement in the life of the Church – the good things that are happening around us that we can latch on to. But there is also a certain something that is hard to put your finger on, something that can only be known through prayer and fasting, that seems crazy but never-the-less keeps coming up in so many ways.

I can think of a few other true and good cultures already present in this parish, and I am sure that there are even more that the Lord and you will help me to discover. I am excited to build together on those real and authentic cultures, to learn together the ways that we are called to do more than the obligatory, the ways that the Lord is personally looking at us and preparing a new and exciting mission for this parish.

“In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XV Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXIV