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Introducing YMW

  • catholickids
  • Aug 7, 2015
  • 4 min read

Noticing youth participating in mass?

Don’t worry, your eyesight it perfect. No you aren’t hallucinating and yes that is our youth involved in mass!

With the blessing of our Clergy, the PPC and the heads of the different ministries, The Catechism Team proudly launches Youth Mass Weekends (YMW).

Once a month, the youth of our catechism, will take over all Saturday and Sunday masses for that weekend. Please bear with us! We are just as nervous as the children are in participating in mass.

WARNING: HICCUPS MAY OCCUR!!

Why launch YMW?

To put it bluntly, the harsh reality is that the site, sound and involvement of youth in our parish, generally speaking, has depleted. Often it is understated how rapidly our church is aging. The answer, to the grappling question; whether our church will stand in 50 years time, strikes fear in us. Putting off this thought has become impractical and a change needs to be instituted.

Launching YMW, therefore, has become an avenue to rectify, reignite and captivate the interest of our youth in mass, as a starting point.

Boosting the drive and interest, in children, who do attend church and those who are re-encouraged to attend mass has become the forefront of YMW. The reality being that many of those who attend catechism do not attend mass. Appalling as this reality is, this needs to be rectified by encouraging them to be involved in the different ministries during masses.

Each child will have a chance to either; read, participate in the collection, prepare the altar and hand out bulletins before mass.

If our minds wander, unintentionally, during mass, can we blame a child for not paying attention? To do so would be to say that a child’s mind is insusceptible to wandering. Children especially need a physical element of participation in mass to appreciate mass fully. It is not enough for them to mentally form part of mass by reciting prayers and responses as they are still searching and finding their spirituality and spiritual maturity. There needs to exist an element of physical participation to keep their minds and body fruitfully active in great anticipation of receiving the Eucharist during mass.

As much as we attempt to force our children to attend mass, or the effort that the Catechists have placed in creating an interest in mass, it becomes redundant where they are only attending mass corporally as that clear physical element of excitement no longer exists.

To remedy this, we realised that we needed to bring back that physical interest and participation in mass. By constantly creating something to look forward to during mass, the greater attention will be paid to what they say in mass, as well as the processes of mass. To create that edge of your seat feeling waiting to fulfil your important part in mass and being both physically and mentally present in mass. This of course may not happen overnight but to create a pathway to allow the children to be exposed to and physically form part of the celebration of mass is all that we aim to do.

We do this only in the greatest interest of your child. We know and hear of children who once they are confirmed leave church. We always pray that this doesn’t happen to our children and we as teachers dread the thought of this harsh and often understated reality.

It is because of this that we hope to instil in them a wanting to continue with these ministries and to continue to have that fiery interest in mass. We trust that we along with your support can build a renewed church that invites our youth to be more involved in mass and remain an integral part of the churches future.

Catch us again in September and November 2015.

Our logo:

As strange as it may seem our logo has been purposefully designed to capture everything that St Dominic, our Parish Parton Saint is.

“Dominic Guzman was born in Castile (Spain) in 1170 to affluent aristocrats, Blessed Joan of Aza and Felix Guzman. When she was pregnant, Joan had three dreams. First, she dreamed that she would give birth to a son who would be a brilliant light to the Church. Second, she dreamed that she gave birth to a dog and that it broke away from her, carrying in its mouth a burning torch by which it set fire to the world. A dog with a torch in its mouth later became a symbol for the order which Dominic founded, the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. Shortly before Dominic’s baptism, Joan had a third prophetic dream. On her baby's forehead appeared a bright star that illuminated the world.”*

Based on the aforementioned, came the birth of the star and the dog intending to symbolise that same drive to spread the gospel throughout the world. The torch intended to be carried by the dog being introduced as a flame above the “Y” for YMW is intended to show that we aim to instil in our youth, ambition, like St Dominic, to set fire to the world, illuminating the Gospel throughout.

*Jean. M. Heimann - St. Dominic de Guzman - A Saint After My Own Heart August 8 2014. http://catholicfire.blogspot.com/2014/08/st-dominic-de-guzman-saint-after-my-own.html

The original "dogs of the Lord" image.

The original depiction of the dogs of the Lord

WE EXTEND AN INVITATION TO ALL YOUTH INTERESTED IN JOINING YMW!

(Find our details under contacts. We look forward to hearing from you!)

Our kindest regards,

The Catechism Team 2015.


 
 
 

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St. Dominic's Parish Catechism Boksburg S.A.

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