“Why does God care about us?”

Msgr. James Shea told more than 500 young adult missionaries attending Catholic Christian Outreach’s (CCO) annual Rise Up Conference from Dec. 29 to Jan. 1 this is a question that's been on his mind lately.

During his Dec. 30 evening presentation, Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, told the audience gathered in a Calgary Hyatt Regency Hotel ballroom for his keynote presentation that a Wall Street friend posed this challenging query.

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It was easy for Shea to understand what could be driving these existential stirrings.

“Anybody who's spent any time in this broken world, and anyone who's experienced death piling up, cruelty, heartbreak, disappointment, betrayal of one kind or another, knows that there's something wrong,” said Shea. “Certainly, there's something wrong. Look what the human race has done to this world: transforming it from a garden of peace and sweet encounters into a laboratory of colossal ingratitude, rebellion, violence, murder and selfishness."

Shea’s friend presented the analogy of humans consciously or unconsciously drifting away from God’s grace and His purpose for our life as akin to “zombiedom.” Alluding to mass media’s enduring fascination with zombies, the priest suggested these fallen characters reveal something seminal and unsettling about the human condition. 

“There is a sense that maybe we're just a hair's breadth away from atrocity, and we see it in our history,” said Shea. “What would it take for us to be bitten and to change from good, decent men and women into the worst of the worst? Maybe not very much for the mass of humanity of people we pass by on the street, on campus and in the office to transfix into a mob capable of doing the worst things.”

Shea suggests that fortitude and comfort can be drawn from New Testament passages scribed by St. Paul. The apostle of Christ affirmed in his writings that God engraved His image and likeness on each of us and that evil forces cannot fully eradicate this divine imprint.

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The thematic statement for the 2024 Rise Up Conference, the 23rd iteration of this annual Canadian Catholic young adult summit, is “take courage.” Shea’s solution on how believers can grow more courageous in their faith and how to answer the question as to why God cares for us stems from reverently understanding that God is staunchly committed to carrying out His plan that is meant to draw Him into deeper communion with humanity. It was a grand design effectuated by the Lord becoming a man.

“By taking this action, God raised human beings, a race of zombies, to an unbelievably high place — above the angels,” said Shea. "He (granted humans) a dignity and an honour unimaginable by an act of astonishing condescension. To use a phrase of the ancient teachers of the faith, ‘God became man so that man might become god.’ It was a motion of divinization, a gift of extraordinary merit.”

The monsignor also urged Rise Up attendees, of which two-thirds are members of CCO campus ministries across Canada, to “renounce your rebellion” against God’s will and “turn back to Him to receive His life once again.” He likened such a momentous decision to the parable of the lost sheep being found.

Shea’s presentation commenced a Dec. 30 evening schedule that arguably represented the spiritual peak of the conference. His remarks were followed by the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacrament of Confession and praise and worship.

Canadian Catholic commentator Fr. Raymond D’Souza, CCO co-founder Angèle Regnier and a cadre of active and former CCO missionaries also delivered speeches throughout the conference.

All presenters spoke on different topics and shared their personal accounts. One commonality between all the addresses was that each presenter demonstrated a willingness “to really be vulnerable” in what they revealed about themselves to Rise Up attendees, said event manager Joseph Murphy.

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Every Rise Up conference also features men's and women’s sessions, holiness and mission workshops, Mass and even a New Year’s Eve banquet and dance.

A unique feature of this year’s Rise Up was that the major relics of the Canadian Martyrs were present. On Dec. 31, the skull of St. Jean de Brébeuf and the bones of St. Gabriel Lalemant and St. Charles Garnier were venerated.