Mustapha Amari

Priest, ccn, Nantes

8 juin 2024

Chemin Neuf Youth

Constantly translating

Do you speak english ? Portuguese ? French ? German ? Italian ? Polish ?… And do you speak the love of God ?

Translation. A lot of translation. It is what you imagine when you think of the World Youth Days and the millions of young people who gathered last summer from all over the world. Naturally, the Chemin Neuf Community was there to organise its traditional « Welcome to Paradise » festival for 18-30 year-olds. The festival took place near the beaches of Portimão, in the south of Portugal. I

t brought together some 4,200 young people from over 63 countries and no fewer than… 27 languages. However, we should not imagine that the most important language translated was English or even French. Above all, it is about translating God’s love. The WYD is always an opportunity to put our mission fundamentals into practice and let ourselves be surprised by the Holy Spirit.

For some years now, we have been saying that the role of Chemin Neuf Youth, the pastoral work for the 18-30 year-olds with the Community is to be the « Google Translator » of God’s love. In other words, to be able to make God’s love accessible, regardless of the young people who are before us, whether they are non-believers, recent converts or baptised from the cradle. This requires us to be attentive to the young people’s culture, their codes, and the fashions that inspire them, but also to the eternal questions that run through them.

This attention to youth culture has led the Community’s pastoral work to rest on several pillars: communication, praise, the kerygma and a spirituality of the incarnation designated by « Next Step ». These are all ingredients that we have used for the WYD.

To prepare for the WYD, we were lucky enough to have a great communications team. Competent, creative and deep. This was reflected both in the number of registrations and in the enthusiastic feedback from young people. The presence on social networks, the exploration of new tools and new ideas, the care given to the design and beauty of the various communication media, the decoration of the premises – all these things to which we have given our attention, are already signs of God’s love. We can say that in the eyes of the Church, this attention to communication has become a signature of the Community.

Another area that strongly supports our mission is worship. During the WYD, we experienced incredible times of prayer, thanks to a team of talented, meticulous and passionate musicians and technicians. The choice of songs, the intense choreography, the lighting, the visuals on the giant screen and the arena’s sound system really gave us the chance to experience worship on fire!

As we have experienced it, the quality of the music and the atmosphere help the young people to pray and move towards the Lord. Their feedback is unanimous. Praise, however, is not an end in itself. It serves a spiritual journey that has proved its worth over the years.

This journey, essential to our pastoral approach is a kerygmatic and Ignatian dynamic. Over the course of a week, young people discover the free gift of God’s love, but also the need to repent. They get a taste of the Lord’s mercy and an invitation to enter into a new life. We take them seriously and invite them to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and to make an impact in the world.

That is why the theme of the Festival was « A before and an after ». We are certain that it is by radically transforming our lives that Jesus wants to transform the world. If he was able to do that with 12 apostles, how much more can he do with 4,200 young people!

Regarding this, we have in mind a photo from this summer. More than 1,500 young people came forward to give their whole lives to Jesus by receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. At the end of an evening of profound praise and prayer, the cries of acclamation could not have been more explicit as to the origin of this audacity and joy:  « Jesus! Jesus! »

This « Welcome to Paradise » festival event pushes us further and further ahead, enabling an ever-wider public to know us and to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. This does not mean that « events” are the sole basis for our pastoral work. On the contrary, it never ceases to amaze us, but our DNA is that of community life and a spirituality of everyday life.

In our pastoral work, we translate this into the « next step » pedagogy. We believe that young people will follow Jesus all the better if we are able to accompany them in a personalised way. In addition to “à la carte” programmes during our sessions, we are increasingly developing courses during the year: courses for men, for women, to hear God’s voice, to combat procrastination, to get the year off to a good start. To do this, we use email, WhatsApp or Instagram. These many themes or everyday tools are there to remind us that God became man to share all the dimensions of our humanity.

If we were to sum up the history of Chemin Neuf Youth, it would be one of constant translation.  Trying to express Ignatian and charismatic spirituality in today’s words. This translation does not just involve words, but also music, videos and the « approaches » that we keep reinventing during our weekends and retreats. In addition to our constant concern for Christian unity, unity between peoples, unity of the individual and of families, we also work towards unity between modernity and tradition, unity between the world of today and the world of the Bible, unity between the young people of today, the world of yesterday and the world of tomorrow. ■ M. A.

Cet article fait partie du numéro 078 de la revue FOI

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