Today, August 15, is the scheduled day for the publication of A-level results. All over the country young adults will be finding out whether they will be allowed to take the next step of their chosen careers. In secondary schools it is always a bittersweet day. Delight at knowing your protégés are set securely on their road is tempered by the near misses, those students who may have missed out and now have to face hard decisions – whether to change direction or to spend a year trying again.

It is many years since Cardinal Hume exhorted Catholic schools to attend to the cultivation of goodness before mere academic success. For me his words rang true at the time, even though we were only in the foothills of the rigour that we now, rightfully, associate with attainment and examination scores. In these days it is even harder to remember that the judgment of the world is just that – of this world – and that there is a wider reality that we have to share with our children if we are to bring them up as complete human beings. The World Youth Assembly in Rio has just closed. Young adults from around the world met in festival at an event led by Pope Francis. There are plenty of accounts available of the occasion but one particular comment from the Pope is worth rehearsing. “Cause havoc,” he said while exhorting the assembly to be active in the service of humankind.

We need young people who know their stuff and can set it in the context of a relationship with God and have the confidence to enact it, if necessary by causing havoc! Keep in mind the young people.

Keep them in your prayers that they will be fitting in God’s eyes.