Youth voice and action: How can our ministry help to include young people in the “adult world’s” response to COVID-19?

  • This week we asked our participants the following questions: “How do we ensure young people’s voices are heard as the world responds and considers the longer-term view?” “How do we ensure that young people are the means of "light and hope" that we know them to be?”

  • We heard from Danny Curtin who provided us with insight from Cardinal Joseph Cardjin, Founder of the YCW, Danny focused on the following statements:

    “The lay apostolate is absolutely essential to the very life of ​the Church”: Everyone is related to the Church - through the laity, through young people the Church reaches out into the world. So the Church is lacking without the involvement of each individual’s mission

    “No Mass without the young worker”: This time gives us an opportunity to reflect on this truth anew. Just like there is no bread without the baker, or no wine without the fruit picker, we are discovering something else in these days: There is no healing without the cares. There is no nourishment without the checkout worker. There is no cleansing without the refuge collector. We are all seeing the importance of each individual’s mission. How do we use this moment to accompany our young people to realise and embrace theirs?  

    “What terrific resources and unfailing energy an ‘ordinary lay life’, apostolically transformed, offers the Church!”: We are seeing young people take up responses through supporting people’s we’ll-being, the NHS, their local communities and spreading a global awareness.
    Our own Bishop’s Document on Youth Ministry (Called to a noble adventure) invites us to ‘Accompany’, ‘Call’, ‘From’ and ‘Send out’ within our ministry
     Accompany. Cardinal Cardijn and the YCW offers a framework for how young people can take action: ‘Serve’, ‘Educate’, ‘Represent’ - especially other young people as the ‘best apostles to the young (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity #12).

  • In the breakout rooms we posed this question: Imagine the possibilities of how young people could ‘serve, educate and represent’, now and post COVID-19? How might the Church accompany this? Answers ranged from:
    ~ accompany them to be messengers of hope (e.g. creating video messages together for key workers etc)
    ~ calling young people to use their online skills for others - e.g. creating tutorials to help the elderly set up zoom in their homes
    ~ support them to represent other young people and to represent their faith to others - in word and action.
    ~ give young people space. Stand back (like Jesus did in the Emmaus story). We are in danger of over saturating them with stuff
    ~ affirm and encourage the positive things young people are doing
    ~ nurture them, continue to build on the platforms/tools we are already making use of (after the lockdown, too)
    ~ get creative and do things differently (not just the usual ideas). Be youth led.

IDEAS & RESOURCES SHARED:

Note: we collate all the resources shared on our resource page.

Prayer and connecting
Young friends, don’t wait until tomorrow to contribute your energy, your audacity and your creativity to changing our world. Your youth is not an “in-between time”. You are the now of God, and he wants you to bear fruit. For “it is in giving that we receive”. The best way to prepare a bright future is to experience the present as best we can, with commitment and generosity. Christus Vivit 178

Dear young people, my joyful hope is to see you keep running the race before you, outstripping all those who are slow or fearful. Keep running, “attracted by the face of Christ, whom we love so much, whom we adore in the Holy Eucharist and acknowledge in the flesh of our suffering brothers and sisters. May the Holy Spirit urge you on as you run this race. The Church needs your momentum, your intuitions, your faith. We need them! And when you arrive where we have not yet reached, have the patience to wait for us”. Christus Vivit 299

Reflections on the YCW input
Now is the time to focus on the everyday action of the world
How do we name and celebrate our young people during this time and beyond?
Currently, young people are serving through the tech space - helping the elderly through videos, setting up zoom family calls - this is a type of service. Although it is something they themselves probably don’t recognise themselves doing.
Representation - we need to allow them the space to use tech in a way that amplifies the voices that are already out there - if they share their story they are doing it on behalf of other young people.

Comments from participants:
“I love the last line of Christus Vivit (299) - but find it deeply frustrating he didn’t add in another paragraph somewhere so it made a nice round 300.”
“The point is that there is still more to say” “Maybe our response is the 300?”
In Christus Vivit we here - Recognise - Interpret - Choose
How do we make adoration attractive to our young people? A genre that speaks to some young is Hillsong Worship which is current in the context of faith today - it meets them where they are at, and is something that young people will no doubt have come into contact with on school retreats etc. But how do we get them to recognise that as worship? Encouragement from friends would help.
Now is an oppurtunity to expierence encounter with our young people - how do we amplify it? And celebrate young people where they already are?
One priest posed the question “How do we make the best use of this time?” - in the online space he has seen that there has been less peer to peer discouragement taking place, different to being in a physical space with young people, more 1 to 1. Instead of getting disheartened by the lack of young people we are encountering, use this time to be productive with the numbers you already have. An encounter with young person may bring us the oppurtunity of encountering more along the way. At the same time we also need to be ready when someone is in need. What happens if we have a second wave of Covid - 19? Are we preparing ourselves now? What are we currently doing that goes beyond Adoration? We really need to start encouraging conversations with our young people.

UN Resources relating to Covid 19:
https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2020/03/5-things-young-people-can-do-against-coronavirus/
https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/coronavirus/meet-10-young-people-leading-covid-19-response-their-communities 

Thinking about society post Covid-19:
For many School is the main time where they encounter church
Big sense of the unknown - what will the ‘youth ministry’ world look like when schools start returning? Will school/residential retreats run? It is hard to make plans going forward. But perhaps we could plan for outreach work?
How do we maintain the ‘broadening of community’ post lock down. What do we continue those things which seem to be working now?
Where are the Youth voices? We are missing narrative from the young people – adult led. The hopeful prophetic voice is missing
Only 9% want to go  back to ordinary. Covid has shown what is possible: less pollution levels, less travel, the importance of that sense of community
How are we shaping young people in the return to normal? Are we ready to accompany them in increased times of unemployment, economic hardship etc?
Dicastery of integral human development: http://www.humandevelopment.va/en/vatican-covid-19.html. Would be great if they thought about including a young voice in that…

Spirituality resources:
Acts 4:32 from Brentwood Youth Service: https://bcys.net/acts432/
"Christ is Alive” 6 part video mini-series by the Southwark Youth Service- This short mini-series of 6x 2min videos was produced before the lockdown alongside 6th form students. The young people discuss some of the key themes from ‘Christus Vivit’. The videos and resources are offered to help young people reflect and pray, using journaling and through Lectio Divina: www.youtube.com/southwarkcatholicyouthservice
IgnatianSpirituality.com
hozana.org

Faith and mental health:
Mental health in the context of faith – head, heart and body center – faith and mental health coming together – yr 7 – 9 are over saturated with online stuff. How do we give support them during this time?
www.catholicmentalhealthproject.org.uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p089kbn6

For more details on our next conversations and to register please visit: millionminutes.org/conversations