A challenging question ‘are you really touched by Jesus and really walking His way?’ echoed in the convention ground on the fourth day of the tenth National Convention of Indian Catholic Youth Movement at Mangalore. The session on ‘Youth Evangelizing the Youth’ by Deacon Ivan Fernandes of Arch diocese of Bombay.
The talk of Dn. Ivan was more connected to the point raised by Pope Francis during WYD in Krakow 2016, about not being a couch potato but rather acting as a responsible individual and a follower of Christ. He opened the eyes of the participants to the bitter truth, many times the Catholics are being just parrots who repeats the prayers and rituals without experiencing the same. With the aid of different videos on compassion, he explained that a responsible life is the need of the time for each Catholic youth in India. To explain the same, he has repeated the words of Pope Francis, ‘Mercy is a noun in dictionary but for us Christians it should be a Verb’.
Narrating the position of youth and women at the side of the cross of Jesus, he described the evangelical responsibility to the youth and women in the society. While the chosen ones and friends were hiding and denying Jesus, only Mother Mary and other Marys’ were with John, who was a youth, remained at the footstep of Jesus. Challenging the youth, the session concluded by asking a question, can the youth to be in the front line with a compassionate heart to be an apostle of love?
