Mags GarganA warm welcome awaits young pilgrims at Knock, writes Mags Gargan
It is not only Knock Basilica that has undergone a recent face lift – Knock Youth Ministry has grown and developed in an incredible way over the last few years, changing from a weekend youth festival to a full yearly programme offering services to young people of all ages.
Co-ordinated by Helen Toner and Nicola Mitchell and operating out of a small office in Knock Shrine, the youth ministry offers school retreats, diocesan retreats, summer camps, a kids club, a drop in centre for teens and now a new programme called VAKS which offers young people the opportunity to volunteer at Knock Shrine.
“We used to run the Knock Summer Youth Festival, which was very successful, but we were working almost throughout the whole year and all through the summer for this one weekend for young people aged 18-35 and I suppose the final summer we held the festival [in 2012], we thought to ourselves are we missing something here,” Helen explains.
“There were two of us working in an office for one weekend and if a young person called into this office and they couldn’t come to the weekend, there was nothing we could offer them.
“Also we felt the majority of the people at the festival were already practising their faith and were coming here almost as a celebration of faith, which was great but we felt we needed to be a bit more. We noticed when we looked out the window there was family after family with young kids all over the shrine grounds.
“So we went to the management here after thinking and praying about it, and we decided to work with what we already have with the thousands of pilgrims who are coming here.”
Arts and crafts
The team decided to cancel the annual festival and instead developed a new spiritual programme called the HUB (Hear, Understand, Believe).
In the first year they began with a kids club, which is something like a Sunday school. “We have two or three sessions per day where the kids come in for the day to do colouring and arts and crafts,” Helen says. Then they opened a drop in centre for teens and young adults “which is a very casual space to chill out and there is someone there to talk to if they want”.
The HUB also offers diocesan retreats for youth ministries across the country so when a diocese comes to Knock on its annual pilgrimage, it can include a group of young people who spend the day at the HUB and then meet up with the rest of the pilgrimage for the 3pm Mass.
“That’s what we did the first year and it was really successful. People took up on it straight away and I suppose it reaffirmed what we were doing,” says Helen, who is now in her eighth year at Knock.
“I feel almost that when we opened the HUB we decided to go back to basics. From that things like the summer camps have grown. Even the VAKS project, we would never have been able to dream of hosting the VAKS weekends while we were hosting the summer festival. It just wouldn’t have been possible.
“So I think with something like this you are building up young people and they are recognising Knock is a place for young people, and they are going to come back again,” she says.
“There is an opportunity for them to have their own time and do what they enjoy doing, while their parents go off to Confession or Mass or have a coffee, and then they can all meet up together as a family for Mass.
“Most importantly they can leave Knock saying that was a wonderful experience for all of the family.
“That’s what the HUB is – what it’s function is.”
A motive for hope and a call to love
If there was a Reeling in the Years for the Irish Church over the past 20 years it would leave one feeling very insecure as to the future of the Church and especially its young people. The scandals have pierced the Church to its heart, there is no denying. The demands on her as she moves into another generation bring challenge after challenge.
However, coming to this conclusion does not permit us to stand stagnant and sombre, for the Lord always wills progress, and this is something I have experienced while working in youth ministry at Knock Shrine.
The team of two in the shrine has soldiered on through the difficulties and trials over the past years to inspire hope and great confidence in God once again to a generation of young people who have grown up in a Church surrounded in scandal.
In Knock I have experienced a charism of joyful energy, a spirit of hope, and a grounding in the Lord all directed toward the up-building of our Catholic youth today. I see the diary almost full a year in advance with bookings from people wishing to attend the inspiring and thought-provoking retreats.
Mission
This mission of the youth ministry at Knock is towards young people, to encourage them to a state of interior joy and prosperity even in the midst of trials.
Unfortunately such trials surround all our lives, but Helen and Nicola guide the students to transcend these trials with God, who will lead them to fulfilment. I have seen countless groups coming to Knock (either on a school retreat, with the VAKS programme or with a parish youth group), having the chance to encounter God in a wholesome way.
What is offered to the youth at Knock is an encounter, a deepening of their relationship with God, a God of hope who, in spite of misery, disappointments and hopelessness, is always there ready to inspire and empower, a God who works with them every day to reach contentment.
Helen and Nicola strive and dedicate themselves to these young people who come to show each and everyone their self-worth and uniqueness in order to declare that they are worth more than the exterior demands that are pushed upon them.
Pope Francis exhorts youths to rebel against the culture of relativism that sees everything as temporary, and which believes that they are incapable of responsibility and true love.
He tells them to “have the courage to be happy” by renouncing and denouncing anything that is contrary to the Gospel of life and authentic and holistic love.
Here in a small corner of Ireland I truly see the Church alive and I see that there are indeed many young people active in their faith – this is the reality: we may not always see them but they are there. Let us pray for our young people and encourage them.
We can encourage them by living our faith in a way that is attractive and which is in line with their nature. This is lived out every day in Knock by the ministers here who have allowed themselves to be infected by God’s transforming presence.