„Dyrektorium o pobożności ludowej i liturgii” a duszpasterstwo młodzieży
„Directory of Popular Piety and Liturgy” and Youth Ministry

Summary/Abstract: The Second Vatican Council emphasised the central position of liturgy in both the Church’s and each Christian’s lives. At the same time in the Church there is quite a range of various religious practices, which cannot be neglected and which contribute significantly to the growth of faith and its better expression through prayer. This article is an attempt to answer the question whether folk religiousness can be in any way related to pastoral work among the youth. The situation of contemporary youth is closely connected with the changes taking place in the world’s community. The Church is called to live in this world, to show its beauty and goodness created by God as well as to indicate those directions of its development which might threaten the integrity of human personality. Young people’s attitude to Christian values and faith is characterised by progressive subjectivism. The spiritual life is subjected to young person’s individual needs. However, in young people’s difficult situation there might be a chance. Personal and individual treatment of religious matters may enable another, creative discovery of Jesus Christ as the protagonist of their own lives. Pastoral work among the youth can be described as the whole set of specialised and diversified activities undertaken by the Church community, which aim at realisation of God’s redeeming intention implemented by Jesus Christ, within this community’s life conditions. In all these activities you have to pay attention to folk religiousness inherent in a young person. You can discover in it a vivid emotion, the need for supernatural values, conviction and self-assuredness of having the answer to basic existential questions referring to life and death, pain and destiny. This piety co-exists with cultural and sociological reality: it differs depending on the times, the continent, the language, the tradition. It is a dynamic asset, which changes with the society and young people. Direcory of Popular Piety and Liturgy does not provide ready-made solutions. It can be a well-defined starting point for priests working with the youth, the material for further work on models and forms of spreading the Gospel. Folk religiousness if properly treated, nurtured and developed might become an answer to the problems and threats a young person encounters in the modern world.

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