By James Lohrmann

The worship was moving, as usual, as young adults ages 18-35 passionately sang their praises to God. However, tonight there was an extra energy in the air. An energy of anticipation. Archbishop William Lori of the Archdiocese of Baltimore was going to be joining us for our weekly ChristLife Young Adults meeting. The room was packed with over 50 young adults eager to hear their shepherd address them in a personal way. Personal because the archbishop knew of us. It was actually him who had requested to join us for one of our Wednesday meetings.

Archbishop Lori and his secretary Father Louis Bianco arrived almost unnoticed towards the end of our worship time. It was amusing to see all of the surprised faces as people slowly realized that their Archbishop had been right behind them. Jen King, the emcee for the night, warmly welcomed the Archbishop on behalf of all of us, and invited him to share a message with us. We only had a vague idea of what the Archbishop would speak about; the only request we made was that he would speak to and encourage the season of missionary outreach we were entering as a community.

I was expecting Archbishop Lori to eloquently share on the the deep truths of our faith and how we can live them out on mission. Let’s just say we got more than we bargained for. Archbishop Lori started by sharing about his faith journey growing up as a “dyed-in-the-wool” Catholic. He shared how he grew up around evangelical Christians who challenged him with the question, “Is Jesus your Lord and Savior?” He explained how that question has haunted him his entire life into his life as a priest and a bishop. He told us that he is grateful for this question haunting him and that he hopes that it haunts us as well, as it gets to the heart of relationship with Jesus Christ.

Archbishop Lori also shared how Pope Francis has challenged his relationship with Jesus Christ with questions like, “Is my relationship with Jesus warm and personal? Have I invited the Lord into every corner of my soul? Am I allowing Him to form me from within?”

Archbishop Lori went on to talk about evangelization, our church institutions, caring for the poor, and his wonderful pastoral letter A Light Brightly Visible with his great frankness and humor. In all these different areas, he challenged us to act in the spirit of Christ and to be aimed at missionary conversion.

While we may have been expecting a talk that gave us vision and inspiration to continue the many great initiatives our community has undertaken, we instead got a humble, challenging message that went right to the heart of the matter: our interior conversion and relationship to Jesus Christ. To hear such a message from our Archbishop greatly impacted me and our entire community.

After the talk and an engaging Q&A session, Archbishop Lori spent the rest of the evening meeting with and talking to all of us there. Those who didn’t feel bold enough to approach him on their own, he would seek out and initiate a conversation with. In this way, Archbishop Lori modeled the spirit of Christ to us.

Archbishop Lori visit was a wonderful encouragement to our young adult community in our pursuit of Jesus Christ. He affirmed our community’s ministry and outreaches as well as our importance to the Church as young people. But most importantly, he pointed us towards Jesus Christ. It is there in that encounter that we find the streams of eternal life.

You can hear Archbishop Lori's talk below.