Ruadhán Jones
This year is the third in a row that Youth 2000’s summer festival will be online. But while the traditional residential retreat isn’t possible, the organisers are working hard to bring young people together “who love the Lord, who love the faith, who love the Church”, the national director of Youth 2000 tells me.
Confession
In 12 locations around the island of Ireland, young people will gather to celebrate Mass, to make confession and to join in healing services, all at the same time. As well as this, online talks and liturgies will be broadcast that everyone can take part in, from wherever they are.
“There’s an enormous sense of excitement building,” Peter Sands says. “In past years, we would have gathered together in places like St Joseph’s College, Roscrea, or Clongowes College and we’d have between 1-1200 young people coming to celebrate the fullness of the Catholic faith. It will be a real celebration of the faith in Ireland.
“This year we obviously can’t do things like that with the regulations that are in place. But what we are able to do is we’re able to gather online, we’re able to do a broadcast of the key elements of the retreat. In fact, not just the key elements, every element can be broadcast, and we can celebrate our liturgies together, our Masses and our healing services.”
With just two weeks to go until the retreat begins, the Youth 2000 team are in Newbridge, which will effectively be ground control for the whole festival. Mr Sands is in the middle of checking on equipment for the broadcasts, and jokes that it’s enjoyable to be fixing “the same old problems”.
“We’re sort of buzzing for it,” he says. “It’s great to be down here, great to be solving all the old problems. We’re not quite back to normality yet, but this is a step in that direction, a step back towards what we do well.”
The response to the festival has been “very good”, Mr Sands continues, adding that people are more familiar with the online experience.
“In some ways, it’s been really, really helpful – obviously we’re aimed at 18-35 year-olds, but when you broadcast online, parents and grandparents see what the craic is with this Youth 2000 thing, as it were. They’re very interested in seeing the retreat. They’re very visibly able to see what goes on.
“People are very excited this year because we do want to celebrate our Masses together, we do want to be there in communion. People are excited to be able to do that. They have those youth Masses around the country and yeah, it’s been a very positive, a very good response.”
Máire McAteer, development officer for Youth 2000, says that it’s been “quite an undertaking” to organise the hybrid experience, but says they are keen to make the most of the “modern tools for evangelisation”.
“It has been difficult to navigate and organise in a sense – we were waiting and waiting on Government guidelines to see what we could actually do,” Ms McAteer begins. “A multitude of young people are helping and volunteering in each of the regions. We have regional leaders that are taking up the gauntlet to organise the liturgies.
“We will have Mass on the Friday, Mass and Confession on Saturday and then Mass on Sunday. We’ll have different celebrants and a lot of the local bishops are really supporting us. It’s like an army. Newbridge will be the hub, where the main talks will be broadcast.”
She continues, adding: “We want it to be coherent, that it would be one festival and not just everyone organising their own events. We wanted a cohesive festival where there would be a real unity between all the locations. Our hope is that there will be a lot of activity on social media platforms. Each location will be connected via the social media platforms. The retreats’ contact will be the same for everyone, it’s just the liturgy would be separate.”
Scripture
“It makes me think of Scripture, where Jesus tells the Apostles that you have to bring out the old with the new. You don’t throw away everything, but you take the best of what you can do. We still have the same structure, the same model. Our mission is still to bring young people to the Blessed Sacrament. That’s what we’re doing, we’re just being creative in how we go about it.”
The 12 locations will be spread across the four provinces of Ireland, with two in Northern Ireland. The number is significant – in order to foster a sense of coherence, Youth 2000 had the idea of naming each location for one of the 12 apostles. The retreat centre will also have an Irish patron saint, one of the 12 Apostles of Ireland, a famous school of sixth century monks.
“There’s four provinces and we wanted a wide-spread across the country,” Ms McAteer says. “It’s roughly spread three to each province, but our idea was the 12 apostles to Christ, and then there’s what’s known here as the 12 Apostles of Ireland. Each retreat will have an apostle and an Apostle of Ireland as their patron.
“We wanted to have a wide-spread across the country. The same schedule is the same across the country, it will be happening simultaneously. We have one main speaker Aelred Magee, his talks will be broadcast on YouTube and there will be a liturgy from Newbridge available to watch.”
As a last word, Mr Sands encourages anyone reading this and curious about the festival “to go to the website, log on and register. We’ll send them out a link to the broadcast and they can watch it in their home, on their phone, in their car.”
Together
“But also, they get to log in and watch a bit of the retreat, and to find out where their nearest liturgy is taking place. And to go down, celebrate Mass together in the presence of other young people who love their faith. That’s what Youth 2000 hopes to do, to show that there are lot of young people out there who love the Lord, who love the faith, who love the Church. We can’t be together as we’d like to be this year, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”
The festival takes place August 13-15. For more information on each of the venues please visit www.youth2000.ie