Bishop Solis: Welcome to the SEEK25 Conference, in Salt Lake in January

Intermountain Catholic

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The Diocese of Salt Lake City is pleased to welcome the participants of the SEEK25 Conference as we also begin the Church’s Jubilee Year in 2025. This is a time of great joy within the Church, and God has blessed us by bringing us together here in the beautiful state of Utah from a common desire to seek after him, to love him and to serve him as a community of believers.

In John’s Gospel, the first words uttered by Christ are a question: “What do you seek?” The disciples’ response was to ask Jesus where he was staying, to which he responded, “Come and see” (John 1:38). His words in this passage are just as much directed to us even in the present age. Each one of us began our own faith journey with a calling much like the one in this Gospel passage; we sought after the love and goodness of our Lord, asked him where we might find him, to which he responded to each of us to follow him and see.

SEEK, which brings together thousands of Catholics into one community of faith, is an outward expression of the joy which the Gospel brings to us. With that joy, we will gather together to SEEK after Christ as we also open the Jubilee Year of 2025. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has asked the Church to enter into this new year as pilgrims of hope, reminded by St. Paul’s words to the Romans that hope does not disappoint.

Pilgrims are, by their nature, those who seek, just as those whom we will welcome to Utah for this conference are pilgrims who have answered the call to follow Christ. As pilgrims together, what are we seeking? What is our destination? The two disciples heard the message of John the Baptist and began to follow Christ. As pilgrims of hope, we seek after Christ. We have taken that first step towards him and now he instructs us to “come and see.”

Our faith brought us to Christ, the personification of love. He is our destination and our goal, and hope is the consistent reminder within us to stay focused on the journey. It is the fuel that powers us when we become disillusioned by the obstacles that may arise on our way toward Christ. Pope Francis, in Spes non Confudit, (the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year) tells us that St. Paul, who was on his own journey toward Christ in his missionary and evangelical work, knew “that life has its joys and sorrows, that love is tested amid trials, and that hope can falter in the face of suffering.” But our Holy Father also reminds us of the words Paul shares with the Romans to persevere in hope: “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3-4).

The future of the Catholic Church, expressed today by the gathering of these young people in Salt Lake City, will be one of joy and celebration. This is the joy of hope, the sign that it does not disappoint. We answer the call to follow Christ, the one whom we seek, by faith and choose to continue to follow him because of hope. Pope Francis calls the youth of the Church “the embodiment of hope.” The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and the youth within that body are the signs of life for its survival into the future. As our Holy Father continues, he reminds us that dreams and aspirations may sometimes be frustrated, but the future depends on the enthusiasm of the youth. I can think of no better example of the enthusiasm for our future as Catholics than the success of this conference and the faith, hope and love that are manifested here.

How blessed we are to welcome the hope and enthusiasm of our Church’s future into our diocese and in the beautiful state of Utah! And not just youth – this is a gathering that will form missionary disciples of all ages, and I strongly encourage faithful from the whole Diocese of Salt Lake City to take part in SEEK in some way, especially in reaffirming our common work as missionary disciples, proclaiming God’s love with our lives and in our communities.

We seek after one thing: to be united with Christ as one family, one body and one spirit. May the faith and joy of this conference, the hope that flows from it, and the love of Christ draw us ever closer to the destination that our hearts seek: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his Temple” (Psalm 27:4).

SEEK25 will be Jan. 1-5, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day at the Salt Palace Convention Center, 90 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City. for information, visit https://seek.focus.org/