Why bother following you!

Where do the youth today challenge me?

I have spent some time with young people in Oceania (PNG), in south-east Asia (FIL), in central Asia (MNG), and north America (USA), and I will premise my response to the question by saying 'again' that the difference is barely a millimeter thick. 

 

After 20 years of ministering amidst a handful or less than a fraction of the diversity of youth of the world, I can easily say that their lives are really very contrasting and yet not disparate. They live through different habitats, contrasting societies and iconic style of 'domus.' They are so different and so identical. They are manifestly distinguished from one another through external appearances. Spend more time with them, the youthful prose of joys, pains and hopes have the same refrain. They are very much open and attracted to someone and something with the semblance of truth and goodness. They have a very keen sense of justice even though they find it hard to practice it themselves. But they do demand it with ferocity when circumstances come close to home. Its a desire of a human heart to be fill up with goodness and truth. Values that constitute the very material of the human spirit. This shared heart beat becomes so obvious when ask them why they are so angry, so depressed and so rebellious. They all have been hurt and deprived of goodness or betrayed of the truth that was meant to be theirs.

I have been privileged to witness the cycles of these young spirits. It is easy to see coldness or indifference of bearing, suspicion and their deafening silence on the first day of encounter. But as days move into months and into years being in their midst, I have seen their realization of hope. But when they once again see glimpses of 'inconsistency' ie. Obscurity vision, lack of clarity of thought and contradictoriness of message from their mentors, their “fathers/brothers”, they become suspicious again and fall back into their silence and secret world saying to themselves, “they are no different from the rest of the quarreling noise of the house.”

What is this inconsistency? These youth of today ranging from 16-21 years of age demand more from us Salesians. What makes them fall back into their secret and exclusive world of their own, is the confusion they see once again in those they thought they could trust. Thus the inconsistency is the contrasting and at times conflicting messages the Salesians convey to them. Once they have seen, tasted and appreciated the truth and the good of discipline from one Salesian, they get so disillusioned so quickly when another Salesian presents another paradigm of relativism and individualism.

What is then the challenge of the young? On their part, there is nothing to blame when they get upset because they are simply the fruits of what we have made them to be. They become another chip of the old block of the spinning world ie. another person confused. The onus of the challenge is with the expression of our consecrated life today. They or shall I say, we need to get our act together as consecrated persons. The message we impart in our very lifestyle must bear a single message of this truth. The very message we as a team of educators must communicate is a clear message. And we pray that this message is true. When an international group of persons in 'consecrated life' are lives their humanity faithfully according to the 'charismatic expression proper to their consecration' it becomes so difficult to be unattractive to the spinning world. Unity and communion are so good and so rare even to the eyes of the cynical youth that they say 'there is something special here... something cool.'

The youth are like litmus tests (it would not be politically appropriate to call them guinea pigs) strips that can easily indicate the timeless element of the word of God: “how wonderful it is to see, when brothers live in unity.” And by unity I do not mean the robotic unity of uniformity and conformity. By unity I mean an inexpressible harmony of mind, heart and soul. A unity of kindred SPIRITs I should say. What better expression verifies this expression of one spirit, when people testified that the “difference” between Don Bosco and Don Rinaldi was their voice. The rest of their mind, and life expressions was conveying the same sincere and clear “message” - a profound consecrated life.

I think, or better, I believe that because the youth who saw the truth and felt the goodness of Don Bosco was clearly understood as identical with what they saw and felt in Don Rinaldi or anyone who replicated Don Bosco's message of God's goodness and truth. These youth easily and willingly went further and beyond appreciation and asked to join and to be a consecrated Salesian. The the number of vocations increased and the number of missionary commitments quadrupled in the hands of Don Bosco's successors, his faithful spiritual sons.

Today, we find few applicants not even a handful. We not only find less applicants today but moreover, we even lose those young that entered and easily are disillusioned with the superficiality and inconsistency within the supposed brotherhood of consecrated persons. They lost track of the truth and the good that once compelled them to give up their companionship with their peers to become disciples of the Lord.

The youth challenges us today to renew our way of being consecrated Salesian before God and to each other again. The youth throw back the mission intention intended for them. We ought to be the first Good Christian and Honest Citizen. A fitting expression in my view is said in one portion of the prayer in preparation for the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth in 2015. That is a “high standard of Christian living.” And any renewal of society and youth always seemed to begin with the renewal in spirituality and discipline of the clergy and consecrated persons. And this task of renewal is not only a millimeter thick. May Saint Carlo Borromeo help us with his wisdom and zeal for the house of the Lord.

c:ako
a reflection: "the youth challenges consecrated life and priesthood"

4 November, Feast of San Carlo Borromeo, my feastday!