A Catholic in the cafeteria.

Dinnertime in the college cafeteria. The sophomore was beaming at me across the Chicken Marengo. "You know the thing I like best about Mass in the chapel."

"No, what exactly?" I smiled in gracious anticipation. Spontaneous student confessions of enthusiasm for the liturgy always warmed my chaplain's heart. Not that I could take much credit for myself; I kept the simple lines of tradition uncluttered, or tried to. Visiting celebrants who adorned the Mass with ad-libbed prayers were subject to gentle rebuke. The Mass, as I often reminded the student liturgy committee, had to be a gift of the Holy Spirit. Left solely to our own devices, we humans could never have designed such a satisfying ritual.

"The best thing about Mass," she went on, "is how it's not really Catholic."

She said the word "Catholic" with a small moue of disgust, as if recalling an ancient aunt who didn't smell quite right.

I recovered my voice. "Well, what exactly do you mean by Catholic?"

Out poured the adjectives: "cold, remote, unfeeling, judgmental, rigid, exclusive"--a tissue of impressions, gathered layer by layer in the parish of her youth, hardened now into a carapace of disdain.

Hers was a familiar refrain. Beginning with my own college classmates, I had listened to changes rung on the same theme. (There were exceptions, to be sure--mostly Catholics who had grown up in the fabled dioceses of the Midwest, where, it was reported, things were "different.") Among those angered or disgusted or wearied by their home parish, many walked away from the church without a backward glance. Others stayed in, falling in love with the Body of Christ. Still others, like this sophomore, bloomed with enthusiasm, but were anchored to the church by fragile roots.

For the hyper-educated and for pastoral leaders (I qualify on both counts), it is easy and tempting to dismiss the complaints of teen-agers and college students. Put down one-third of their alienation to simple adolescent carping, another third to the reach of the prevailing culture and its current crop of idols (personal choice, disposable income, and the perfect body a la MTV), and the final third to ignorance. This last, being susceptible to remedy, ushers in the further temptation to educate: if only college-age Catholics could read (pick four out of six)--Merton, Lumen gentium, Flannery O'Connor, Teresa of Avila, Raymond Brown commentaries, or Commonweal. If only...

Education is an essential means of incorporating younger Catholics into the wider community of faith. But this effort will flounder, I'm afraid, if students aren't first incorporated into their own local churches.

Moreover, this is what they themselves desire. Yet, such a desire may often go undetected just because students tend not to possess a theological vocabulary. Those I know favor the swift, direct, concrete appeal. They remind me of the Galilean and Judean villagers following, from the margins of the road, Jesus' progress toward Jerusalem, lobbing their demands through the noise of the crowd, fended off by harried disciples.

If we could leave off feeling harried and train our attention on our younger brothers and sisters, what would we hear? Basic stuff. They want to walk into church on Sunday and be called by name. They want music good enough that songs become prayers. For themselves, or for their younger sisters, they want a chance to serve at the altar. They want to hear, now and then, a word addressed to their own particular fears and failings and moments of grace. They don't want to wait until they're fifty before they can serve as lectors or eucharistic ministers. They want to be invited; they want to be acknowledged; they want to be known.

They want, in short, to be part of the One Body of Christ. Their thirst for inclusion is a gift from the Holy Spirit for all the church. If the gift is awkward to receive, so be it. The impatience of younger Catholics can chafe, and their thoughtlessness can sting. Certainly that night in the cafeteria, I had a great desire to throttle my sophomore companion. Yet she gave me an invaluable gift, forcing me to recognize anew what Paul first saw two thousand years ago in Corinth: how thoroughly all our elaborate labors on behalf of grace are dependent on the simplest gestures of hospitality.

We can do better by the younger members of the church. If we invite them to take the choicest places at the table, we will secure a blessing for all God's people.