Preparing the Future: How young people can answer the Pope’s call

‘Many people want to return to normality…Today we have an opportunity to build something different.’  Pope Francis, General Audience, 19th August 2020

Million Minutes, working with a group of youth ministers and youth workers across England and Wales, have put together a new twelve-unit resource which provides a guide to empower young people to process their Covid-19 experiences and discern what kind of society they want to see, helping to give young people a voice in shaping the future

Events of 2020 have exposed deep-rooted and systemic inequalities in our society – inequalities that seem to hit the youngest hardest. It is time for healing and transformation, to build a fairer, more equal, and sustainable world so that we may look ahead to a more hopeful future, not least because it is the young who are the primary inheritors of that future.

Pope Francis calls us to ‘prepare the future’, and not just passively prepare for the future. By this he is calling all Catholic communities to build back better for our communities, for families, for creation, for sustainability, and for our own spirituality. Now is the time to face what is broken in our society and work together to make a better world for us all.

In coalition with the Columbans and youth workers and chaplains across the Dioceses of Plymouth, Leeds, Northampton, Southwark and Arundel and Brighton, we have convened a group to create a twelve-part resource series called Prepare the Future. Aimed at young people and young adults (aged 13 to 18), this resource includes liturgies and reflections that teachers, chaplains, and youth workers can adapt and use with young people to collectively reflect on what has happened and what lies ahead.

Anna Fraine (author and collator of material) says: ‘I hope the resource enables young people to believe that they can make change, in their own lives, and in the lives of others. Perhaps more than any other generation, today’s young people have to be resilient despite how powerless it can feel living in a world beset by consumerism, wastefulness and war. We believe that in the face of such challenges, faith can play a pivotal role. These units explore the benefits of daily spiritual practice, such as prayer, silence, and meditation, as a means for young people to discern what is right for them, their community, their own culture and life. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problems we now face. The challenges our world faces are multifaceted and complex – but young people offer our world a hopeful future where they are engaged and active. For this reason, I feel we can be ambitious and prophetic –as we rediscover the Gospel and follow the example of Jesus.’

Kevin Mendes (School Chaplain at St Peters Catholic School, Guildford) adds: ‘As a School Chaplain I found this opportunity to gather with like-minded people valuable. The contributions that we had from various speakers (over lockdown) allowed us to explore different themes and topics which are relevant to young people today. This has helped me to enhance my knowledge and skills which will be beneficial to the work I do with young people. I look forward to future opportunities to gather and share experiences of youth ministry and to explore relevant themes to working with young people.”

Daisy Srblin, Director of Million Minutes, says: ‘We all know that it is young people who suffer the most at the hands of our unequal world, and will undoubtedly struggle most when it comes to the legacy of Covid-19. It is the younger generation who will carry the greatest burden, when it comes to an economic recession, the climate emergency, paying for Covid-19, and so much more. Million Minutes is proud to have laid the foundations for this important resource, which we hope will enable young people from around the country to process the trauma they have experienced, to explore the role of faith in that journey, and to build the sort of future they deserve. Thank you especially to Anna and the Columbans, but also to all those from Dioceses around the country, who have helped make this resource possible’.

The first six units are available to download today at: millionminutes.org/future.

Listening to young people – taking time for real change

Three schools ­in Durham ­– St Leonard’s, St Godrics and St Thomas Moore, part of Durham Martyrs Parish – spent time this Advent delving deeper and exploring their views on the Church, their parish and being young people.

The ‘listening survey’ they used was created by Million Minutes in response to Pope Francis’s letter Christus Vivit, to challenge parishes to create opportunities to engage with young people in their local community in new ways. The survey is an opportunity to listen to the realities and challenges young people face, to learn from one another and to work together to make lasting change in local communities.

Tom from Year 7 said "I feel part of my parish community when I go to school Masses and when the priest visits my school. My message to the parish would be, ‘try to connect with the youth because they are the future of the world’”.

A Year 8 pupil said “I live in a small community with no local church, so it can be hard to get too. I think churches and parishes aim activities and services at older people who have more time.” Another comment that came back was it should be the young who should be in charge of the homilies at Mass!

Million Minutes’ hope is that parish communities will take up Pope Francis` challenge to go out to the peripheries - to be brave and to journey together. And the Million Minutes’ team is here to help, with resources and support to help discern how best to serve young people.

If you are interested in understanding your young people in 2020, pledge your time to making real change here: https://millionminutes.org/understandingyoungpeople

Spend time looking for Christ

Advent is a time to prepare. For the coming of Jesus Christ, sure, but also for preparing an inordinate amount of food, presents, and for yourself to see all those family members who only seem to be around at Christmas. Jesus is central to Christmas, but the season demands so much more of us these days. By January we are often left stuffed, stressed and ready to go back to our day to day lives.

However, this advent I offer you a challenge. Of course, you should still do all of the celebrating, eating and greeting outlined above, but I challenge you to spend some time looking for Christ.

Not in the cherub like statue that is in your Church’s manger, but in the young people you encounter.

Young people embody the youth of Christ, yet they are often cast aside for not attending mass enough or are blamed for the problems of the day. We tend to only see the worst in young people, recalling examples of failed encounters, or simply passing off working with them as being too hard, and not rewarding enough.

This could be true, but not because young people are young. It’s because building relationships takes time. As a Church, we cannot expect young people to be falling at our feet asking for help and accompaniment. In many cases young people wouldn’t even know where to turn. However, this doesn’t mean we can’t offer our services to young people and work with them in new and engaging ways.

But as a Church, we need to ask ourselves how prepared are we really? We may offer the odd youth mass, and one Sunday each year dedicated to young people, but can we truly say that we have begun preparing to work with young people, in ways that will be fruitful, supportive and inclusive?

Maybe that’s what we should be preparing for this advent? Preparing for the coming of Christ in the form of young people. Pope Francis reminds us that God ‘is at work in the life of each young person’. The question we need to ask ourselves is: are we missing God’s works and wonders by marginalising young people?

This advent don’t miss out on the joys of young people, or the miracles that God works through them, instead start looking at the potential to work with them and be prepared to be taken to new and beautiful places.

By Sophie Aulton (Million Minutes)