The young people of our parishes are the most mobile and diverse people in our congregations and communities. For others, it is a busy career and the demands of a growing family. For some young adults, their pursuit of higher education pulls them away from both the locality and their parish church. For some youth, the declining religious participation of their family and the struggles of adolescence can distance them from parish life. Young people are full of life, are experiencing many transitions, and have incredible gifts to offer parish life. Unfortunately, this is a group which has become increasingly absent from our parishes. Amongst the Millennial generation, only 16% of Catholic young adults identify with Catholicism according to Pew Research from 2015, the lowest percentage for any generation studied. The Pew Forum Studies of 2007, 2012, and 2015 for example, noted marked differences between the generations in how youth and young adults wish to be involved in religion and the means by which they seek answers to their spiritual questions. For many years now, surveys have increasingly indicated that members of the youngest generations in the United States are far less likely than older Americans to be religiously affiliated. Likewise, the religious landscape of the United States is being reconfigured by long-term, fundamental changes. The world is rapidly changing in response to global secular trends such as the increased use of technology, global mobility, instant communication, and rising atheistic scientism. The Changing World of Youth and Young Adults Accompany them, promote belonging in the parish community, and lead them to missionary witness. They become missionary disciples when they seek to witness and serve those most in need, beginning with those closest to them. Our engagement with youth and young adults should help young disciples encounter Christ. Youth and young adults begin their discipleship journey in baptism and continue on that journey when they come to love Christ and follow His ways. There is a deep hunger in youth and young adults-a hunger for love, for truth, for meaning, for belonging, and for purpose that the culture cannot satisfy. This hunger is satisfied in friendship with Jesus Christ-a friendship that leads to community in his Church and to fruitful sharing of love and care with those in need. Another way to describe this friendship is the invitation to become a missionary disciple of and for Jesus Christ. "In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples." (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 120) Accompanying Youth and Young Adults on Their Journey as Missionary Disciples
0 kommentar(er)
