Towards the Horizon with Our Feet on the Ground

“Towards the horizon with our feet on the ground” was the theme of the 5th National Assembly of Youth Ministry in the Dominican Republic, which was celebrated on 11 and 12 September 2020, live on Facebook and on the Zoom platform from Santo Domingo.

The Secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, Fr. Alexandre Awi Mello was among the speakers invited to discuss the rediscovery of a way towards the horizon of youth ministry, to build a popular, synodal and missionary ministry.

Fr. Awi Mello urged the participants at the social and virtual meeting to reflect on the national reality of the Church, to discern and renew pastoral management strategies, from a popular, synodal and missionary pastoral perspective - the three dimensions of pastoral care youth highlighted by Pope Francis in Christus Vivit. “The important thing, according to the Holy Father - said the Secretary - is to awaken and root the great experiences that sustain the Christian life, to cultivate great love for God and neighbor, the encounter with God through the kerygma and the encounter with the brother through service, lived in community and attentive to the poorest” (cf. CV 213-215).

There are three “good practices” to test and apply for renewed and courageous youth ministry: meeting with young people who live in the most distant districts; cultivating expressions of popular piety, in particular processions and pilgrimages to shrines; engage in cultural, sports, political, or interreligious activities that attract young people from popular backgrounds or young people normally excluded from ecclesial environments.

The Assembly was attended by 54 leaders of the different diocesan commissions, delegates and directors of groups and apostolic youth movements.