Youth Ministry Sector
WALKING WITH THE YOUNG
THROUGH LIFE
INDEX
On Emmaus roads
As traveling companions
(Characteristics necessary for those concerned with the young and their growth)
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth
being relational
empowering the traveler to live consciously
and more lovingly
so as to live deeply the joys and the struggles of the journey
Il/the young person
Awareness of the need to make the journey and the desire to set out
Setting the rules
Praying daily
Sharing
Making choices
Together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit
In daily life
In a time of complexity
In moments of struggle
Facing blocks against meaningful relationships
Within an evangelizing community
Walking with Mary as guide
On different paths
Promising to make life good
Continuing the reflection
Presentation of data from the different Provinces
Africa
America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
PRESENTATION
What follows is the result of the work of many people (Provincial Youth Ministry Coordinators and Teams from different parts of the world). It puts in some kind of order the responses to a dialogue begun in this six-year period, 1997-2002. At the heart of this work are four questions regarding how our communities today carry out their task of accompanying the young on their journey through life.
The four questions were:
In the light of your pastoral experience what are the elements you feel are most important in walking with the young towards holistic development?
What helps do you have at hand regarding this process and what are the obstacles?
What skills need developing at personal and community levels in order to better accompany the young?
How is the Province’s vocations ministry integrated and in continuity with the human and Christian formation promoted through the on-going Youth Ministry Project of the Province?
Both the feedback from the responses and the subsequent reflection on that feedback is not directed solely at the FMA. It is for all those educators in the different settings (schools, oratories, youth centers, hostels for the young and spirituality centers…) who live the mission of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello with us.
This text looks specifically at the theme of accompanying those young people who ask to make a journey of faith aimed at discovery their project of life which is open to the differing callings.
We would like this reflection to be seen as a concrete response to the request of those young people who, at the World Forum of the Salesian Youth Movement, asked in their Final Document for a reflection of this nature. They stressed the need to deepen some elements of salesian spirituality such as, interiority, discernment and accompaniment. (Cf Segni e portatori dell'amore di Dio ai giovani, Atti del Forum Mondiale del MGS, Colle don Bosco 6-13 agosto 2000, 83 - 84).
The proposal is linked with the Formation Project but does not propose to deal with the issue of the educational relationship with young people of non-Christian or other faiths. We believe that this document contains useful elements to assist those educating communities and adults who have at heart the task of educating the young to value life as the place where we meet and recognize each other and where peace, democracy and human rights are promoted.
The accompaniment of the young on their journey of faith cannot be left to chance and is a key element in every educational endeavor. In our present world it is more and more necessary to accompany the young personally and from where they are, without betraying or forgetting the centrality of the impact of the group on their lives. The group is, after all, the place where the young person matures in his or her capacity for dialogue, testing out moral attitudes and behavior, arriving at a sense of self and finding support in their struggle to be faithful to the task of loving life and the gospel.
We are not talking about finding new places in which to welcome the young, as much as paying more attention to ways of entering into a better dialogue with them, their families or adults who are important in their lives.
The members of the educating communities are called to live deeply and with conviction the educational relationship, to be joyful collaborators with the young, journeying companions, caring and discreet in their moments of difficulty and credible signs of the Gospel to them.
This reflection is gathered around several nuclei:
The story of the meeting of Jesus and the two Emmaus disciples as a kind of inspirational icon of the relationship of accompaniment.
The figure of the educator as a presence that motivates, supports, encourages the young in their journey of growth and recognition of Christ Jesus.
Characteristics of the young person who decides to live a more conscious faith life
The relationship of accompaniment
The educating community as the place and experience of growth and lived faith
On Emmaus roads
The meeting between Jesus and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the best gospel icons of our journey with the young. In this episode Jesus goes to the travelers, not as a teacher, but as a journey companion. He does not use the solemn language of teaching but rather questions them and shows a friendly and warm interest in them: «What are you discussing as you walk along?» (Lk. 24: 7).
It seems that Jesus wants them to recount his story and that what he really wants to know is how they have lived it and continue to relive it, their hopes and the reason for their sadness. Jesus is with them and helps them to reread with new eyes, not only the Scriptures but also their own lived experience.
The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus is transformed for the two disciples into a new understanding of the mystery of God and of that which embraces all human life. All this takes place in the context of a personal relationship built up between the two disciples and the stranger, to the point that they eventually plead with him: «Stay with us, because the day is almost over» (Lk. 24:29).
Staying with him without prejudices, in friendship and in the breaking of the bread enables the two disciples to recognize in the “stranger”, the Lord. Jesus’ presence restores their hope and turns them into witnesses and messengers of the Risen One.
Walking together, talking together, asking questions about life, looking at what disturbs and disheartens, remembering the events and happenings of the life of Jesus, rekindling the joy of commitment are all good expressions of being with the young in every cultural context, in every educational setting of both believers and non-believers alike. The approach and the type of relationship that Jesus sets up with the two disciples are models of closeness, of unconditional welcome and acceptance and of the capacity to ask the right questions, all of which combine to people to move to a deeper level of existence.
The Emmaus meeting urges us to see narrating story as a real teaching method in order that we become more aware of our own story and see it in constant dialogue with the Word and the community.
The Emmaus meeting urges us to hear and stay within the uncertainties, articulated in those desires that the young carry with them today. The young truly want sincere relationships, they believe in friendship, in freedom and in solidarity. They seek the truth, spirituality, authenticity and personal self-expression. They are attracted to the idea of building a society that is more peaceful, more just, more sensitive to the environment, to accepting the differences, to volunteering and to equal dignity for both women and men.
This tension towards what is good and positive is entangled with ambivalence and with difficulties at the level of what they live and experience. This is so not only for the young, but for all people today.
In a culture of globalization there is a real problem about finding meaning in every context. The excess of opportunities for some, the lack of life’s essentials life for others, facing up to a multiplicity of valuable proposals, so often contradictory in essence, are some of the factors which make it almost impossible for the young to find that golden thread of meaning to their own personal story and subsequently to finding their place in the world.
Aligned to this search for meaning is the difficulty of building a sense of self, of understanding one’s life as project, to living one’s sexuality serenely and of discovering in the face of another someone similar, a discovery necessary for all of us to become human.
Both adults and young people are in a common search. The educating community, a meeting place for dialogue between the different generations is one of the spaces in which it is possible to look at the basic issues of life regarding the meaning of our birth, of life, of death, of suffering, of love. They are places and spaces where human relationships grow, as does the capacity to participate, to take on responsibility as citizens of the world.
When a young person approaches an adult and says: “can we talk?”, the request needs to be taken seriously in the knowledge that the young person is making an act of trust and wanting to build a friendly conversation in which silence and words, discretion and intimacy, identity and difference live side by side.
It is always a risk to dialogue with another, to open oneself up to a relationship and to share that which adds flavor to existence.
Those who place themselves alongside the young are following the teaching of Jesus who goes to meet them, senses their need to talk, and walks with them in their search for their life project.
As traveling companions
Characteristics necessary in those who care for the young and their growth
The adult who proposes to be a significant presence cultivates a positive and trust enhancing position in respect to the young. He or she is an adult who loves and can make people feel how much, a person who is not put off by appearances, but knows how to see beyond the surface and allows the other to reveal themselves little by little for who they really are.
The educator knows how to let go of his or her schemes and opens up to the new that the young carry within them and are capable of expressing without destroying or compromising the relationship. Such an adult is one who favors communications among the young, the group, the community in which he or she is inserted and is ready to face the inevitable difficulties that arise along the way: the tiredness, inconsistency, lack of clarity about aims objectives to be reached etc.
To love youth culture, to cultivate sensitivity to its languages and different expressions permits the adult to find some common ground on which to build an authentic communication.
The challenge to all those who want to narrate the faith experience of the young as it opens to adulthood is that of growing in humanity, coherence, authenticity and closeness to the person of Jesus and in service to both the church and the local community.
More than ever before young people need to meet both individuals and communities that bear witness to the humanity of Jesus, his way of speaking, of accepting others, of praying, of forgiving. The young need this in order to know his way of living, his way of relating, his temptations and successes, his going and coming, his aloneness, his moments of misunderstanding and the difficult moments of his time on earth.
The humanity of Jesus, the story of his religious experience made known and appreciated is one of the primary ways in which young people are initiated in the Christian faith.
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth
Through basic and continued reflection on the Gospel, the educator places at center stage the spirituality of Jesus and his way of educating people.
Jesus did not use lengthy discourses, he spoke in parables. His life, his attitudes and his deeds strongly questioned and disturbed his contemporaries.
The authority, the uniqueness and the integrity of Jesus was confirmed in his actions. Jesus is aware of the action of the Father, he knows how to discern, to read and accept his will. He knows how to understand each person in his or her uniqueness.
The crux of his work was to favor life over death. He denounces hypocrisy, legalism and is fearless in going against the current when he has to call people to justice, peace and to the Kingdom of God. All this becomes for the educator an invitation to be a free person, capable of empowering the young to be enthusiastic for the values of the gospel.
Jesus is a nomad, he is a traveler, just as many young people today are travelers. Jesus reaches out to others, to the women. He reaches out to the rich young man, the disillusioned disciples, the sinner, the outcast, to get to know them, to “stay” with them and to listen, without any haste, without any thought of running away.
Jesus does not lock himself inside the walls of his home and wait for the people to come to him. Jesus goes out to the people. From Jesus, the educator learns that capacity to welcome, to open up to the other, to be a loving presence, attentive to the needs of each young person.
Jesus’ relationships have some common characteristics. Perhaps the most meaningful is his “gaze”. The gospels tell of how Jesus “looked at” people, turned and fixed his eyes upon them.
Human experience reveals the need to be held in the gaze of the other. In our day to day inter relating we all need people who recognize us, acknowledge us and affirm our existence.
In a world in which the anonymity of the person grows and personal recognition is fast becoming an invocation, the educator looks deeply at the young who cry out to be recognized and taken seriously. Each of them yearns to be told, “you are worthwhile, you are important”.
For the adult more important than faith in God is to have the faith God has in the young. Like Jesus the educator is called to look with love.
Being relational
Anyone who agrees to accompany the young along their way, within an educating community, knows that they do so within a positive environment, one rich in proposals and values. The guide is encouraged to view the relationship as a meeting between two people with all their richness, depth and limitations. To put oneself into such a relationship implies mutual listening in order to prevent the danger of monologues, the availability to ‘waste’ time to allow the other to express themselves better and validate the importance of the relationship is; the investment of one’s humanity in the relationship, so that the other will know they met a real person.
The key issue for those who dedicate themselves to accompany the young is how to educate the young to personal autonomy in a relational situation that could favor or even encourage dependence. What is needed is a way of loving the person freely. It is this and, this alone which promotes journeying, the dynamics of freedom and authentic growth.
The interpersonal relationship is always inserted in a context. This context could be the place the meeting happens, the locality in which one lives, the prevailing culture etc. For this reason the educator needs to work at a realism which allows him or her to evaluate facts, situations and people in more than a unilateral way. The educator needs to be understanding, trusting, capable of critical thinking and of discernment, of being with the person and of involvement with the person, on the one hand and capable also of distancing oneself, while all the time being sensitive and open to that which is beyond, other, more than simply of this world.
It is in living out this relationship with the young that the adult learns how to draw from experience, reflect on action, to organize and restructure the mental maps, the workable plans, the ideals and value systems the person is working out of, all in line with the developmental needs emerging and the new elements in need of maturing that are being manifested.
The Salesian educator knows that single and simple answers are inevitably rigid ones and nothing is further from the spirit of the gospel than possessing a recipe to apply mechanically to all cases.
God is not only greater than our hearts: God is also much more than any of the formulas in which we think we are able to cage reality and become patrons of our own destiny.
Empowering the traveler to live consciously
The skills the educator acquires little by little along the way are always at the service of enhancing the quality of the relationship forged with the young person.
It is through the assistance of the educator that the young person is helped to serenely acknowledge the resources and limitations of his or her personality, to understand that life is not entirely in his or her own hands, precisely because it is mystery and it is gift. In other words the task of one who accompanies the young is to help them begin to look at life with the eyes of God and come to love themselves in so doing. It is not possible to love others without first loving ourselves and loving myself is not easy. Often the young find accepting their image, their voice, their weaknesses, their family background, their upbringing etc. very difficult.