Youth need gospel framework

by Letters Editor · September 19, 2013

By Br Patrick Mrosso, Dundee

The youth need to understand that faith is powerful, it is not an abstraction, our faith rests in a person � the person of Jesus Christ.

It is not wishful thinking but a conviction that with God all things are possible; it is not contrary to reason, it is the means by which our human reason is elevated so that we can know how the world is.

“…young people today constitute the most difficult mission facing the Church.” (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic)

Where do people, you and me, fit into this complicated web?

Young people are crucial in our society. They are social actors of change and they are, as the saying goes, not only the leaders of tomorrow, but also the partners of today.

It is important to strive towards the involvement of young people as active citizens. Youth today are not all that different from youth in the past, besides having wants associated with the current fads, such as cellphones, laptops, tablets and so on.

They also feel the impact of moral relativism. �How I feel� has become the major criterion in deciding what is right and wrong. Pleasure is frequently considered an absolute value.

There is no distinction between what is right and what is wrong, between good and evil. Everything goes. There are no objective criteria. Many young people lack a frame of reference to give direction to their lives.

In this way, young people today constitute the most difficult mission facing the Church.

Among today�s youth, the Gospel message must be presented as an answer to all dimensions of young people�s lives.

Many young people have difficulty being alone, and so coming into contact with the deeper self. This is a serious problem. A healthy solitude is the beginning of a process of taking control of one�s own life and building a personality that allows one to escape from dependence on the opinions of the peer group.

This is something that those who work with youth need to pay attention to, so that young people may have a personal faith in Jesus Christ and discover their Christian vocation in life.

Having youth groups in parishes, I believe, can help the youth to grow into responsible individuals and meet their own personal needs as well as those of others.

Sometimes young people lack compassion due to difficulties they find at home or among their friends. They find it difficult to focus on anything else. But if they are treated with kindness, they will return the kindness shown to them.

It is said that �if a person is in his twenties and not an idealist, he has no heart. If he is in his fifties and is still an idealist, he has no head�.

Young people are full of vibrant ideas. When properly motivated and sufficiently guided, they can be agents of change. By giving them the opportunities to plan, to decide and to work we can prepare them to face the realities of life, including the harsher ones.

Youth is like a fire, it creeps forward. A spark at first, growing into a flame, and then brightening into a blaze. Our life should be a sign which directs others to follow; we should have attitudes of the good vines which bear fruit (John 15:1ff).

We must be able to use our ideas well and implement them into the realities of our lives and be examples for the coming generation.