On August 17-18, the Redemptorist priests in charge of the Redemptorist Youth Missionaries (RYVM) and young people representing the regions (North, Central, South and Central Highlands) had a two-day meeting at Saigon, shared, and learned together, and at the same time oriented the preparation for the national meeting of the RYVM next year.
Here are some notes from a meeting of a young missionary.
After a series of days of anticipation and excitement, the meeting day of “FURTHER THE MISSIONARY YOUTH OF THE SAVIOR” of representatives of the Dong Missionary Youth (GTTS) nationwide has finally arrived.
To start the first activity of the meeting, Ane Truong Le Hoang Anh (GTTS Hue) and Peter Hoang Trung Chinh (GTTS Saigon) shared their experiences after the 2024 Asia-Australian Youth Congress. Although the Congress ended more than a month ago, the lessons and memories, aspirations, and desires for innovation after that trip still remain clear and consistent in the memories of the participants.
After the emotional sharing about the congress, we, the DCCT GTTS, had the opportunity to listen to the lecture of Father Anton Le Ngoc Thanh, CSsR on the topic “THE LONG-TERM FOUNDATION OF MISSIONARY YOUTH MINISTRY.” His sharing clarified the strengths and weaknesses of Catholic Youth Pastoral work in Vietnam at the present time. Through the lecture, Father Anton emphasized three factors that young people today need to know in order to correctly determine their Missionary role:
First of all, GTTS (Missionary Youth) friends should realize that ‘Youth is the present of the Church and Society’ because the freshness and dynamism of young people are important factors in creating a dynamic Church and a vibrant Society, through which I advise young people to focus on investing in the present to be able to develop themselves and serve the Church in the most perfect way.
Secondly, the GTTS members were invited to reflect on the issue of “The vitality of young people in the Church today that is not maintained continuously, and the face of young people is not really clearly seen.”
From this point of view, Father Anton shows that most youth ministries in Vietnam today only stop at the ‘festivals’ or events because most young people only gather when there is a festival and after that event, “each person stays at home and each person returns to their hometown.” Everything returns to normal despite the fact that these events are organized very elaborately and expensively; even famous artists and singers are invited to participate in the event, but these programs can only mobilize young people for a few days and then return to daily life as if nothing had happened.
From that perspective, Fr Anton shows that young people seem to be “easy busy go” according to the wishes of adults but have not yet developed a basic foundation for their own development. Father Anton provides examples of development based on a basic foundation, which is the Eucharistic Youth. Thanks to its solid and continuously maintained foundation, the Eucharistic Youth is recognized as a bright spot of the Vietnamese Bishops’ Council. Through that, it can be seen that the activities of young people are fragmented, lacking connection and unity, so they are easily overshadowed and do not create a good and strong impression.
Thirdly, another issue was highlighted that the youth ministries are only concentrated in large urban areas such as Hanoi, Hue, and Saigon… in these places, youth ministries have really appeared, while dioceses in the suburbs or remote places have only focused mainly on ministry for children. Looking at reality, after completing high school, most young people move to big cities, and central areas to study at the university, live and work.
Thus, Fr. Anton shows that the youth are only active on the surface, not in the long term. The problem is that in order to maintain, develop and bear fruit, it is time to find a way to operate in-depth and spread the mission of the youth everywhere, not just in the big cities. Besides, Father Anton also invites the Redemptorist Youth Missionaries to devote themselves to the Order because this is the common mission that God has for all the Redemptorist Fathers, Brothers and Redemptorist Youth.
Another major weakness that DCCT (CSSR) is facing is that its activities lack continuity and leadership. In this argument, the priest also gave a practical example: when a priest is assigned to another community, the void left by this priest is very difficult for someone to immediately inherit and develop. This disrupts the development process of that youth group.
In addition, most of the current pastoral activities in Vietnam are individual in nature, not built on an existing system for development and continuity. Each person in charge of the ministry has his or her own strengths, which will create diversity and richness in the Church, but on the other hand, it can cause a discontinuity when the successor has a completely different direction for pastoral development from his or her predecessor.
Through this issue, Father Anton also suggested a new direction, encouraging GTTS friends as well as MVGT companions to gather together to build a basic system – model, with a foundation to both retain core elements and create more spaces for creativity to maintain long-term, minimizing interruptions in the process of operation.
At the end of the lecture, the priest invited the young people to think and discuss to build three main principles to maintain unity in the process of operation, besides thinking more about the essential activities that GTTS can do to clearly demonstrate the mission that the young people are receiving.
After the discussion and sharing, the young people attended the Mass with the presence of Father Provincial Dominic Nguyen Duc Thong, CSsR, celebrant and preacher, along with priests in charge of the regions. Father Provincial Dominic encouraged the young people to love and enthusiastically commit themselves to God and to the mission entrusted to them.
Through the merits of Jesus Christ, may we young people be given the enthusiasm and joy to go with you to all people.
Maria Hai Quynh
GTTS Saigon Communications and Technical Department (dcctvn.org)
