Feature
Year of Consecrated Life: Society of Mary
Fr Mark Walls SM
In the light of Fr Jean Claude Colin’s founding insight that the charism of our order – the Society of Mary – is not just the preserve of professed religious but is giftedfor the whole world. Our focus in ministry to young people during the past 15 years has been finding and implementing ways to share and articulate that ‘Marist’ means ‘like Mary the Mother of Jesus’, and that being Marist is ‘a way of living the Gospel of Christ’.
One of the successful means we have implemented this is the networking of schools throughout Aotearoa New Zealand that have been in the teaching tradition of the Marist Fathers and Sisters. There is now significant interaction at all levels between the nine schools of the National Network of Marist Schools (NNMS), from Boards to staff to students.
The intention in forming the NNMS was to help each member school to become more authentically Catholic. This has been achieved by helping school communities articulate the Marist charism; to interpret it in the light of our reflections on Mary in the Gospel; and to apply it to life in the Church and society of the 21st century.
Our emphasis has been heavily on our ministry to students in the schools with programmes such as:
Faith Journey helps students and their parents transition from primary to secondary school, and to understand the nature and demands of a Catholic Marist school;
Young Marist Neighbours, founded in Catholic Social Teaching, takes students and staff into some of the remote and neglected communities of Northland, Te Urewera, and the East Coast. It helps them to confront first-hand the issues of systemic poverty and under-privilege; and Marist Youth Leader programme for Year 13 students challenges their notions of leadership and invites them to consider that ultimate success in life is not about their achievements, but rather about what sort of people they become.
These are some of the ways we help young people and their elders to reflect on Mary’s response at the Annunciation and at Cana; her perseverance at the foot of the Cross; and her quiet but strong and effective service in the early Church and so on.
Our charism is not one that encourages us to be highly visible or to follow particular devotions. It is about a way of life, a way of living the Gospel. So our constant encouragement of the young people we serve is summed up in the words of one of our greatest Marist educators, Fr Cormac Hoben SM. On the night before his sudden death in 1945 he had entreated his young charges to ‘become the best possible version of the person God created you to be’.
Fr Mark Walls SM is Director Marist Education Ministry.
Bridget Roche
Challenge 2000 is a youth development agency with a mission of ‘responding to the gospel by working with people in the search for social justice, social responsibility and personal dignity’. We live out our mission through a commitment to developing young leaders from within our schools, churches and communities. We provide a range of opportunities for them to explore their faith and to develop their potential as leaders. Our programmes range from the Challenge Marist Gap Year – a year-long intensive formation programme – to youth groups, sacramental programmes and school retreats.
Young people can struggle with making sense of who they are and what they stand for. Our programmes aim to help them answers those questions themselves. We explore topics such as identity, faith and justice, all within a safe environment.
It is not enough to simply know these things. For us, faith and action are inextricably linked and can only be fully realised through the way we respond to others and the world around us. For us to be disciples of Jesus we have to walk alongside people. We believe the best way to do this is by serving others in the community. A core component of our programmes is providing young people opportunities to live out faith through service.
By participating in our Odyssey, Gap year, or a Caritas Challenge programme, many young people have found a community of like-minded people with a developing faith and desire to live it out in practical ways. Challenge 2000 supports them act by helping out at youth events and holiday programmes, cleaning churches, leading youth groups, starting initiatives within their schools, or getting involved in Social Justice events to raise the profile of needs in other communities.
Through such activities they learn that service is not a one-way street. While they serve their communities they also gain from the experience. As Mother Teresa said ‘I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things’.
This year we will again be giving young people opportunities to explore their faith and to act! When young people are given such opportunities it is transformational – for the individual, their families, communities and our world.
If you or someone you know is keen to get involved, information about all our youth ministry programmes is on our website www.challenge2000.org.nz or call Courtney or Nicole on (04) 477-0045.
Bridget Roche is Director Challenge 2000.
Kathleen Field
The hot, dry summer breezes bring an atmosphere of change to the Hawkes Bay and soon the process of parish amalgamation will bear fruit. In early April the three parishes of Napier will become the Combined Parish of Napier. A similar process is underway for the three Hastings parishes.
In this age of lower Mass attendance this process is happening all around the country. What is unusual is that the new combined parishes of Napier and Hastings have prioritised youth leadership in their new structures. As part of the amalgamation planning processes, the need became apparent for greater youth involvement in the parishes and youth development and leadership.
Both new parishes have hired two part-time youth ministers. Joseph Penitito is the new youth minister in Napier as is Faaki Tuanaki in Hastings. These parishes see their youth ministers as key parish staff and are establishing support structures to encourage the young into parish involvement. The Diocese of Palmerston North provides financial assistance for the new positions as well as wider diocese and national youth ministry professional development, training and activities for them.
Pope Francis said, ‘What do I expect as a consequence of the Youth Day? I expect a mess. There will be one. There will be a mess here in Rio. There will be! But I want a mess in the dioceses! I want people to go out! I want the Church to go out to the street! I want us to defend ourselves against everything that is worldliness, that is installation, that is comfortableness, that is clericalism, that is being shut-in on ourselves. The parishes, the schools, the institutions, exist to go out!
Kathleen Field is Co-ordinator of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Diocese of Palmerston North.
Great moments of faith
David Sullivan
Our Catholic secondary schools are great places for faith development, faith education and a real lived experience of a Catholic community. I am in a privileged position as Secondary Religious Education Consultant for the Archdiocese, as I am able to assist these schools and work along-side their teachers. Here I see great work of the Holy Spirit in action.
We call the Religious Education programme ‘Education in Faith’. Its purpose is to educate our young people in the Catholic Faith. We don’t impose, but we give a rich knowledge based on Scripture and Tradition. We teach, using latest information and Church response to key areas of our lives.
Under the expertise of the Religious Education teachers, we encourage students to critically work with this knowledge and integrating it into their lives.
The newly-taught Achievement Standards have enhanced this and contributed to a greater student ‘buy-in’.
Last year, I worked with 20 teenagers, preparing them for the Sacraments of Initiation. I witnessed a young faith, alive and wanting to be expressed.
The prayers and liturgies in our schools are teenage-centred, rich and vibrant and examples of our faith alive with participation. Often liturgies are organised and led by our students and are joyful, reverent, and life-giving.
As parishes develop under new structures, questions perhaps need to be asked. Where is the Catholic Secondary school in our parish planning? There are great Catholic moments happening in our schools but are parishes aware of them?
Are we making every effort in our planning, to take our youth with us, and allow our parishes to be places where our young people feel included? In our schools they participate fully, which includes leadership.
Have we the courage to embrace this in our parishes?
In our time of renewal, I challenge this vital relationship between the parish and the school to be one that opens doors and creates community; one that walks side by side without letting traditions and experiences from the past hinder this living faith.
I encourage parish and school to share and experience faith together. This means taking risks, but that is a positive step as we live ‘being church’ together.
David Sullivan is Secondary Religious Education Consultant for the Archdiocese of Wellington.