Teenagers are in quite a bind. They often are treated like children and denied real responsibility for their actions, or—what is just as bad—when they are given any responsibility, they are held to adult standards. The problem is that teens are no longer children, but neither are they yet adults.
Pope John Paul II expressed this paradox well in his 1985 Letter to the Youth of the World (Dilecti Amici). He notes that in childhood, others take responsibility for us, and in adulthood, we take responsibility for ourselves and our world. Between these two stages is youth. "In this sense, the future belongs to you young people… Responsibility for this present reality and for its shape and many different forms lies first of all with adults. To you belongs responsibility for what will one day become reality together with yourselves, but which still lies in the future." (DA 1) That is to say, the stage of life called youth has a responsibility for the future in the present moment, in other words, a responsibility to prepare. "The work which characterizes the period of youth is, above all, a preparation for the work of adulthood." (DA 12) The Holy Father sees that young people are about to take the first steps into full participation in the affairs of the world, and he wants them to be ready to take those steps as Christians.
In answer to this call, Fr. Michael Sweeney and Sherry Weddell, co-founders of the Catherine of Siena Institute, have asked me to lead the development of a new program: a spiritual gifts discernment program for highschool-aged youth. This call also has come from many who have gone through our Called and Gifted Workshop, but until recently, we've had to answer that we had no such program—yet. But we now plan to begin offering workshops for youth in the spring of 2003.
I am working together with a team composed of current Called and Gifted teachers and experienced youth ministers. Together, we are adapting the content of the Called and Gifted Workshop to a format more relevant to teenagers.
"Relevant" is, I think, the key word here. Most teens, given a chance, are both able and willing to take in the Called and Gifted Workshop as it now stands. I know many who already have, and have found a new and growing source of grace for their lives. So we are not talking about "dumbing down" the workshop in any way. In fact, teens rightly demand a real sophistication in what we present to them. But the Called and Gifted Workshop was designed originally for adults—people who had already gained a good deal of life experience and who had fully entered into the "grown-up" world of work, politics, family, and the whole secular sphere. But this is not where teens find themselves, and we fail to serve them if we ask them to shoulder the responsibilities of adults. Teenagers are at an in-between stage, in which their primary task lies in looking ahead, in preparation for the future.
Part of their preparation is the development of a personal "plan of life" and thinking through and deciding upon what they want to do with their life—the work they want to do, the skills they want to develop, the relationships they want to enter into. But for a Christian, this plan also becomes a vocation. "Young people, entering into themselves and at the same time entering into conversation with Christ in prayer, desire as it were to read the eternal thought God the Creator and Father has in their regard. They then become convinced that the task assigned to them by God is left completely to their own freedom, and at the same time is determined by various circumstances… Examining these circumstances, the young person…constructs his or her plan of life and at the same time recognizes this plan as the vocation to which God is calling him or her." (DA 9)
But this plan is not simply a speculation about the future: it must be put into place in the present. After all, the life they are planning is the life they are already living. In our youth, we lay the foundations for the rest of our lives. Most adults know very well that the habits they developed early on have shaped and formed their lives and their work as adults. So the Pope recommends that young people form habits of prayer, service to the poor, moral discipline, charity toward others—in short, the whole basis of Christian happiness.
In forming this life plan, in looking toward where he or she fits into the world, youths "stretch their wings," so to speak. They explore their interests, their abilities, develop their skills and learn how to relate to other people. And during this time it is crucial that they begin to discover their spiritual heritage: their apostolic mission as Christians. They must explore not only their personal identity but their role in the world: the vocation to which God is calling them.
Youth, therefore, must take a different approach to the charisms than adults do; they must approach them from the standpoint of preparation for the future. They can learn the process and habits of spiritual gifts discernment. They can learn to expect and to recognize charisms as they emerge in their own lives and their friends'. They can use their knowledge of spiritual gifts to help them form their life plans, discern God's call, and to eventually recognize their vocations. The Pope refers to our Lord's parable of the talents, saying that "youth is the time for discerning talents," and that when "little by little you recognize the 'talent' or 'talents' which each of you has, and you begin to use them in a creative way, you begin to increase them." (DA 12) Such youth will then question and challenge and prepare the world around them for the gifts which God will bestow in their lives.
Br. Robert is currently serving on staff for the Institute and is active in teaching the Called and Gifted Workshop both for adults and young adults. He resides at Blessed Sacrament Priory in Seattle.