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Synod:
“Young people discover how God is present in their concrete history”
Intervention
of the Auditor from the Neocatechumenal Way
(ZENIT - Oct. 19, 2018)
At the Synod of Bishops celebrated in Rome
on the theme of Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment, Fr Hilaire K Kouaho,
Rector of the Redemptoris Mater Diocesan International Seminary of Madagascar,
participated as an Auditor from part of the Neocatechumenal Way.
The priest read a speech before the synodal
assembly on October 16, 2018, in which he noted that the theme of listening is “crucial
to understanding our young people” and added that it is also “necessary” to
educate them to “listen to the voice” who truly loves them as they are: Christ”.
Here we publish the intervention that the priest
read before Pope Francis and the rest of the synodal assembly on the afternoon
of Tuesday, October 16:
Speech by Hilaire K. Kouaho
1. Most Holy Father, Reverend Synodal
Fathers, dear young friends. My name is Hilaire. I'm from the Ivory Coast.
2. I thank His Holiness, who is also my
bishop, that I am able to participate in this great ecclesial moment as a representative
of all the communities of the Neocatechumenal Way.
3. When I was 18 years old, the Lord made
me begin an experience of the Neocatechumenal Way. I come from a family far
from the Church and with them I have come to know the faith and the Church
through a small community. Today my whole family is living this experience of
faith in the Ivory Coast. In 1992 I entered the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in
Rome, and after a period of formation I was ordained a priest for the Diocese
of Rome. For 12 years I have been the rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary
in Madagascar.
4. The theme of listening is crucial to
understand our young people. In every situation throughout its growth,
especially in times of crisis, we must listen to them. It is also necessary to
educate them to listen to the voice of who truly loves them such as they are:
Christ. At the centre of the Revelation is God himself who calls his people to
listen.
5. The experience that young people make in
the Neocatechumenal communities is that of the weekly celebration of the Word
of God and of the possibility, in each celebration, of being heard giving their
experience. Every Christian is called to put his life under the light of the
Word of God. This education to listen and be heard takes place in the first
place in the family through a “domestic liturgy” on Sunday, where the parents
transmit the faith to their children, according to the custom of the
Neocatechumenal Way.
6. The community to which the young people
belong helps them to feel taken seriously. Growing up in a community made up of
people of all ages, sex and social status helps to destroy generational
barriers and to grow together in the faith.
7. Through listening to the Word, young
people discover how God is present in their concrete history, also in its most
problematic and painful implications. They discover a God who is close and
seals their wounds, they discover the mystery of the glorious cross which alone
gives a meaning to the existence of man.
8. Within the communities, young people and
adults live a gradual education to the faith through a Christian initiation
that does not presuppose faith, but over several stages helps them to
rediscover all the wealth contained in baptism.
9. This process takes place under the
guidance of a team of catechists, composed of lay people (men and women) and
priests, who accompany the young people along their catechumenal path. In this phase
of the passage from family to community, the Way has discovered the beauty of a
post-confirmation pastoral which helps young people to remain in the bosom of
the Church and to experience its riches at the critical age of puberty and
adolescence.
10. In the small community, they can
experience the fraternal warmth that youngsters so desire. The World Youth Days
are occasions of great respite for young people enabling them to live moments
of evangelization and fraternity with peers from other parts of the world.
11. St. Paul VI, through the Humanae Vitae,
has helped many families in the Church to be open to life. This opening to life
in the Way has produced as fruits vocations to the consecrated life, to the
presbyterate and to marriage. Many young families, after a time of gestation of
faith within their community, called by the bishops and sent by the Holy
Father, go on mission to the most secularized areas of the world.
12. The Holy Spirit is calling many young
people from the communities to the priestly life. 122 international missionary
diocesan seminaries have been erected by diocesan bishops. This
internationality, which I experienced first during my formation, I am living
now again with seminarians and priests trained in our seminary who come from 15
nations of Europe, Africa and America.
13. A young person seeks only one thing in
the background: to feel loved and welcomed. The Church, which is a teacher in
humanity and possesses the richness of the Gospel, is the only one able to
offer this beauty of love.
14. Wherever a young person is on earth,
Jesus Christ has also given his life and has shed his blood, for him even if he
does not know it. All young people have the right to hear the Good News that it
is possible to be happy, not living selfishly for oneself but for others. Young
people expect us, as a Church, to go out and find them in the depths of their
souls, where their deepest questions reside and where the mark of God has its
nest.
Thank you, Holy Father, for the good you
want for the young people.
Translated from Zenit.
Just wonderful....
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