The Vision of Youth Arise North America
by Ryan O'Hara — Executive Director, Youth Arise North America
PROBLEM: We live in an age where the culture of life has been trampled underfoot (through the proliferation of the use of contraceptives and the horror of abortion), where the reality of a loving and personal God is mocked in the public forum, and where truth is merely relative, open to the whims of personal preference and feeling. This is the culture within which we live and as of now this culture of death stands as America’s greatest, yet saddest, export to the rest of the world.
For most young adults (in college, in the workplace, in their families and neighborhoods) their contemporaries are spiritually numb, confused about vocation and career, and lack a clear sense of vision and purpose for their lives.
SOLUTION: REACHING YOUNG PEOPLE WITH THE GOSPEL
Youth Arise is affecting this transformation in numerous lives. Over 15,000 youth and young adults have heard the message of Christ's love through hundreds of Youth Arise retreats and mission programs. Dozens of youth programs and ministries in the Church have welcomed Youth Arise Alumni to serve as leaders and lay ministers.
But, most especially this personal transformation has taken place in the seventy-two Catholic young adults that have completed the nine-month evangelistic training and formation in YANA's six year history and as a result each has developed an acute "missionary consciousness".
SOLUTION: TRAINING YOUNG ADULTS TO BE APOSTLES
Young adults in the Church today long for something deeper. They are ready and willing to lay down their lives completely, in service of the ongoing mission of Jesus and the Church. They are no longer satisfied with just going to mass or participating solely in a weekly program. It is Christ, in whom they personally encounter in the Eucharist and in prayer, who is calling them to go deeper. It is not just a call to follow Christ as disciples, but rather it is the call to become apostles.
Youth Arise was founded to answer this call.
John Paul II states very clearly in his letter to the Church in the Americas that young adults must become "apostles to their contemporaries".
In and through Youth Arise, God is building an Army of Apostles, equipped with the spiritual weapon of prayer, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, a zeal for the "new evangelization", and sharp minds that have been formed in the truth.
They are also an army that that serves as a "spiritual MASH unit" ready and equipped to lead the brokenhearted, the spiritually bankrupt, and the lost back to Christ, so that He, the divine Physician, might heal their souls and make them whole again.
These young adults and many others like them around the country ARE building the culture of life. Their "yes" to God is total and as a result the culture of death is being turned away. This is the grace of the "new springtime" in the Church. This was the prophetic call of our Holy Father, John Paul II. This is the vision of Youth Arise North America.