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Palm Sunday is being celebrated on Sunday, 20 March. At the same time World Youth Day (WYD) is being held in each diocese. The event will have its ‘international’ celebration in Cologne in August, when an estimated 800,000 young people from all over the world are expected to converge on the German city. “Choosing Christ as model of life”: in the view of Michael Kühn, who is in charge of AFJ, the Service for Youth Ministry of the German Bishops’ Conference, it is in this that the significance of WYD and being Catholic youth today consists. “It’s a model of life he told SIR that is no longer shared by the majority of young people today. And that’s why the believer finds himself being questioned about the reasons for his choice and is sometimes forced into a defensive attitude. Nonetheless young believers are open to the world; they do not fail to make their contribution to the construction of the civilization of love and justice”. There are many ways of describing World Youth Day. One is the “meeting in the faith”. The young don’t meet together because they are waiting for the arrival of a star, or to attend shows or concerts, or to make a tourist excursion. They meet because they believe in God, because they want to share their faith and feel part of a believing community. WYD thus becomes an occasion for proposing the faith, not only through liturgies, preaching the word of God and catechesis, but also through the young themselves. Their presence as young believers makes us, and especially their contemporaries, understand that the faith is not something ‘antiquated’, but possesses a youthful and rejuvenating spirit. It is the young themselves who emphasise that the faith is capable of being put into practice and that it adds a profound meaning to life. In a society that is no longer convinced of the contribution of the faith and that lives in another way, they become an alternative sign that enables people to rediscover the vital importance of the faith and its relevance to our daily life. Young believers are the first witnesses of the faith on the occasion of WYD. This is something that has already become a living reality in the pilgrimage of the Youth Cross through Germany. It has been a source of surprise to us on so many occasions to see how the simple sign of the cross has attracted the young. The atmosphere, the community, the simplicity in the expression of the faith, and the concentration on the essence of the faith, have made us understand some things for the future. To interest the young we must find the forms of communication adapted to their language. Spaces and places are needed in which the young themselves may develop their own forms of expression and communities, and in which they may also meet truly believing persons who follow them and support them. Preparations for the WYD have given those of us responsible for the youth ministry food for thought, and encouraged us, because we have rediscovered the strength of the young themselves. Let us give them space and time.
