We need to keep our focus on mission, rather than maintenance, writes Maura Garrihy
I saw the Church as an irrelevant institution in my mid-teens and as a result I had very little time for it. I didn’t see it as the beautiful love story described by Our Holy Father, Pope Francis. This all changed when my secondary school chaplain invited me to a retreat being organised locally by Youth 2000, a group I had never heard of before.
Like most other young people I was living life with a deep void – a longing for something more, I wanted purpose and needed to know I was loved unconditionally. That weekend my whole life changed and naturally I want to share this with other young people.
That retreat was over eight years ago and I have been engaged in mission and youth ministry ever since. In the young people I have met and worked with, there is always one same constant – a deep desire to know, love and serve God (CCC 27).
Young people desire truth. This is the task of youth ministry – to respond to this deep yearning in our youth. Our mission involves providing opportunities for our youth to know the Lord, to worship Him and to serve Him.
Movement
Christ promised to build an ekklesia (gathering/assembly), not a kirche (building). To borrow the words of Fr Michael White of the Diocese of Baltimore: “An Ekklesia is a movement. The building project we join him in is not the construction of a building, or the maintenance of a museum; it’s not a monument to be viewed or a destination to be visited; it’s a movement. So it has to move. And it is a growing movement of growing disciples who are gathering more people, who are not disciples, to become disciples.’’
For youth ministry to continue to grow in the Irish Church, we need to keep our focus on mission, rather than maintenance.
We, the evangelisers, must first be evangelised. We cannot share Jesus with young people (which is the work of every baptised member of the Church), if we do not first know Him ourselves. We are called to help form the leaders that Christ is looking for in our youth, whether in parishes, ecclesial movements or dioceses, but this starts first in our own daily relationship with Jesus Christ and his Church.
When Pope Francis addressed the youth gathered at World Youth Day in Rio in 2013 he explained that the best evangeliser of a young person is in fact another young person. Peer-to-peer evangelisation is an area we must continue to invest in – young people will attract other young people, even those not engaged.
There are many great resources and programmes available to us but we must ensure that we never lose sight of why we carry out the work that we do, and how simple and beautiful Jesus meant it to be. Sometimes we complicate it.
Transform
Our parishes are called by their very nature to be centres of evangelisation and apostolic formation. It recharges everyone to see the Holy Spirit transform lives and ‘disturb’ people – God wishes to use ‘ordinary’ Catholics in extraordinary ways, if we allow him. Making intentional disciples of our young people is a major priority in a Church that takes seriously Jesus’ great commission – to go make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19).
We must grow in our understanding and provision of catechesis and formation and also in our opportunities for fellowship, community and discipleship. Our failure to evangelise our young people has profound consequences for their lives and ultimate destination, and for the Church’s mission.
I see great hope in the youth of the Irish Church – a whole new army of radical missionaries are rising up to lead the Church forward. We are seeing massive growth in volunteering, service, mission, study of the Faith, music ministry, awareness of charisms and gifts, evangelism, etc. This is the new generation of saints that St Pope John Paul II spoke about. If we can help our young people to fall in love with Jesus, service will naturally follow as one can never refuse the one whom they love.
Many young people’s hearts are being touched in such a way that they can respond to that personal invitation from Jesus to “come and follow” him. But God desires that we bear even greater fruit for His Kingdom!
Working in youth ministry is very challenging, and can often feel unsupported. The temptation to fall in to the numbers game, or the comparison trap, or ‘failures’ can actually stop us from experiencing all that God wants to do through our attempts and pure motives in ministry. He has chosen us for a beautiful mission – we are in the business of ‘making’ and training young disciples afterall!
Let us pray for all those engaged in youth ministry, that they may have the courage to share the Good News of Jesus Christ boldly and may continue to bring young people on the most important journey of their lives – from confusion to understanding, from doubt to faith and from fear and isolation to the Eucharist itself.
Maura Garrihy is Youth Ministry Director for the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora.