By “spicy,” I mean controversial or emotive or uncomfortable. You know the ones I’m talking about.

“Does the Church really hate gay people?”

“Why can’t women be priests?”

“How can God be a good person when He does so many bad things?”

Hey 15 year old Anti,

Beautiful Anti, (I know that you won’t admit that you need to hear yourself be called beautiful at the moment, or that you don’t quite believe it. So let it be spoken over your life until it settles in your heart years from now) allow me to introduce myself.

“What do I want?”

That question has given me a surprising amount of sleepless nights. For a simple question, it’s rarely an easy one to answer. There are some obvious prompts: I want love, fulfilment, hope, joy, peace; I want money, relationships, freedom, stability; I want people to like me, I want to be important, or useful, in the sense that I want to meaningfully contribute to the world…

For those of us who have been involved in Catholic mission before, in youth ministry or even just in the Catholic faith, we have most likely heard countless clichés about mission such as statements like; “It’s so challenging but so rewarding!”, “It was the best year of my life!”, “I grew so much as a person!”.