joins the celebration of the CBCP Year of the Youth

"Stand firm in the faith...do all your work in love" Cor 15: 13-14, TEV

MESSAGE AT THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOOK
"You're Still Young, I am Old"
By RICARDO J. CARDINAL VIDAL
Archbishop Emeritus of Cebu

Your Excellency, Most Rev. Jose Palma, Archbishop of Cebu,
My Brother Priests,
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I thank you for coming today to lend support to our dynamic Archdiocesan Youth Coordinator, Msgr. Arthur Navales who is moving heaven and earth to have the Archdiocesan Youth Center finished. Your presence here tonight is a strong affirmation of your commitment to our youth apostolate.

Since this is also a launching of my fourth book of my homilies, I would like to read the introduction of the book as the message I would like to give today.

Not everyone admits to growing old. There are people who hide their age, though the lines on their faces couldn't lie. Age, however, is a convenient way of claiming wisdom. It seems that grey hair, if there is any left, makes an automatic claim to authority, or the right to be heard.

Hence the title of this book: "You're still young, I am old." I am aware that some young people resent being told just that: you're still young, I am old. It implies young people don't know much, and old ones know better. It is a presumptuous title, but it did not come from me; it's actually a composite of lines from a song most familiar to young people, Cat Stevens' Father and Son.

I googled the song and found out that it was originally part of a musical on the Russian Revolution which Mr. Stevens was writing. It tells of a father who was trying to dissuade his son from joining the revolution. The musical did not see the light of day, but the song, with its powerful lyrics about a young man's search for his destiny and his father's gentle pleading for him to "just relax, take it easy" found universal resonance.

In the homilies and addresses contained in this volume, you may find the voice of the father saying "For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not." Yet, the voice of the young man too, in a higher key, may also be heard, for when old persons say something to the young, they do not really speak merely as old persons, for no matter how old they may be, they retain their inner consciousness of being once young. If fathers may sound desperate in their counsel to their children, that is because they do not always speak from wisdom, they could be pleading from the depths of regret.

The way society has gone in forming the minds of our young people is really worrisome. The rampage in Britain, the mayhem in Norway, and in our own country, the controversies arising from the Reproductive Health Bill and the dilemma concerning freedom of expression and respect for cultural and religious values, have all brought into focus the need to guide our young people as they confront a world that is radically different from what their parents know. Technology has progressed so fast that parents now need their children to teach them how to use the newest inventions. It used to be that one generation would still have to teach the next on how to use technology invented by the progenitor. Today, each new generation can invent its own technology, far outstripping the previous one.

This confidence in its capacity to invent new things has given each generation a sense that it has nothing to learn from the previous one. This is fool-hardy, for while technology may easily supersede a generation, values remain the bedrock on which each new generation must find its own bearings, if it must properly use technology for its own good. Though human reason may invent new things, the human person remains the same. The human person is the inventor of technology. He or she is not the subject of technological advance.

To know the human person, we must return to the Creator of the human being. The human person is the original invention, not capable of being imitated or counterfeited because it is the original copy of the original --- made in the image and likeness of the Creator Himself.

The true image of man is Jesus Christ, true God and true man. It is from him that we must learn. May the young find in our Lord the true destiny they have been seeking all their lives.

Again, thank you once again for lending your support to the cause of the youth. Thank you Msgr.Ting Ancajas and Msgr. Rudy Villanueva for collaborating once again to publish this fourth book of homilies and messages. Thank you above all to our dear Archbishop Palma who is still young, and whose heart can still climb mountains. May the youth of Cebu always hear the call of our Archbishop as he leads us to face the coming challenges. Related Links

- CDN's article: Pilgrimage by Jason A. Baguia (August 21 2011 issue)
- See pictures during Dinner for a Cause (August 27, 2011)
- Lyrics of "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens