Franciscan at Home

I never thought that I was going to work with middle school students. All throughout college, I fully expected that I would spend my years in ministry with ninth through twelfth graders. But the Lord had other plans, and post-college I found myself tasked with building a new middle school youth ministry program. I was young, I was inexperienced, and I had no idea what I was doing. So, I did what any typical type-A, nerdy, recent college graduate would do in the midst of feeling overwhelmed; I reread my notes, where I found this:

“Step One: build a team of adult volunteers.”
Thus, I began. Now, after four years of practice in forming adult leaders, I can honestly say that it has become the most life-giving aspect of my job. There is truly nothing I enjoy more than working alongside the amazing team of adult volunteers I get to serve with, but it didn’t start out that way. It took years of combating and conquering my belief in a number of myths about how to build a healthy leadership team.

And so, in the spirit of learning from the many mistakes I made along the way, I present to you, “Five Myths of Finding and Forming Leaders.”

Maybe it’s too much of a stretch to say that an unmarried tailor who lived with his mother is the reason communism fell in the west. Then again, maybe it’s not.

Venerable Jan Tyranowski was, in many respects, an ordinary working class bachelor. But when he was 35, a homily changed his life. “It is not difficult to become a saint,” the priest said, and Tyranowski believed him. He began reading the Carmelite mystics and praying up to four hours a day. When many of Poland’s priests were sent to death camps in 1940, one of those left behind asked Tyranowski to become more involved in youth ministry.

That’s where he met Karol Woytyla. The young man who would become pope was just a 20-year-old in youth group, but his relationship with Tyranowski changed everything. Karol had become unsure about the wisdom of putting so much emphasis on the Blessed Mother, but Tyranowski pointed him to St. Louis de Montfort, thus shaping the life and papacy of the man who would be the most Marian Pope since St. Peter. Perhaps more importantly, Tyranowski’s work with the young Woytyla (especially after Karol lost his father in 1941) greatly influenced Wotyla’s vocational discernment. A friend of St. John Paul’s from that same youth group insists that John Paul owed his priestly vocation to the single tailor.

Tyranowski died only a few months after Fr. Woytyla was ordained. He didn’t live to see his young friend consecrated bishop or elected pope. He didn’t see the work of the Polish pope break the stranglehold of communism on Poland and her neighbors. Through it all, though, St. John Paul kept a picture of his youth minister on his desk, a single man whose life changed the world.

Remember Your Death

I have a pretty realistic looking human skull on my desk, positioned to face my high school students. It’s constantly “looking” at them. I acquired the skull years ago from an old classroom closet and placed it on my desk. Students immediately started to notice the skull and asked, “Mr. Bitting, why do you have a skull on your desk?” I responded with Sirach 7:36, “In whatever you do, remember your last days, and you will never sin.” I also tell them about the Latin phrase memento mori (remember your death) and show them images of saints depicted with skulls on their desks as a reminder of death and motivation to avoid sin. Even students who are not in my class stop by to ask me about it.

One feature that I like is the removable top portion of the skull. I placed a sticky note with ‘Sirach 7:36’ on the inside of the skull top so I could remove the top and show the verse to inquiring students. The skull has the accurate dimensions of an adult human skull but was bleached and had markings on it from previous teachers. The unnatural color bothered one student in particular, who I’ll call Alex.

Prior to having Alex in my class for his junior year, I had been warned about him. He had spent most of his freshman and sophomore years trying to shock as many students and faculty as possible with his love of heavy metal, violence, satanic images, and affinity for atheism. Our Lord brought Alex to the front of my mind often, and each time I would intentionally pray for him. Shortly after Alex became one of my students, I found out that he had a hobby of creating masks, the kind one typically sees in horror movies or worn by heavy metal bands. One day Alex asked me if he could paint the skull. I said yes but under two conditions: 1) I wanted it to look as realistic as possible, as if it had just been exhumed, not scary like a Halloween decoration and 2) he had to paint the verse Sirach 7:36 on the inside of the skull top. He agreed and took the skull home over Christmas break. When we returned from break in January, he brought me the skull. It looked amazing! Even more students now noticed the skull and asked about it, giving me the opportunity to catechize them about death, sin, and our hope of resurrection in Christ. I praised Alex for the good use of his talents and drew positive attention to him, as I told others that he did the painting, including the Scripture verse. He was proud of his work and seemed to appreciate the compliments he received from other students, even more than the typical shock he normally evoked from them.

On March 25th, Pope Francis released Christus Vivit, “Christ is alive!” This post-synodal exhortation is addressed both to young people (16 to 30 year-olds) and the entire Church. Rich with inspirational quotes and practical suggestions, the document contains many insights about youth, for youth, and for those who minister to youth, while raising many important questions that need to be addressed.

About Youth
A young person stands on two feet as adults do, but unlike adults, whose feet are parallel, he always has one foot forward, ready to set out, to spring ahead. Always racing onward. (140)

Pope Francis begins the document by highlighting young people in the Bible as well as in Church history, figures such as Joseph (son of Jacob), Ruth, and David to St. Sebastian, St. Francis of Assisi and St.

Thérèse of Liseiux. Young people have always played an important role in salvation history. Particular attention is given to Mary, who as a young woman said “yes” to Gabriel, and to Jesus himself: “It is important to recognize that Jesus was a young person. He gave his life when he was, in today’s terms, a young adult” (23).

“Youth is more than simply a period of time; it is a state of mind” (34). This is why the Church, over two thousand years old, can be considered “young”—and needs the help of young people to keep her that way. Francis compares the shallow and superficial ways culture can manipulate youth to the true happiness that only Christ can offer. “Dear young friends, do not let them exploit your youth to promote a shallow life that confuses beauty with appearances” (183). Young people are in danger of being isolated and exploited which makes relationships with older people a great benefit. The young generation needs older generations, and the older generations need them. “When young and old alike are open to the Holy Spirit, they make a wonderful combination” (192).

Annual St.

Head buried in her screen, she was more concerned with live-tweeting the event than listening to the speaker. She was so busy scrolling through social media, she didn’t realize she had walked past a friend she hadn’t seen in years.

On September 23, 2017, the Catholic Church celebrated the beatification of a farm boy from Oklahoma. Thirty-two years earlier, in a small town in Guatemala, “Padre Apla’s” was martyred in his rectory in the middle of the night.

Stanley Rother was born in 1935 in Okarche, Oklahoma. His bucolic family was very faithful and prayed a Rosary every night after dinner, kneeling at the table. Unbeknownst to his family, Stanley contemplated a call to the priesthood while he rode the tractor in the field. In 1953, he went to seminary in San Antonio. There he worked in the seminary’s bindery and built a shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Feeling more at ease working outside than in the classroom, he struggled with the academics in seminary and wrote in his journal, “Am thinking about another vocation,” later adding that his director, “set me straight on another vocation.”[1]
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After returning to Oklahoma City, Stanley met with the director of vocations and with his bishop. Nothing is recorded of that meeting except a single mention in Rother’s journal: “Saw Bishop and he will send me on next fall.”[3] Whatever happened, Stanley convinced the bishop of his calling and was admitted to another seminary. He was ordained a priest in 1963. Five years later, he was sent to the diocesan mission in Guatemala and flourished as a pastor, learning to speak Tz’utujil (the local language) and even aiding in the translation of the New Testament into that language.

God knew what he was doing with this Oklahoma farm boy. Having learned about crops, irrigation, and proper planting practices on his family farm, Stanley put his knowledge to use by helping the Tz’utujil people better their farming techniques. He knew the value of hard work and was frequently seen eating and working alongside his parishioners. Decades before Pope Francis called for priests to “smell like their sheep,” Fr. Rother was working side by side with the men and women God gave him to shepherd.

As a confirmation facilitator, it feels like a “rescue mission” trying to re-ignite faith, hope, and charity in souls that are growing cold and are in need of conversion. The young people I serve do not always benefit from the witness of fervent or healthy families. Parents sometimes value their child’s résumé over their religious formation. Many things, like sports, compete with time for God on the weekend. The result is an attitude that religious formation is more of a burden than a blessing. I often assume that those who come to be catechized do not want to be there.

I’m trying to learn how to depend on the Holy Spirit and be attentive to the diverse needs of those being catechized without being disheartened or overwhelmed. Somehow the catechesis I provide must be a means for a young person to discover Jesus and come to follow Him, perhaps for the first time. Last year as I served a group of thirty students, composed of both public and Catholic school students, it was intimidating to say the least. We began the year with Alpha, a program based on video presentations and small group discussion. For the first few months, I came to know only a fraction of the confirmation students, those who were assigned to my table. I wondered how I could establish a relationship of trust and openness with the other students.

The Instrumentum laboris describes the scope of the upcoming Synod on Youth, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment with these words: “just as our Lord Jesus Christ walked alongside the disciples of Emmaus, the Church is also urged to accompany all young people, without exception, towards the joy of love” (no. 1). The theme of accompaniment weaves through the document like a melody on which all other harmonies are based. In fact, accompaniment is explained as a non-negotiable within youth ministry. “The accompaniment of younger generations is not an optional element in the task of educating and evangelizing young people, but an ecclesial duty and a right of every young person” (no. 85).

This concept is not new in the life of the Church. In 1976, the United States’ Bishops published A Vision of Youth Ministry, which proposed the story of Emmaus as the guiding image for how ministry to youth should be carried out: through the process of listening and accompaniment. These two principles go hand in hand.

Intentional listening is an essential part of accompaniment, and one that we in the Church must strive to increase in our work with young people. Though Jesus knew the answers to the questions the two disciples were asking, he engaged them in a dialogue about what had just occurred in Jerusalem and listened as they shared their stories. Only when they were finished did he open up the Scriptures to give them a fuller understanding.

There is a scene in the film Good Will Hunting where Sean (Robin Williams) and Will (Matt Damon) share a pivotal conversation on a bench overlooking a swan-filled lake. The week before, Will quickly and incisively interprets a painting that Sean had created and hung in his office.