“God’s mission is our mission. His life, our life.” That’s the message that the SVD shared with more than 5500 young people attending the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) in Perth this month.
The Divine Word Missionaries had a stall at the Festival’s ‘Encounter Expo’, where they shared the SVD charism with youth who dropped in to visit. A number of SVD parishes and chaplaincies also took groups of their young people to experience the big faith gathering which had the theme: ‘Listen to what the Spirit is saying’.
“It was fantastic,” says SVD AUS Province Vocations Promotion Coordinator, Manny Battista. “The young people were just so energised. To see their faith being rekindled had a big impact on us all.”
Manny says he decided to attend the ACYF Expo on behalf of the SVD as a way of encountering young people with the SVD message.
“I saw it as one way of promoting not just vocations, but the SVD itself,” he says.
“We had printed materials available to share with our visitors, as well as videos playing in which SVD missionaries share their vocation stories.
“This was my second time at the ACYF and I was really blown away by it, by the faith and the energy of the young people.”
Also attending ACYF were Fr Manh Le SVD, who led a group of Vietnamese young people from Sydney Archdiocese, where he is Chaplain to the Vietnamese community, and Fr Van Bang Nguyen SVD who accompanied more than 30 pilgrims from Inala Parish in Queensland. There were contingents of young people from SVD parishes in Alice Springs and Macquarie Fields as well.
Manny says the young people who visited the SVD stall at the Expo showed a great openness and curiosity to the various encounters they had with representatives of different religious orders and church organisations.
“They were very open in asking, ‘What is the SVD? What do they do?’,” he says. “It was a great way to start a conversation and share our story with them.
“The Festival was a real opportunity for young people to experience the Holy Spirit. The whole event, even during the big Plenary sessions, but also all of the other activities, provided opportunities for the young people to really listen to the Spirit and experience the Spirit in a new and different way.
“It was also a great opportunity for them to learn from the faith experience of other young people, which is so powerful.”
It is now up to the Church leadership and all the members of the Body of Christ to listen to the young people who have been listening to the Holy Spirit, Manny says.
“It’s not only the young people who need to listen, it’s all of us, including the Church leaders and I think the bishops present at the Festival were really listening.”
Manny says the SVD participation in the ACYF was extremely positive and could be built upon in future years.
“It was wonderful to see and hear how interested in mission the young people are and to see a sense of vocation in them. And it was great for them to get to know us. You never know what impact it might have.”