This week, December 6 to 8 marks a year some 8000 youth from across Australia, together with their leaders and diocesan Bishops, descended on Perth to celebrate the fourth Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF).
The invitation by Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB Closing Mass to “respond to the Living Jesus’ call with openness, courage and humility”, remains a poignant message to youth ministries across the country, especially after the year 2020 has brought, in light of the pandemic.
“Don’t walk away sad from the chance to make your life a wonderful gift to others,, don’t walk away sad from the chance to live your life to the full just as God intended you to when He called you into existence and don’t walk away from Jesus because He is our Way, He is our Truth, He is our Life,” Archbishop Costelloe had told the 5000 people gathered at the Trinity College oval exactly a year ago.
Catholic Youth Ministry Perth (CYM) shared with The Record that although the pandemic forced the cancellation numerous face-to-face events and follow-up local events of the festival, the challenge has then been for young people to develop their faith journey on their own from home.
“Removing the busyness of life during lockdown, gave people a chance to explore prayer, scripture, and online religious resources (podcasts, mass online etc) to help develop their own personal prayer life from home,” said Catholic Youth Ministry Director Anita Parker.
“When the CYM Wednesday Mass and Holy Hour returned, the numbers attending have been stronger than prior to the pandemic. The thirst for prayer and the Eucharistic had grown in the period when people were not able to access these due to COVID-restrictions.
“I believe it has given us a renewed sense of the gift of our faith and to never take it for granted that we will always have access to the Eucharist,” she added.
With more youth groups resuming their weekly gatherings in the latter part of 2020, Mrs Parker explained that CYM has adapted a renewed focus to support youth leaders.
“We will be launching a new free training program for Parish Youth Leaders from January 2021 – Youth Leadership Pathway (YLP) program,” Mrs Parker stated.
“This program is a mixture of online training, personal spiritual development and in-person workshops. For those parishes who are considering starting a youth group, or existing youth groups who have new youth leaders – 2021 will be a great year to commence free training for youth leaders with the support of CYM and Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation.
The Bunbury Diocese has also been part of the development of this program, so that our hope is to make it accessible to rural parishes as well,” she confirmed.
Mrs Parker
added that growing the University Catholic chaplaincy groups through a new
network is another goal of CYM in 2021.
“There will be outreach to introduce high school students to the chaplaincies
before they leave school as we found that many young people studying at
university may not know that these groups and ministries exist on campus,” she
said.
“We also hope to continue to partner with the Centre for Faith Enrichment (CFE) to host shared faith development courses for young adults. Two courses were run in 2020 and more young adult courses are planned as a joint project for 2021.
“Young people are becoming aware that the ministry to support their faith life beyond youth ministry, is through the CFE office,” she added.
“It has been a fruitful and positive way to build young adult ministry in the Archdiocese of Perth and to make an intentional connection from youth ministry to adult faith education -God had a way of turning Covid-restrictions and changes to our original plans for post-ACYF into new blessings for youth ministry in our Archdiocese.”
Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation lecturer and Director of 24:7 Youth Ministry, Mario Borg said that the 13 youth groups under the 24:7 Youth Ministry banner braved through the COVID-19 restrictions by planning the financial and logistic aspects ahead of time, and by keeping their youth engaged through the use digital platforms.
“Utilising Zoom, YouTube, Teams, and other forms of social media – each of the youth groups maintained a weekly digital presence, small group networking and online youth group activities,” Mr Borg stated.
“Coming out of lockdown too had its challenges, working out how to run face to face youth groups while maintaining social distancing rules and COVID-safe practices. However, it soon became obvious that the young people were willing to work around the rules, given they were physically together.
“Record attendances indicated that 2020 would truly be a remarkable year of youth ministry,” he added.
“As we come to the end of this remarkable year, a total of more than 1700 teenagers make themselves present and show that young Catholics want to enjoy one another’s company and journey together in faith communities discovering what it means to live for God, full on, full time, all the time.”
Acts 2 College Principal Principal Jane Borg echoed Mrs Parker’s call to upkeep prayer life, especially with the challenge all Catholics, young and old had to face, not being able to physically attend Mass and receive the Eucharist.
“This year has been a challenge for all Catholics, young and old, as for many, their weekly attendance at Mass is their only meaningful connection with faith. This presents an ongoing challenge for parishes – how to reconnect people of all ages with their faith and their parish community.
This vital underpinning relationship with God that connects us can only be maintained through prayer. Our faith cannot be something we do; it has to be a part of who we are – Children of God, in relationship with God. In this weird year we have had, the Sacraments have not always been available, but the grace has always been, and will always be, there for us to access. We gain this access through prayer,” she concluded.
