ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Praised be Jesus Christ!

What a great joy it is for me to see all of you scouts, scouters, leaders both professional and volunteer, family and friends—brothers and sisters all in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We gather each year to observe the founding of the Boy Scout Movement in America and the commitment of the Church to Scouting and the vital place of Scouting in youth ministry. As your Shepherd, I wish to express my profound gratitude to the men and women who generously give of their time to our youth not only in the programs of scouting but also share their deep love of Jesus and the teaching of our Catholic Faith in word and example, most especially in seeing that our scouts have Mass provided for them at weekend camping trips, participation in Catholic retreats, especially our yearly Archdiocesan Scout Retreat which provides opportunities for the celebration of the Sacrament of Confession, and helping our scouts obtain the various Religious Emblems which I will present later this afternoon.

Dear Parents and Guardians, you are the primary educators of our children in the ways of the faith. I thank you for taking seriously the responsibility you freely assumed at your children’s baptism “of training them in the practice of the faith” and going beyond the basic observances of the faith to this added development in their religious formation through the programs and activities of the Catholic Scouting Ministry. I especially commend your involvement with your children in the Light of Christ and the Parvuli Dei Emblems programs.

My dear young people: cub scouts, boy scouts, explorers and venturers—how precious you are to me, to the Church and indeed how precious you are to our Lord Jesus Christ. I commend your devotion to Jesus, your commitment to our Catholic Faith and your involvement in Catholic Scouting. In regard to you recipients of the Ad Altare Dei and Pope Pius XII Emblems, I pray that you have experienced God’s love in the gift of His Sacraments, most especially in the Most Holy Eucharist. His Holiness Pope Pius XII challenged the Catholic faithful to take action in living their Catholic Faith and in bringing the message of the Gospel to bear on the issues of everyday life, in the home, at work and play, in the world of business and finance and in the halls of government at every level.

The social teaching of the Church has called us to have a special place in our hearts and in our practices for the poor, but we must remember that homelessness, poor health care, illness, hunger, financial poverty—all these of themselves—do not make anyone saintly or blessed. Indeed Jesus Himself tells us “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is an altogether different kind of poverty—whether you are materially poor or rich. The person who is poor in spirit realizes that he or she is nothing and has nothing without God. With the Lord, we find our true self and possess all; without Him we have nothing and lose even our very self.

St. Paul reminds the Corinthians and us that “God chose the weak of the world” to accomplish His mission in the world. In this sense the weak of this world are those who place their trust principally in God and not in their own talents and abilities. We are called to be part of that remnant the prophet Zephaniah speaks of: “But I will leave a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord...”

Your patch to commemorate this Scout Sunday shows St. Damien of Molokai with the inscription “Giving of Oneself”. Here is a man, a priest who is one of those humble and lowly people—weak in the world’s view but strong in God’s sight. The Scout Oath calls us “to help other people at all times” and the Scout Law calls on every scout to be helpful. To give of oneself centered in God is to give a great gift. Pope John Paul II at Damien’s beatification said “Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria, it is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons, it is for everyone; it is the Lord who brings us to holiness, when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament.” So I call on all of you, dear friends, to accept the challenge of Pope John Paul II and to model yourself on St. Damien: “Giving of Oneself”. Indeed, you are challenged to give of yourself totally as he did. To be able to do this you must prepare yourselves for the tasks, be equipped with the necessary skills to be always ready. The motto of the United States Coastguard is “Semper Paratus”—always ready, always prepared to handle any emergency or crisis that may come. So must you!

So that you and indeed all of us may be always ready, always prepared to do the work of the Lord Jesus, I recently sent a pastoral letter entitled Called to Conversion and Holiness. In this letter, I highlight three “super-priorities” to which I ask all of you to give special attention.

1. I call for an ever more worthy and fervent celebration of the Holy Eucharist, especially on Sundays, and I ask for a deepening of our love and devotion for the Most Blessed Sacrament through Eucharistic adoration.

2. I call all of us to be a people open to conversion of heart, particularly through more frequent celebration and use of the Sacrament of Confession.

3. And since the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession do not exist without the ministry of the priest, I renew my call to pray for and encourage vocations to the priesthood especially in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In this way we will be in a position to promote also all the other vocations in the Church: the vocation to marriage, the vocation to the religious consecrated life, and the vocation to the single life of dedicated service.

And so I ask all of you to take to heart this call to conversion and holiness.

My dear young people: You are called to have a deep love and devotion to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and hence to be faithful to Sunday Mass. Make frequent use of the Sacrament of Confession. Pray for vocations to the priesthood. And boys and young men, I ask you to give serious consideration to whether God is perhaps calling you to be a priest. If He is, don’t’ be afraid; answer yes, generously “Giving of Oneself”, giving of yourself!

God has chosen us, the weak of the world, to be part of a remnant in the world: a people humble and lowly called to proclaim His Gospel of light and love.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” Amen.