by Mark Blaise
A few weeks ago, someone commented that my new job requires me to wear very different “hats.”
In the Parish Evangelization Services, I work with two different ministries — social justice ministry and youth ministry — which are more similar than they may seem at first glance.
I’m used to this “different hats” line of thinking from my college and work experiences. I studied at and was blessed to work at Benedictine College in Atchison and Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. People have often commented, “You really got the full spectrum of Catholic education.” Several years ago, I asked a former teacher how they stay positive. Their answer was simple: “The students teach me more than I teach them.” In youth ministry, we have an opportunity to help young people grow in faith, but they also have an opportunity to change their communities, our church and us.
Recently, I have noticed that many young people do not fit into the various “buckets” we place Catholics in: traditional, socially minded, praise and worship, intellectual, conservative, liberal, to name a few.
A young person may enjoy philosophy, the magisterium and apologetics and also be passionate about environmental justice. Their friend may enjoy attending Life Teen events and listening to praise and worship music and also be devoted to eucharistic adoration and attending traditional liturgies.
Throughout our archdiocese, youth groups conduct service projects for vulnerable neighbors, host adoration nights, have praise and worship bands, attend apologetics presentations and pray outside abortion clinics. Yet many of these young people participate in different expressions of our Catholic faith without feeling the need to place them in opposition to one another. Our culture today is more comfortable with these stereotype buckets because it is easier to be surrounded by people who agree with you.
However, our Catholic faith calls us to something greater. Today, when some dismiss “thoughts and prayers” as meaningless and others say to those struggling to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” our faith calls us to move beyond these perspectives. Our thoughts and prayers should move us to reach out our hands and help others up, while also asking why they are struggling in the first place. Prayer and action, charity and justice, personal responsibility and solidarity are not competing ideas.
Young people have an incredible gift for the church; it is not simply their passion or energy, but their ability to accept a Catholic faith which does not fit neatly into our “buckets.” Young people demonstrate to us that a love for the Eucharist and a commitment to social justice, a respect for tradition and a desire for renewal, a life of prayer and a call to action do not compete with each other but are all aspects of the wonderful tapestry of our church.
Rather than asking young people to choose between them, perhaps we should ask what they can teach us about embracing them together. We often spend our time thinking about how to pass the Catholic faith on to young people that we may forget to pay attention to what they’re teaching us about being Catholic.
