EMMAUS AND YOUTH

During the synod of the bishops in Rome in October 2008, the Rector Major of the Salesians made an intervention characterised by a special concern for youth. The theme of the synod was: The Word of God in the life and the mission of the Church. In this remarkable address to the Assembly of bishops from the five continents, Don Pascual Chavez spoke of Emmaus as the paradigm of the spiritual biography of young people. Here are quotations from his address. (Complete text in sdb.org, Rector Major, messages).

With the purpose of living the Easter experience, the Emmaus story identifies the finishing line, the goal, which the believer must reach and, at the same time, traces the path, the methodology, by which to get there. The episode, chronicle of a past event, illustrates a path to faith and the community and it describes its stages and content, which are always relevant. Luke’s story offers us a precise itinerary of evangelization where it says who evangelises - Jesus by means of His word - and how to evangelise - walking together...
If “the life of communion with God and our brothers and sisters is the aim of the proclamation of the Gospel,” then ‘for evangelisation the witness of a life in common is decisive, since it is an experience which anticipates, like a seed, what is to come.’. If “witness is the only language able to convince young people that ‘God exists and his love can fill a life completely’ (SDB Constitutions 62), evangelisation must take care of, as a strategic option, and “concentrate our attention and enthusiasm” on “the unity of, and in, the Church, which is the evangelical sign that Jesus asks of his disciples sent by him into the world”… Even if we have to recognise that “young people’s belonging to the Church does not immediately come to maturity”, we do need to say that without the faith of the Church, the faith of the evangelisers and that of the young would be very poor. “It would lack an indispensable point of reference for living as believers.” The ultimate objective of the encounter with Christ, its certificate of guarantee, is living the Church-experience, and “so developing their sense of belonging to the Christian community”.. .

The methodology: walking together The reason, probably, why the Emmaus episode is so relevant, lies in its being so contemporary to our spiritual situation. It is easy to identify with these disciples who are going home, before sunset, full of all they have come to know and saddened…
I want to concentrate on how to bring the Word of God closer to the world of youth… It should serve as a warning for us that the reason why the disciples left was the disillusionment they felt, and that the weariness that had built up over three years following Jesus and their bitterness at how things had ended led them to abandon the common life. Young people today share very few things with these disciples, but perhaps nothing as much as the frustration of their dreams, the fatigue in their faith and the disenchantment in discipleship: it is not worth it, they often think, following Jesus: it is not worth spending their life for someone who is dead, not present… That is the time to head for Emmaus. On their journey, with their anguish, there is also the opportunity of an encounter with Christ. But they are not to travel alone. The young need a Church which is close to their problems and their worries, which not only shares their journey and their fatigue, but also knows how to talk to them, accepting their uncertainties. How can the Church represent the risen Lord, if it does not appear to be concerned about them and their lives? “Going to meet the young where they are to be found, welcoming them with disinterested concern, listening carefully to their questions and their aspirations are for us fundamental steps they come before any other stage of education to the faith” . This, at least, was the first choice of Jesus on the way to Emmaus. .. If we do not speak with them, and bring them to the conviction that all that happens is part of a great, marvellous, divine project, the fruit and proof of a colossal love, how will young people manage to feel loved by God? To succeed, we need to become their companions in the search for the meaning of life and in the search for God. There we have a way, still little taken in the Church, urgently needed for young people: For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ… The Emmaus story can be a model of the spiritual biography of our young people: today we have no other direct access to the Lord Jesus than that offered to us by the community gathered in his name to bless the bread and share it; only the Eucharistic memory can give our hearts, not only joy and fervour, but eyes to see the Lord and the desire to recognise him. .. An education to the faith which forgets or postpones the sacramental encounter of young people with Christ is not a secure, efficient way to find Him. The Mass is and ought to remain, “the source and summit of evangelisation”. The Eucharist is the “source and the summit of Christian life”. It is a false excuse to say that not all young people are sufficiently well prepared to celebrate the meeting with Christ: since meeting him has never been the result of their efforts, not even the fulfilment of their desires, but the grace of Christ, who comes to meet those whom he loves. Were the disciples of Emmaus well prepared to discover the Lord in their unknown travelling companion? … In the adventure of the Emmaus two we find the decisive and successive stages to be gone through to bring about, in the education of young people to the faith, the Easter experience that accompanies the birth of the life in community and of apostolic witness. “All this we do in imitation of the Lord and following the way of his love on the road to Emmaus.

We reproduce his attitudes: we take the first step in approaching the young and we join them; we travel with them along the same road, listening to them, sharing their hopes and anxieties; we patiently explain to them the demanding message of the gospel; and we stay with them to repeat the gesture of breaking the bread and stir up in them the ardour of faith…”.

Propositions:
1. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus presented himself to the disciples, conversing with them.
2. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus presented himself to the disciples, accompanying them for the whole journey. 3. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus presented himself to the disciples listening to their preoccupations and he explained what had happened by referring to the Scriptures which spoke of him. 4. Recognising Jesus was only possible in the Eucharistic encounter.

Don Pascual Chavez SDB

RECTOR MAJOR