YouTube influencer and Franciscan Father Casey Cole spoke to a group of young Brisbane Catholics about the real meaning of a blessed life at a Reclaim event last week. Source: The Catholic Leader.
Fr Cole stars on the YouTube channel Breaking in the Habit, which has more than 500,000 subscribers, and visited Brisbane as part of an Australia-wide tour.
He said they might have seen the social media trend, #blessed, tacked on to images of people receiving a free coffee or getting a new car.
“New job, new boyfriend, great new shirt, hashtag blessed – everything is wonderful and in one sense that’s great,” he said.
“In one sense, I don’t want to get angry about that because I know what people are doing is just saying that they’re thankful that God is in their lives and things are good, and they don’t want to take things for granted.
“But I do have a problem with the use of blessed in that way all the time.”
He said when Jesus talked about being blessed, he was not talking about receiving benefits.
“Blessed are not the people who have all the money and the comfort and stability, he says, ‘Blessed are the poor’, ‘Blessed are the hungry’, ‘Blessed are the mourners’,” Fr Cole said.
“When was the last time you’re on Instagram and someone said at a funeral of a loved one, ‘hashtag blessed’?”
He told the young people he was excited to share what Jesus actually said and reclaim the meaning of blessed.
“The blessed are the people who are poor and hungry and mourning and terrible things of the world,” he said.
“This is what it means to be blessed.”
Fr Cole said hardship was a powerful reminder that worldly comforts and instant gratification could not truly satisfy the human heart.
He said the hunger for righteousness through Jesus was what truly satisfied.
Reclaim was organised by Archdiocesan Ministries youth team, which saw a jump in regular numbers for the event with Fr Cole.
FULL STORY
Young people flock to Catholic influencer Fr Casey Cole talk reclaiming the meaning of ‘blessed’ (By Joe Higgins, The Catholic Leader)
