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This 13th IMBISA plenary meeting has identifed its Lazarus as the youth, and it must do so at a personal, organised and systemic level. The priests are the best-placed people to respond to young people personally because they interact with them daily in their parishes. But from what I have learnt, many priests are not available to young people; they do not know their names, and they do not spend time being with them and listening to them.
From the discussions that we have had during this plenary, we have discovered that young people are not saints; they have many flaws. They have an entitlement attitude that the world owes them, they think that because they are young, they know everything and we old ones are stupid, they are lazy and want quick results without hard work, they think in front of themselves and have no sense of the long term consequences of their action, they strive after pleasure and have no appreciation of a life of sacrifice, they are abusive to their parents and grandparents causing them stress and high blood pressure. The only legacy of their parents that they carry is the name and not the good works and the noble causes for which their parents stood. They reap where they have not sown.
Their inertia leads them to boredom that gives the devil the opportunity to use them, turning them into drug addicts, tavern patrons, practitioners of crime and people of lose morals. They sit and wait for salaried jobs and fail to use the opportunities in front of them.
This is what we old people say about you young people, but what right do we have to say these things when we do not know you? If, as Church, we do not have a personal touch with you, if we do not listen to you and understand what leads you to do these things, our saying these things is only condemnation, whereas if we know you, if we have time for you, our saying these things will be coming out of a concern to correct and save you and you will listen to us.
Click HERE to download the full homily
