SIMPLY looking around, one can
readily conclude that the
future is going to be more complicated and more challenging. And one
worries about today's youth, about how they can cope with all these
complications and challenges.
Let's hope and pray that families and schools and all
other entities, especially the faith-based groups like parochial
organizations and many others are up to all this. Yes, we have to
invest a lot of prayers and sacrifices for this intention, but these
should be matched by a more systematic way of imparting the youth with
the relevant attitudes, virtues and skills.
Offhand, what I can say is that there should be an
effective mentoring system where the kids are more personally attended
to. Other than the formal classes and other collective means of
formation and education, there should be this more personal and
indivualized attention given to them, so that their peculiar
conditions can be better addressed.
Yes, the formal and collective means should never be
sacrificed. They are always necessary and also need to be improved and
updated, attentive to new relevant developments, insights and lessons.
But the individualized attention is now urgently needed. There is
great need to enter into their minds and hearts, and to know their
character and temperament, their strengths and weaknesses.
It cannot be denied that wide gaps now exist between what
are taught and encouraged in the collective means, on one hand, and
what is personally learned and lived, on the other. We should aim at
greater consistency between the collective and the personal means,
between what is taught and what is lived.
Most important is that the kids should have the proper
priorities. They should know the value and the relation between the
material and the spiritual, the flesh and the spirit, the natural and
the supernatural, the technical and the essential, etc.
In the area of attitude alone, a lot needs to be done. The
kids have to have a healthy attitude toward work in general, and
should know its proper role and purpose in their lives. They should
have the proper intention. It's amazing that many do not know what the
proper intention should be.
In this regard, they need to acquire a more comprehensive
understanding of how their work relates to their spiritual life and
the supernatural goal of man. They have to learn how they can convert
their work into prayer, into a continuing dealing with God and with
others, as it is meant to be, and how their work actually reinforces
their dignity as a person and as child of God.
In the area of virtues, again a lot needs to be learned.
First and the more immediate would be order—order in the way they
think, judge and evaluate things in general. Nowadays, because of the
many things coming out, there is a great tendency to create a lot of
clutter, not only in tangible things but also and most especially in
the intangibles—in their thoughts, plans, desires, etc.
Of course, we need to see how they are developing all the
other virtues—humility, prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, etc.
This is going to be an endless task.
As to skills, they need to be shown how to bolster their
strengths as well as how to deal with their weaknesses and
temptations. Nowadays, they have to learn how they can live out that
gospel indication of being “simple as doves and shrewd as serpents.”
They should develop a keen sense of ethics and morality.
Since evil cannot be avoided and today's evil can be most deceiving,
they have to know up to what extent they can cooperate with evil
without compromising their spiritual and moral life. Yes, they have to
know how to develop a certain resistance and immunity in an
environment that can be filled with temptations and sin.
They need to be encouraged to always to aim higher in
their personal goals, not out of pride and vanity but rather because
of love of God and others. Basic skills like the proper use of time,
money, talents and other resources need to be taught.
There are a lot more that can be said in this issue. But
to conclude for now, what is important is that the mentors, be they
the parents, teachers, priests, friends, etc., should try to win the
trust and confidence of the kids. And they themselves have to be
demanding on themselves, since they cannot give what they do not have.
future is going to be more complicated and more challenging. And one
worries about today's youth, about how they can cope with all these
complications and challenges.
Let's hope and pray that families and schools and all
other entities, especially the faith-based groups like parochial
organizations and many others are up to all this. Yes, we have to
invest a lot of prayers and sacrifices for this intention, but these
should be matched by a more systematic way of imparting the youth with
the relevant attitudes, virtues and skills.
Offhand, what I can say is that there should be an
effective mentoring system where the kids are more personally attended
to. Other than the formal classes and other collective means of
formation and education, there should be this more personal and
indivualized attention given to them, so that their peculiar
conditions can be better addressed.
Yes, the formal and collective means should never be
sacrificed. They are always necessary and also need to be improved and
updated, attentive to new relevant developments, insights and lessons.
But the individualized attention is now urgently needed. There is
great need to enter into their minds and hearts, and to know their
character and temperament, their strengths and weaknesses.
It cannot be denied that wide gaps now exist between what
are taught and encouraged in the collective means, on one hand, and
what is personally learned and lived, on the other. We should aim at
greater consistency between the collective and the personal means,
between what is taught and what is lived.
Most important is that the kids should have the proper
priorities. They should know the value and the relation between the
material and the spiritual, the flesh and the spirit, the natural and
the supernatural, the technical and the essential, etc.
In the area of attitude alone, a lot needs to be done. The
kids have to have a healthy attitude toward work in general, and
should know its proper role and purpose in their lives. They should
have the proper intention. It's amazing that many do not know what the
proper intention should be.
In this regard, they need to acquire a more comprehensive
understanding of how their work relates to their spiritual life and
the supernatural goal of man. They have to learn how they can convert
their work into prayer, into a continuing dealing with God and with
others, as it is meant to be, and how their work actually reinforces
their dignity as a person and as child of God.
In the area of virtues, again a lot needs to be learned.
First and the more immediate would be order—order in the way they
think, judge and evaluate things in general. Nowadays, because of the
many things coming out, there is a great tendency to create a lot of
clutter, not only in tangible things but also and most especially in
the intangibles—in their thoughts, plans, desires, etc.
Of course, we need to see how they are developing all the
other virtues—humility, prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, etc.
This is going to be an endless task.
As to skills, they need to be shown how to bolster their
strengths as well as how to deal with their weaknesses and
temptations. Nowadays, they have to learn how they can live out that
gospel indication of being “simple as doves and shrewd as serpents.”
They should develop a keen sense of ethics and morality.
Since evil cannot be avoided and today's evil can be most deceiving,
they have to know up to what extent they can cooperate with evil
without compromising their spiritual and moral life. Yes, they have to
know how to develop a certain resistance and immunity in an
environment that can be filled with temptations and sin.
They need to be encouraged to always to aim higher in
their personal goals, not out of pride and vanity but rather because
of love of God and others. Basic skills like the proper use of time,
money, talents and other resources need to be taught.
There are a lot more that can be said in this issue. But
to conclude for now, what is important is that the mentors, be they
the parents, teachers, priests, friends, etc., should try to win the
trust and confidence of the kids. And they themselves have to be
demanding on themselves, since they cannot give what they do not have.
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