CV NEWS FEED // Speaking to over 18,000 college students, families, clerics, and missionaries at this year’s FOCUS SEEK24 conference, opening keynote speakers Fr. Josh Johnson and Tina Augustine reminded attendees to receive God’s graces willingly throughout the next five days.
“God has a gift for each of you this week—be open to bishops at mass, speakers, missionaries. Be open to receiving the gifts God has for you,” said Fr. Johnson, director of vocations for the Diocese of Baton Rouge and host of the podcast “Ask Fr. Josh.”
Held in St. Louis, Missouri, this year’s annual FOCUS conference emphasizes a willingness to “be the light” in the world.
Tina Augustine
Augustine, a long-term FOCUS missionary, told the crowd that a willingness to be open to their true identities as sons or daughters of God is one of the most important things to take away from the conference.
“Do you know that God is calling you, seeking you tonight?” Augustine, a long-time FOCUS missionary, asked the crowd. “How will you let God speak truth into your life as a son or daughter of God?”
Augustine said that though she embraces her identity as a daughter of God now, she didn’t always put God first in her life. When she went to World Youth Day in 2011, she said she experienced “yearning and longing and aching to know and be in a relationship with God” since human beings are “created to be in relationships.”
“God created us out of goodness. He calls and draws us deeply into his own family—and that is our identity—that we may be sons and daughters of the Father,” Augustine said.
Fr. Josh Johnson
In addition to asking participants to remain open to God’s graces, Fr. Johnson invited the audience to “come as you are and be healed along the way.”
Fr. Johnson also said that one of the best ways to grow and heal is by being in close proximity with people who make us uncomfortable.
“When we get [in close proximity] to people we struggle with, we open ourselves up to experiencing profound gifts from God,” he said, pointing to the Twelve Apostles as prime examples of growing from the tension a tight community often brings.
Fr. Johnson concluded by inviting the audience to accept God’s will for them this week by quoting the words of Our Lady at the Annunciation.
“Let it be done to us this week according to his word, his way, his will, his time—not mine,” Fr. Johnson said.
