Christ the King: a mixed reflection

The Solemnity of Christ the King, to be celebrated this coming weekend, prompts each year a mixed reflection. In the dioceses of England and Wales, it is also celebrated as "Youth Sunday", when, as the branding goes, we celebrate and encourage the part that young people play in the Church. In my own diocese, it is an opportunity for the promotion of the diocesan youth service in parishes.

Inevitably, this celebration of young people moves attention from the celebration of the liturgical feast to something else, especially if the only marking of the day is during the celebration of Mass. and this is the first cause of a mixed reflection on my part. But a second cause is that I wonder whether the celebration of youth ministry, as if that is an end in itself in the mission of the Church, is really something we should do in isolation from a wider consideration.

Whilst a universal call to holiness, and to the living and practice of a Christian life, exists from the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, the way in which each individual lives out that call requires a specification, a making more precise for the individual situation, of that universal call. The experience of a particular charism in the Church, perhaps through the life of an ecclesial movement, seems to me an important way of achieving this specification of the universal call to holiness. I am not sure that youth ministry always captures this, and perhaps it is this need for a specification of the call to holiness that might better be the focus for a Youth Sunday.

My own background from student days was FAITH Movement, and the current issue of their magazine offers two articles that respond to my mixed reflections. Fr Nesbitt provides an account of the theological vision of FAITH Movement on pages 22-25, a vision that offers a charism that is able to form a vivid Christian life.  It is also a vision highly relevant to the liturgical celebration of Christ the King. The editorial, published as a separate article on the website, is entitled On to 2022. It is the remarks about teaching of the Catholic faith that caught my attention:

We also need a clear affirmation of the right and obligation of Catholics to teach the Faith in the family, in church, and in Catholic schools. This need not be announced in any angry or polemical spirit, but it must be stated clearly as something positive and as contributing to the common good, confirming the human rights of families as stated in international charters.