The Eucharistic celebration generates the life of the community and the synodality of the Church. It is a place of transmission of the faith and formation for mission, in which it becomes evident that the community lives by grace and not by the work of our hands. In the words of the eastern tradition, we can say that the liturgy is an encounter with the Divine Servant who binds our wounds and prepares the paschal banquet for us, sending us out to do the same for our brothers and sisters. So let us reiterate that the commitment to celebrate with noble simplicity, involving various lay ministries, is an essential element of the Church’s missionary conversion. The young have shown that they appreciate and wish to engage deeply with authentic celebrations in which the beauty of signs and the care taken over preaching and community involvement truly speak of God. It is therefore necessary to promote their active participation, while keeping alive a sense of awe before the Mystery; to acknowledge their musical and artistic sensitivities, but also to help them understand that the liturgy is not purely self-expression but an action of Christ and the Church. It is equally important to help the young discover the value of Eucharistic adoration as a prolongation of the celebration, in which to live contemplation and silent prayer.
The practice of the sacrament of Reconciliation has great importance for faith journeys. The young need to feel loved, forgiven and reconciled and they have a secret longing for the merciful embrace of the Father. For this it is essential that priests generously make themselves available to celebrate this sacrament. Communal penitential services help the young to approach individual confession and they make the ecclesial dimension of the sacrament more explicit.
In many contexts, popular piety plays an important role in bringing the young to the life of faith in a practical, sensitive and immediate way. Valuing body language and affective participation, popular piety brings with it the desire to enter into contact with the God who saves, often through the mediation of the Mother of God and of the saints. Pilgrimage, for the young, is an experience of journeying that becomes a metaphor for life and the Church: contemplating the beauty of creation and art, living fraternally and uniting oneself to the Lord in prayer are once again proposed as the best conditions for discernment.