As Claretians, July 16 is an important day for all of us. We are celebrating the foundation day of our congregation with great joy and pride. Our Founder, Claret has given us a great legacy to follow and his life continues to inspire us.  He had a strong spiritual foundation based on the love for the Church, Holy Scripture, Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These pillars of his spirituality enabled him to go beyond and embrace the difficulties and challenges of his mission. The vocation to missionary life is first and foremost a response to God’s call and the Gospel challenge: “Go out to the whole world and preach the Good News to all creation”. This calls for an adventurous spirit, commitment, enthusiasm and innovation. Fr. Jesus Maria Palacios CMF, in his article, Claretian Vocation says, “A missionary is the finest and most splendid example of the ideal life. In spirit the missionary has contemplated Jesus Christ commissioning the apostles to conquer the world, not by weapons but by persuasion and love; and the missionary has been captivated by the encounter with Christ. For this ideal cause, the missionary gives up family, homeland and all that he treasures as his very own. Our missionary vocation is a call to serve, follow and imitate Christ in praying, working, enduring and striving constantly for the greater glory of God and salvation of humankind”. This offers us a wider platform for our missionary activities.

 We need to read the signs of the times and focus our activities for the integral development of the recipients of our mission.  In this context we cannot take it for granted or neglect the ministry among the youth. We shall not forget the call of the last General and Provincial Chapters to make youth ministry as one of the priorities of our missionary activity. Our last provincial chapter document says, “Considering the vast number of young people to whom we have access through our parishes, educational intuitions and other centres of mission, it is a matter of urgency that we develop youth ministry”.

The ministry of Jesus has never ceased to fascinate minds through the centuries. It is all the more exciting when we realize that Jesus had a predilection for the young. It is not an exaggeration to claim that most part of His healing ministry and his parables found their focus on the young. The sinners he embraced in the warmth of his divine forgiveness, most of those he called to be his close disciples and the beneficiaries of his spectacular compassionate healings can well be assumed to be young. The skill of the master in blending the sensitivity and tenderness of his humanity displays in His encounter with the young. Nothing human was ever alien to Him. Life was the setting for his actions and the manifestations of His being one with all human kind. He extended the bounty of His goodness to those who needed the most – the young. He healed them, unbound them, forgave them, comforted them and even confronted them. Thus he taught us how we too ought to get involved in our ministry to the young.

Youth ministry - the Claretian way, points the way to building up a dream parish, as Jesus and Claret would with its accent on ministry among the young.  The focus on the young will undoubtedly help to reshape, reform and revitalize the parishes and other centres of our ministry. This is very important that it is the young who will hold the reins and the Church will take the direction determined by them. As Claretians we have numerous opportunities for the youth ministry in all our settings. A little more serious and systematic approach in this area will reap rich harvests and will create a sense of confidence in the communities in relationship with young people. We are sons of ploughman. He does not look back, nor does he measure his work by immediate results. The ploughman does not have vision of the sower nor the joy of the reaper. He has only hope, even though at the time of ploughing he sees only hard work and the sweat of his brow. But these are the virtues of anyone who wants to work with the young. We have no time to waste. We cannot stand on the road and contemplate the past, looking over our shoulder. Neither can we expect the results straight away. We need to hope, look to the future and know how to nurture the certainty in our hearts that what we are doing will bear much fruit, the fruit of holiness, the fruit of good Christians and upright citizens. Wish you all a great celebration of our foundation day and pray for God’s blessings through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Fr. Tom Vellappattu

Prefect of Youth and Vocation Ministry