National Catholic Youth Conference 2023
Become the man or woman that God made you to be, NCYC speaker says
Brian Butler, executive director and co-founder of Echo Community, speaks to young people during the National Catholic Youth Conference’s Nov. 17 general morning session in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (Photo by Mike Krokos)
By Mike Krokos
God sees us, he knows us and he is strengthening each of us to become more of the man or woman he made us to be, said a keynote speaker at the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) on Nov. 17 in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Our Creator is helping all humanity to grow “more deeply into the masculinity or your femininity that God has given to you, and becoming more and more of the gift that you already are, in all your uniqueness,” noted Brian Butler, executive director and co-founder of Echo Community, which cultivates chastity and authentic masculinity and femininity with teenagers, young adults and families through the lens of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
“Each one of you, all you men in the house, are refracting the light of God in a way that none of these women do,” he continued, “and all of you women in the house are refracting the light of God in a way that none of these men do. That’s good. In fact, it’s very good.”
A father of four, Butler said the trust that children develop for their parents from a young age leads them to more freedom, allowing them “to become more and more fully alive.”
“This is what God wants for each one of us, but not to stay distracted in the shallows, but to go to him, to go to his own Word, to go to the sacraments, to hear the truth about who he says you are,” he continued, “the gift of your dignity and your call to a destiny that’s far beyond what you can imagine.”
We must remember that God is always inviting us into a closer relationship, Butler noted.
“Even though you don’t always feel it, the grace is not always affective, it is always effective. It’s always working, to help us to be more fully known, to help us to be more fully grown, that we might be able to be more free.”
While life’s challenges may pull us away from our faith, we must not become distracted in our relationship with our Creator, Butler said. God sees our pains and he knows what we’re going through, he added.
Reflecting on a memory of playing hide-and-seek with two of his children, Butler recounted how his daughter Lauren always ran into his arms whenever he found her, saying, “Daddy, hold me for a long, long time.” That is what God wants from us, he said.
“For her, the whole point of the game was not to run away. The whole point of the game was to be found and to be reunited with her good father, to be at home in my arms,” Butler said.
Citing Scripture, Butler said adults need to remember the Bible verse “Unless you become like children, you will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Mt 18:3).
“At the very end, we’re going to cross the threshold of eternity, and we pray that, by his grace … [he will call] us toward our eternal home, where we’ll be fully known, we’ll be fully grown, we’ll be fully free.
“St. John Paul II says that ‘freedom exists for the sake of love,’ to be fully in the love that you were made for, and that’s when you’ll be fully alive. And we’ll all throw our arms around God the Father’s neck and say, ‘Daddy, hold me for a long, long time.’ ” †
