It’s very easy to assume that once a synod is finished, it’s over. But it’s really just the beginning of the work we’re charged with doing. The Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment is trying to set the whole Church—not just those paid to do so—on a course to focus attention on the youth and young adults. Now that the synod is over and the final document released, the real work begins in putting these ideas and plans into action as we await an Apostolic Exhortation from Pope Francis. The final document does not conclude with a program or an action plan to implement. Instead, it encourages mentors, accompaniers, parents, priests, religious, consecrated, married couples, and single people to live lives of beautiful, rich, joyful holiness.
You can read the full document here.
“We must be saints so that we can invite the young to be saints. The young are crying out for an authentic, radiant, transparent, joyful Church: only a Church of saints can measure up to such requests! Many of the young have left because they have not found holiness in the Church, but rather mediocrity, presumption, division and corruption. Unfortunately, the world is outraged by the abuses of some people in the Church rather than being invigorated by the holiness of her members: hence the Church in her entirety must embrace a decisive, immediate and radical change of perspective! The young need saints who can form other saints, thus showing that “holiness is the most attractive face of the Church” (Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, 9). There is a language that all men and women of every age, place and culture can understand, because it is immediate and radiant: it is the language of holiness.” (166)
The Holiness of Young People
Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment
I spend a lot of time with young people. Many of the events I speak at throughout the country are high school youth ministry and college young adult conferences, retreats, and parish gatherings. If I’m not with teens and young adults, I’m with the folks who are working with them, figuring out better ways to reach them during a phase of life that’s wrought with transition, sometimes confusion, occasionally frustration, and lots of questions.
I’ve discovered something simple: today’s youth and young adults crave authenticity from their peers, in their families, in the workplace, at school, and especially from the adults who influence their lives. There is enough false mumbo-jumbo cramming the airwaves already in the form of filtered photographs, overly edited videos, the constant chatter of influencers and brands. The one thing the Church can do better than every other thing shoved in the faces of young people is present her authentic self: a self that is, as the final document of the synod puts it, “radiant, transparent, and joyful.”
Young people need to see mentors in faith who recognize their shortcomings and failures, who acknowledge the areas of improvement and growth but who are seen as striving for holiness, longing for heaven, and walking with them along this journey of becoming holy.
The synod’s final document challenges those who work with young people to “be saints so that we can invite the young to be saints.” Striving for sanctity is no small task and it’s a remarkable responsibility that requires openness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It also requires being open to new approaches and a willingness to give testimony to the great joy Jesus Christ has brought into our lives. For the document to simply say “be saints,” without an action plan could come off as too casual, a throwaway idea slipped into a closing line because it sounds good and makes us feel like we’re on the right track.
This is perhaps one of the most important things the entire document says: that it is not programs, events, well-crafted books, perfectly delivered speeches, or crisply edited videos that will win the hearts, minds, and imaginations of young people, it is the living witness to a life lived for God, a life of holiness-in-progress.
The most attractive face of the Church is holiness. The most effective thing we can do is show young people how we are striving for holiness. We share with young people how we pray. We tell them about our own struggles. We give insights into our own questions. We offer comfort in the face of suffering. We explore the tenets of the faith with a desire to listen and learn together. We show that we’re on this journey, too, and speak in the language of holiness, not because we simply talk, but because we walk alongside them and give witness to the life we live.
If we are to embrace a “decisive, immediate and radical change of perspective” in the Church, it is not just an ideological change, but a change within the way we live, teach, share, pray, and spend time with young people. Young people need saints and we become saints with and alongside them.
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