THE LISTENING DISCIPLE

YOUTH AND THE DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY

Many of you may remember Walt Whitman’s words:

Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, fascination....

Day full-blown and splendid — day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter....

I have been asked to speak to you today about youth. In doing so, I will not disguise my intentions: I want to encourage you to reach out to the young. Let me begin with the present-day situation.

TODAY’S REALITY

Eight quick points:

Sixty-four percent of the world’s population is under 25.

Though there are very significant differences in various parts of the world, increasingly young people have these characteristics in common:

· A deepening immersion in an “information culture.” Most contemporary young people do not grow up in a “Catholic” culture, where their environment and a stable family setting support religious values. Many spend more time each week before the television than they do in school.

· Plasticity. Life changes quickly for young people. Rapid change is woven into the contemporary fabric of life. A century ago most people lived, worked, and died in their native village. Today, people change jobs, homes (and sometimes spouses or religious commitments) rapidly. Of course, the positive side of this plasticity is “flexibility” and “formability.”

· Hesitancy to make commitments. A young woman I know recently told me that she would never get married in the Church. She could not imagine saying that her marriage was “forever.” The word “forever” sticks in the throat of many young people. They have seen so many broken marriages, so many divided families, so many fractured religious commitments.

· Yearning love. Young people long to know how to love. The desire for significant relationships occupies a huge space in their agenda. In fact, a wise counselor once told me that, for many young people, it is the only item on the agenda. But many too are drawn toward transcendence. They are ultimately unsatisfied in the relationships they experience. They yearn for a love that goes beyond their everyday experience of love.

In some parts of the world, religious practice has declined dramatically among young people. In Spain, in the last five years, it has declined 13%. In Rome, where I live, it is almost fashionable for a young person to say: “I am not a believer.” Practice has fallen beneath 10% in Italy. In France, some estimate it at 1%. One astute writer in the USA says this: “The great problem confronting the churches today is indifference: “the massive absence of God from so much of the contemporary world — with all the final emptiness, religious cynicism, or meaninglessness of that experience.”[1] What is the percentage of young people in your own country who believe deeply and who live out their beliefs?

Contemporary research also tells us that a very significant number of young people seek:

It is interesting to note that these are key elements too in our Vincentian charism.

Our own youth groups, thanks be to God, are growing remarkably. Today they have more than 200,000 members in about 40 countries. On February 2, 1999, the Holy See approved, for the first time, international statutes for our youth groups. Since that time, largely because of the incredible work of Daughters of Charity and confreres, I have been able to approve national statutes for our youth groups in 25 countries. This past September, for the first time, we were able to set up an International Secretariat in Madrid. It is staffed by young volunteers who come from various countries, offering three years of their lives to serve there. Two months from now, on August 8-12, we will hold in Rome the first General Assembly of our youth groups, with delegates coming from about 35 countries.

From August 15-20, about 1800 members of our various youth groups will gather in Rome for World Youth Day. These include not just the Vincentian Marian Youth groups, but young representatives from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, from AIC, and from the Miraculous Medal Association.

On April 7, 1999, the Holy See approved the International Statutes for MISEVI (Vincentian Lay Missionaries). This newest member of our family has as its goal the sending of lay men and women to the missions ad gentes. MISEVI provides for their formation, their apostolic placement, their community setting, their economic sustenance, their human and spiritual support system, and their eventual reentry into their homeland.

We talk today a great deal about marketing. It seems to me that much of contemporary society has sold youth the wrong dream: money, the need to have more and to have it right away, dream-like sex, the triumphant lone ranger. An interesting question to pose is this: who are the models young people seek to imitate: Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the saints and martyrs, living saints like some of the sisters in your own provinces? Or are they more likely to be Michael Jordan, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Denzel Washington, and Martina Hingis? As I see it, the challenge for us is this: Can we sell young people Jesus’ dream?

You probably remember that our youth groups are related to the Miraculous Medal Association. Both flow from the apparitions Catherine Labouré received at Rue du Bac in 1830. Catherine wrote to Fr. Aladel:

The Most Holy Virgin wants you to found an association of “Children of Mary.” You will be its superior, and to you and its members abundant graces will be given.

The groups grew rapidly, initially in France and then throughout the world. In this century they knew a period of decline, but in the last 20 years they have undergone a remarkable resurgence.

1. Forming their members to live out, with deep faith, the following of Christ, evangelizer and servant of the poor.

2. Living and praying, like Mary, in simplicity and humility, making their own the spirituality of the Magnificat.

3. Keeping alive a missionary spirit, especially through missionary experiences among the poor, particularly among poor young people.

4. Preparing the members individually and communally to collaborate within the Church and within society with other pastoral agents.

Do you believe in dreams? Do you believe that you can make them come true? I encourage you today to share your dreams with young people.

1. Create youth groups. Is there any sector of society that Pope John Paul II has focused on more clearly than youth? Today everyone is talking about the new millennium. Young people are the third millennium. It belongs to them. If the Church is to be fully alive in the third millennium, it will be because it is energized by young people who believe deeply. The young will be the evangelizers and the servants of the poor in the third millennium. Most of us will hardly be there. If statistics hold true, I will not survive the second decade of the third millennium. But today’s young people will be alive and energy-filled long after that. And so I suggest to you today that there is no apostolic goal more important for the Church and for the Vincentian Family than to reach out to and to offer young people a vibrant, Christian, Vincentian formation. We who live in the Vincentian Family have a wonderful gift to offer the young. I say to you today: transmit it to them joyfully and generously.

Today our youth groups exist in 40 countries. Would it be possible, by the time of the next General Assembly, to have active youth groups in every single one of the 80 provinces and regions of the Daughters of Charity? I encourage you to do it.

2. When you create groups, choose a style of group that is fully inculturated. Today we talk a great deal about inculturation. Some say to me from time to time: "I do not think these Vincentian Marian Youth groups will go over here in my country. Our culture is different." My reaction is simply this: be creative. If what you see in Vincentian Marian Youth groups does not fit your own culture, then create what does fit it. But let nothing hold you back. Go out to the young. Share with them the deep love for the poor that St. Vincent and St. Louise burned with and their commitment to an active, practical charity lived out in simplicity and humility.

3. As I mentioned earlier, several recent studies point out the young people are seeking three things:

Be sure that whatever youth groups you set up satisfy those three goals. Give young people an experience of God, an experience of friendship among themselves, with you, and with the poor, an experience of committed service. Be especially sure that they pray with you. It is often the element most neglected. Have we developed a pedagogy of the experience of God?

4. Where can these groups be set up? There are many focal points for setting up these groups. First, our Vincentian Family staffs a large number of schools and universities where maturing young people study and sometimes live, where they sometimes feel quite alone, where they seek some form of Christian formation, and where they find themselves eager to reach out for goals that have meaning. Today the educational institutions sponsored by our Vincentian Family worldwide have more than a half million students. They are a field ripe for the growth of youth groups. There are also young teachers in these schools. Could they be organized and offered a deeply Vincentian formation? Secondly, there are hundreds of parishes where Vincentians and Daughters of Charity work. Every parish should have one or several youth groups. Thirdly, there are young nurses and doctors in your hospitals. With creativity, could some type of Vincentian group be organized for them too?

5. Formation is the key. In fact, the loudest call that I hear today as Superior General is a call for Vincentian formation. St. Vincent has left us an enduring charism within the Church and he has placed it to a large extent in your hands and mine. Pass it on to the young. Tell them how St. Vincent, inspired by Jesus' vision, saw the world upside-down. Tell them that the poor are the kings and queens and the presidents in the Kingdom of God and that we are their servants. Hand on to them a rich gospel spirituality, rooted in the humanity of Jesus. Help them to share in Jesus' love for God as his Father, his trust in God's providence. Accompany them in listening to God's word as did Mary the Mother of Jesus and in putting it into practice as she did. Demonstrate for them, especially by your lives, the importance of truth and committed love. Illustrate for them by your example a way of seeing the world with the eyes of the humble so that everything is gift ─ everything ─ and God is continually reaching out to us to make us new and whole. The charism of our Vincentian Family is extremely important within the Church. Can we, wherever we might be, create youth groups, give them a rich formation, and offer them various opportunities for commitment: a summer program, a year-long program, a three to five year commitment, a life-long commitment.

6. Offer young people an international dimension to their lives. We live in the global community. Today events everywhere in the world influence us. If the yen is weak, the New York Stock Market dives. If there is violence in Central America, the number of undocumented people in Los Angeles increases dramatically. I urge you to help young people to see the plight of the poor throughout the world as St. Vincent did. In an era when most people died within five miles of their birthplace, he established two international communities that spread quickly from France to Poland, Italy, Algeria, Madagascar, Ireland, Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys. He himself in his old age longed to set out for the Indies. I encourage you to look at the newest member of our Vincentian Family, MISEVI, Vincentian Lay Missionaries. It has a well worked out statute for sending people to mission countries to offer their service to the poor for from three to five years. Can MISEVI come to exist in everyone of your countries?

Those are a few suggestions, my sisters. I hope that they are helpful. You yourselves will surely have many more. Your own suggestions will probably be much more concrete and much more creative than mine. Let us brainstorm a little today to see if we can find further ways of reaching out to the young today.

[1]Michael J. Buckley, “Education Marked with the Sign of the Cross,” in America 163 (August 25 - September 1, 1990; # 5) 101.

[2]Cf. Albert di Ianni, "Religious Vocations: New Signs of the Times," Review for Religious 52 (# 5; September-October 1993) 745-763. Also, D. Nygren and M. Ukeritis, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States (Connecticut: Praeger Press, 1993) 251.