Jesus Youth: Called to a closer walk with the poor (BJRE011)
Jesus Youth: Called to a closer walk with the poor
(By Dr. Edward Edezhath - Published in Kairos Magazine in 2018)
Mariapura camp has been an unforgettable memory from the movement's early days. It was 1978, and that year’s national Charismatic summer youth program was a work camp in a remote village outside the south Indian city of Bangalore. I was in my second year of college. That May, after my university exams, I, too, went to faraway Mariapura to join so many young people from all different parts of India.
Today, when I look back to those eventful 10 days forty years ago, I am sure that those were truly decisive days of seed-sowing time for the future international movement. In truly practical terms, we learned what it means to take an option for the poor, be near them, and serve them meaningfully. As a result, the poor have a special place in the spirituality and life of the Jesus Youth movement.
We reached this isolated village after a long bus ride through a mud road. It was a cluster of poor huts surrounded by vast barren lands. At one end of the village, there was a church and a bare hall. Our gatherings and stay were in that hall, and the girls stayed in a nearby convent. The National Charismatic Renewal and the Xavier Board, the coordinating body for Catholic Colleges in India, organized this work camp for university students.
The participants were a vibrant bunch of youth from all over India. The programs of those days were a well-balanced fare, hard work, beautiful times of prayer, inspiring Bible-based inputs, fellowship and mutual sharing times of abundant warmth, watching good Catholic media and a lot of time visiting poor families and evangelizing the villagers. The manual work mainly involved digging foundations for houses and helping with the masonry work. That was mainly in the forenoon. Afternoons were the time for Bible study and group discussion. The evening time was to be in the villages, sharing the good news and knowing closely their life and struggles.
For all of us, the work camp was a deep encounter of various sorts. Though it was a time of activity and plenty of noise, it was also a time of deep spiritual renewal. Bible teachings and prayer times were very effective. Being with the poor and suffering was another kind of deep God experience. Then again, the joyful fellowship was a deeply formative experience. The songs, films, games, working in teams, and more added to the whole experience.
For me, the Mariapura experience was a kind of reaffirmation. From early 1977 onwards, in our prayer group in Ernakulam, we started receiving messages encouraging us to reach out to the needy. Reflecting on this, we started different outreach initiatives; the most important of these was the regular Sunday visits to a poor colony at Thevara. On Saturday evening, we would gather for intercession before the blessed sacrament; on Sunday morning, most of us students gathered to pray for a while, and then we would go to Thevara. After all the visits and interactions, the group gathered again for Bible study in the afternoon. This ongoing outreach brought together four significant elements of the real presence of the Lord, namely, the Word, the Bread, the Body, and the Poor. It became an excellent formative workshop for all of us, and I came to Mariapura with this background.
Option for the Poor
The Church has always reminded us that our Lord has a special place in his heart for the poor. He opted to empty himself and become homeless with nowhere to lay his head. His mission was ‘preaching good news to the poor.’ In the Gospel of Mathew chapter 25, the question at the last judgment is about what you have done to the least of my brethren. Embracing a life of simplicity is a hallmark of an evangelizer. That is the reason why most of the saints, including the patron saint of the movement, Saint Francis, opted to be poor and remained close to the poor.
“My hunger is my physical problem, but my neighbor’s hunger is my spiritual problem.” I attended my 1976 renewal retreat from a college students' group where the importance of going to poor people was very stressful, and we used to organize many visits to the suffering. Many of my generation also had a background of Bible reflections emphasizing the theme of options for the poor. Maybe one issue with these beautiful initiatives was that they were, at one point, purely intellectual discussions and, at other times, frenzied activity. In either case, that became irrelevant for most people, and they slowly turned away from it. But what I found in our prayer group outreach and at Mariapura was a wholesome balance between a person’s inner life and social concern. Here, my spiritual needs, intimate community, and commitment to serve the other all came together, and there was a fullness and beauty in it.
Mairapura continues
In the early 1980s, the vision of the Jesus Youth movement gradually crystallized in the ‘First-line Group’ through much reflection and a lot of action-reflection-action steps. In all this, the importance of going to the poor had a special place. No wonder, when organized evangelistic initiatives called Ministries were tried out, ‘Outreach Ministry’ was one of the first among them.
In the early 90s Chackochan Njavallil and Raiju Varghese grasped the spirit of Mariapura and planned Outreach Camps. The well-organized first one was at Puthuvaippu, a coastal village near Cochin. Such camps have been organized at different times and places since then. These camps become a unique experience, especially for young people, as they combine various elements like staying with the poor and interacting with them, reflecting on the word of God, especially once mission in this world, times of prayer, manual labor, and joyful fellowship.
With this rich backdrop, it was no surprise that the leadership of the Jesus Youth movement thought of including going to the poor as a sixth pillar among the faith habits of its members. Outreach Child Support lends a helping hand to thousands of needy children, and it became another telling sign of the movement’s commitment to the needy. If we scan through the Jesus Youth movement worldwide, numerous such examples, big and small, can easily be seen. Perhaps the most vivid example of the movement’s option for the poor has been “Nalla Ayalkaran” (The Good Neighbor), the well-organized response to the massive floods in Kerala.
Though the sixth pillar, being close to the needy and the poor, has always been central to Christian thinking, it has also been a big challenge to Jesus' youth. Surely, this commitment is an excellent sign of a genuine and fruitful spirituality. As time passes, newer ways will be found to challenge the youth and families to set aside thought, time, and resources to be near the poor and at their service.
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