Detroit — As teenagers, young people begin to inherit some of the independence that comes with maturing into adults.  In the face of that greater freedom — and in the midst of a society that often suggests not-so-good ways to handle it — the best thing they can to is to look at what Christ did with his freedom, and act accordingly.

This was the message Archbishop Allen Vigneron shared with more than 1,200 teens during a Mass on Feb. 12 in the ballroom of the Marriott Hotel in Detroit’s Renaissance Center. The youths, who came from throughout the Detroit area, were gathered for the annual Catholic Youth Organizations Rainbow conference.

“For so many of you, to have a taste for freedom is one of the principal dimensions of your life,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “What Christ invites us to do is to make his expectations for us part of who we are… To be free is to have the capacity, ultimately, to love.

“He has a vision for us to be free, so that we can use his freedom to become who he wants us to be.”

The archbishop spoke his homily from a stage in the hotel’s main ballroom, which was flanked by banners made by Catholic young people in the archdiocese. Teenagers from various youth groups served as lectors, altar servers and gift bearers for the liturgy. A number of concelebrants from local parishes also assisted.

Archbishop Vigneron began his homily asking the young congregants to raise their hands if they’ve started working toward getting their drivers licenses. He also asked whether they were knowledgeable about what was going on in Egypt with the revolution.

Both, he said, posed examples of young people naturally striving for greater freedom.

But freedom, he added, has a purpose, which can be found through Christ, a “model of freely given and freely committed love.”

“On behalf of Christ, I’m here tonight to propose that you and He become partners in this free self-giving,” the archbishop said, adding that it’s “not simply to imitate him, but to share with him in this self-giving.”

He admitted that the idea of taking freedom and using it to make a gift of oneself might be countercultural.

“We think it’s smart. A lot of people think it’s dumb,” he said.

Still, the archbishop added, it’s only through Christ that true and unconditional freedom can be found.

“Of ourselves, we are wounded,” he said. “We cannot be as free as we want to be. Yet because Christ has given himself to me and you freely, we have his strength, we have his freedom, we have his heart…”

In closing, he urged the teenagers to use this God-given freedom, in return, to “make an unconditional gift of yourself to God.”