Celam present at the Latin American Youth Ministry Meeting: “They live a spirituality of joy, building the promised land permanently”
Father Francisco “Chico” Hernández is he director of the Celam Center for Pastoral Action Programs and Networks (Ceprap). He participated all this week in the XXI Latin American Meeting of Youth Ministry that concludes today Asunción, Paraguay, and shared with us his impressions about what he experienced, the word of Pope Francis, what he carries in his backpack to distribute in his environments.
Ask: What assessment do you make after this intense, varied week in the key of continental youth, high ecclesial commitment and community discernment about the realities of their countries that was experienced in Asunción?
Answer: A very positive balance. These boys and girls have a great sense of party, to know that they are living a festival of god in them: the joy of meeting Jesus, of generating this culture of encounter even in the face of the fact that they are from different countries, different cultures, different ethnicities.
They have managed to build a communion space enjoying the joy of his youthof the joy of every human being—which none of us should lose—but which they have on the surface, awake, it is a permanent attitude that exists in them.
The encounter with the other who is different is not just a casual encounter but is to understand, to “compassionate” with the other.with him or her, and enter into the dynamics of learning to capture the strength of God that is in him or her and walk together. I see them very willing to walk together, to be a synodal church, to be sowers of hope. And, although they do not always have all the certainties – it is not that they have all the clarity in the world -, They make a permanent effort to trust in the Lord. They do it with a style of Abrahamic experience, of an exodal nature, in which they trust in God, believe in God to walk knowing He walks with them. They make a joint effort, discovering the routes and making the necessary milestones to build that promised land permanently.
I also see very positive willingness to workto dedication to service, to the search for “where things are”, where the Lord wants to take us, what is the force of the Spirit that drives us where. I also see them with a lot of availability for articulationto truly overcome all individualism and live fraternity.
Another thing that seems very positive to me is how they celebrate faithmeeting Jesus fills them with passionof enthusiasm, of desire to prepare for the commitment.
Q: What was it like living with spirituality (expressions and relationship with God) as a young person, what surprised you, what did you see as notable, what would you like to bring to the “adult” world of faith to give fresh air to the ecclesial environments of the continent?
A: I think All spirituality has a joviality, a freshness that usually makes us feel full of strength and desire to carry out God’s action in the midst of history.. But particularly these young people experience a spirituality of joythey know how to enjoy, enjoy life, the second, the minute of their work, the spaces for recreation, the ludic, of relating with others, turning each moment almost into a dance. It is a very beautiful spirituality because prepares them for changeknowing that one must enter into a permanent conversion, one is not always finished or fully developed, that one must rethink one’s horizons, start searching, one must not stop but be dynamic, be on the move. It is a communion spiritualityof commitment to the other, of looking at the other not so much what they do but who they are, that they are a person and that every person deserves to be loved and also deserves to love. A spirituality of being on the roadto be out to carry out the mission together, seeking the participation of everyone recognizing the limitations To know how far your capabilities are, finding articulations in communionsthe possibility of strengthening the limitation and are willing to new things.
Q: “I encourage you to hold on tight to your roots and move forward without fear. Seek unity among all differences. Work for justice that makes peace effective and lasting, build the common good and fertilize the happiness of the Great Homeland that makes up the Latin American peoples to continue increasing the Kingdom of God,” Pope Francis said to the young people gathered in Asunción in your letter. Your reflection, please.
A: That proposal of the Holy Father’s text to young people seems to me to be a wonderful text. Is a great life itinerary, a way of measuring the beatitudes in the here and now. What the Pope gives us is a path to build the civilization of love, to go from the conceptualization of the word to the fact in permanent construction. Aspects that are fundamental to making a path are highlighted.
A first aspect that the Pope hints at there is the sense of identitythe sense of belonging, invites us to value our roots, to consider our history, to look at the past with joywith hope and learn from there to take away the lessons learned and also learn from mistakes to rethink things better. So there is a first important element: the value of historical memory, the value of each culture, of each territory, of everything that – in some way – has helped me to be myself and in my relationship with others. I think that with nature, with the common home, the Pope gives us that value of identity and belonging in community work, in the construction of the community.
The other aspect that I like about this itinerary is the courage. Young people are very open to risk, to enter into adventure, to let themselves be carried away towards the discoveries of new possibilities, to take the plunge, sometimes without measuring the possible consequences. They walk, always seeking to fulfill themselves not without fear, overcoming it to allow themselves to be led by hope. The Pope gives them a second element: to be brave, with the capacity they have to uninstall themselves, to position themselves as a church on the way out, to walk together, to generate communion, inviting everyone to participate, expanding the store so that every human being finds in it a space to walk with others, knowing that the kingdom is the goal and that – at the same time – it is a path because we are generating symbols of the kingdom during the historical process and at the same time we have the kingdom as a horizon. . The Pope invites you to this challenge and gives you some dynamics typical of the kingdom: to be builders of peace in the face of the diversity of violence that we have todaya very significant violence against our sister and mother the earth; The Pope also sees a depth in young men and women with the care of the common home.
Another very significant value: invites you to fight for justice, the necessary minimum of love, to consider aspects of empowerment, of participation in the decisions that a community must make to build itself as a community, to build a country, to make a country project, to participate politically in the sense of building the common good and that we all feel responsible and that young people feel that they have to take a leading role there too.
It also invites them to build unity respecting differences, not wanting to annul the difference but on the contrary: knowing how to walk with diversities, with the diverse, with those who are different, with those who are not the same as me but who are also people, are human beings, who want to be loved, who want to love, who want to be communities, who long to be received into the community like everyone else, no matter their culture, their ethnicity, their history. The important thing is that we are all people and that we build a great universal brotherhood where we can all feel like brothers even knowing that we are all sinners. Because If we wait to build brotherhood on the basis that none of us are sinners we will never have brotherhood.. I think the key is in that: in being able to build ourselves fraternally even knowing that we all have some limitations, but – above all – that every human being is a person, that every human being has a value for God because he is his son and daughter of the which He feels wonderfully happy to have created each one of us, even knowing that in each one of us there may be something that dehumanizes us. He trusts that with his help we can become more and more human.
He also invites us to build the common good: that we all have the same possibilities to develop our capabilities and potential.
invites us to be happy but seeing everyone happy: not my happiness at the expense of another’s happiness, a shared happiness, in communion, in everyone’s celebration. It is a happiness built on the basis that we all love each other, or that we want to love each other, we make that effort to build an equitable, supportive, fair, fraternal society, where we can all find fulfillment and smile as fully realized human beings.
The Pope gives us the Great Homeland project. There we have a whole significance of what is a desire for Latin America and the Caribbean to build more equitable, fairer developments, with more equality of conditions, where everyone can find a reason for being for their history, for their life, for your country.
You may be interested in: Francisco to the young people in Asunción: “Fertilize the happiness of the Great Homeland that makes up the Latin American peoples to continue increasing the Kingdom of God”
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