The patron(izing) act.

A conversation with a young fifteen year old friend of mine from St Ignatius Church sparked an interesting epiphany.

I asked her what her friends would say if she asked them 'Do you think God is always with you?"

She responded, 'People in my cat class will probably give the expected answer which is 'yes, always with me'.'

That just blew my mind.

Even if it was just the expected answer, it was the right one and the truth at that. Think about it, these young kids, even if they doubt, deep down they know that is the truth, that God is real and is always with them. That requires faith bestowed from on high. They got the basics right.

Now, these kids are going to be confirmed in four or so months from now, and I think we will all be in agreement that they need to continue to learn more about God and strengthen their relationship with the almighty. In fact they should be learning more advanced theology, they should be introduced to deep symbolism and meanings behind the liturgy, they should be taught to develop good prayer habits, have a solid understanding of mortality; that death could happen at any time and how to prepare for it, they should be introduced to history of the church and taught basic apologetics. After all, they already have the basics.

Wouldn’t their annual confirmation preparation camp this June be a wonderful time to touch on all these topics and introduce them to retreats?

Wrong. You see, according to one Facilitator, our young fifteen year old teenagers need to ‘learn to be real with themselves, and real with God. Because in our world today, and particularly in our local context, our youth don't feel. They're taught to pursue excellence, prove themselves worthy of recognition, etc that so many find it difficult to even answer the question, "How are you feeling right now?"’

No… say it isn’t so! These fifteen year olds, who lead normal lives, have normal relationships with people, are emotionally healthy and able to make friends and have desires to pursue excellence, to put their God given talents to good use, are not ‘real with themselves’. No, no they’re clearly faking everything. Oh, and the last eight years of catechism and fifteen years of going for Mass and praying? Completely useless.

Well that certainly explains the theme of the camp, the ‘iGod’. Never mind the unintended screaming heretical blasphemy, we need to sell God to these kids in the form of a suitable pocket sized appliance that can be turned on and off at will and named after a well established toy, God clearly isn’t hip enough for these kids. So, we’re going to have to re-teach them everything as well, and in very simple, dilute terms. After all, these kids are only from low end schools like CHIJ and SJI and RGS, and have to understand such simple concepts as calculus and the Marshal plan, and use tiny words like ‘ terminal velocity’, ‘meiotic cell division’ and ‘alliteration’. They can’t possibly be expected to be able to learn more about God like a grown-up and use big words like ‘consubstantial’ and ‘mortal sin’, or understand any teachings of the fathers and get to know God through reflections in silence and prayer.

No, no no. They clearly need more noise in their lives, and therapy to get in touch with their feelings about God, we’ll call it prelest. Better start warming up the guitar, after all these are faithless moronic teenagers. Well, according to some people.