Priest Reacts to Justin Bieber at Coachella: A Hidden Moment of Healing (w/ Fr. Mark-Mary Ames)

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Bella just happened. Let's talk about it. Hey, I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and this is Ascension Presents. A lot of you know this. There's a big concert that happens every year called Coachella which was coined this year Baieber because of uh the performance and the sort of the way in which it overwhelmed sort of the whole experience um by Mr. Justin Bieber. And you know, first of like yeah, I'm a I'm a Franciscan. I also like run and have run social media and like media for the Friars for a number of years. So I have some sense of like what's going on out there. I certainly didn't watch the whole thing, but but there was a clip that was kind of showing up everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And it's him playing a song like of like a a home recording of when he was very young singing a song and him singing along with himself.

[00:00:54]And there's this beautiful moment where he kind of turns his back on the whole crowd and he's looking at the big projector and he's looking at himself and he's singing and what I imagine like happening or the art portraying and you know I don't know what really happened for for Justin is this idea of like looking at himself and looking at young him and kind of being delighted in in the innocence and the youthfulness and the talent. um kind of look again looking fondly upon like younger him.

[00:01:28]But then there's also this part of like just seeing how young and innocent he is and what like his life's going to become and how like there's just no way that this young man has been prepared for for the fame, for the demands on his time, for the access he's going to have to all sorts of uh not good things, including temptation, right? Uh the the publicness of it.

[00:01:56]>> I just got to say I'm so proud cuz I've seen a lot of the things you've gone through. I have. You know, I've seen you at times where it wasn't always beautiful, but you fought through it.

[00:02:07]>> And you kind of like hope like what there's this movement of like delighting in in himself, but also of like profound compassion towards himself um and what he was going to go through. um and potentially like some forgiveness and some mercy for some of the mistakes that would be made. Um kind of going with like also like how was he like supposed to know what to do in these different situations. And so my like I think it just like really beautifully like captures this moment in in a profound way and I hope that does encourage many people to make this journey. And so I think there's like there's two parts to this that I want to highlight. I think it's profoundly helpful for us um to look back at our younger selves.

[00:02:58]Um and this is something you can do kind of in like thinking about it. You can journal it. Uh you these days, you know, you can literally maybe go back and look at some pictures of yourself or some old videos of yourself. Um and to kind of go through the same movement of delight.

[00:03:15]uh seeing the youthfulness, seeing seeing the joy, seeing the giftedness, um delighting in the successes that would come, but also being moved to compassion because there's all sorts of difficult things that happen to so many of us um that we're just not equipped for. And then often we respond, you know, in ways which weren't helpful and were hurtful to others and to ourselves. as we we we can make this movement of of forgiveness to ourselves as well. Um but also like this is a journey that we can make um with Jesus.

[00:03:53]And I think this is this is so important and so beautiful is to like with Jesus look at these pictures to with Jesus go back to these memories and to with Jesus like look at younger you. And this is something we touched about like a long time ago a couple lent ago with this image of the good Samaritan, right? like the good Samaritan, he finds this man like beat up on the side of the road. And I really feel so many of us, this is just like we've been beat up by life and we're on the side of the road, right? Um and then Jesus comes to us and I believe like part of the healing is Jesus saying to us, um these difficult things that happened, they were never supposed to happen.

[00:04:38]it's not your fault and you were never supposed to know how to deal with it, to navigate it, right?

[00:04:46]And so, so we can kind of go with Jesus and and have him again speak these words to our six-year-old self, seven years old self, 8-year-old self, whatever, whatever age, you know. Um, and then I and then I'd ask you as well just to like ask these questions of Jesus like as you look at younger you with him. And again, I think finding some old pictures would be really great like like um Jesus, what do you see? Like when you look at me, like what do you see, you know, and allow him to speak into that particularly like his delight in you and the way in which he like loves you, right? Um and then also ask this question like Jesus like and like what's your heart? What's your heart for me when I'm six or seven or eight? Um and to experience like the movement, the investment, the compassion. We also can like move with that to today where okay now Jesus like as you look at me today what do you see and allow him to like bless you like with with his love for you. Um, and Jesus today, like as you look at me, like what's your heart for me now again like experience the same heart that he had for you at five, six, whatever it is to allow that same heart to love you and to kind of go to you today. And so I'm very grateful for um this still young man, Justin Bieber, the journey he's been on and and the ways in which you know it seems like the Lord has pursued him and his heart and and of course the journey continues in a lot of ways. And I'm grateful that we kind of all had this sort of moment that was so kind of public to see him like artistically go through this a little bit, you know. Um, and I hope that it inspires and encourages many of us to make this similar journey of looking back at our younger selves, being moved to sort of compassion, to some sort of healing and forgiveness there, but even more importantly to doing this with Jesus, to allowing him to kind of visit with us, our younger self, and then allowing that same love, the same sort of loving gaze, the same heart to to be with us and to look upon us and to love us today. So friends, grateful for you, grateful for you listening and watching.

[00:06:56]And I look forward to being with you again next week. Remember, we are pilgrims on this earth. Those peraginos, poco, poco, little by little, but I'm going to say you are. We're going to make it. Bye y'all.