That said, I have seen soooooo much good come through the program.
One of the many things about God is that no matter however sinfully we behave (I am not saying Life Teen is sinful), he is always able to bring good.
I think I mentioned this before, but, we cannot use the fruits of a program as an argument. The fruits can produce a convincing sign. Nonetheless we must examine the methods of the program itself. I must confess that I am not terribly familiar with Life Teen’s inner workings and I know it varies much from place to place.
In our examination, we must make a few distinctions. First, we need to talk about the message of a policy or method and understand that this message is NOT the intention, necessarily, of the forces in charge of the policy or method. This message is also not the message of the people in charge.
That said, does customizing a Mass for a select few encourage participation in the larger, universal Church? As a method, we must say no. Now, let me continue.
By tailoring the Mass to the audience, a message is conveyed that it is about ‘you’ as an audience. This fact is not altered by the amount of times “We are one body” is sung. The message for the action of tailoring is “You don’t need to change; we’ll charge our end. Just stay the way you are.” I am very aware that ninety-nine percent if not all of those involved in this program DO want the kids to change their lives and preach this vocally and often. However, this does not change the message of tailoring the Mass.
One of the goals of Life Teen, as I understand it, is to bring kids closer to Christ and the Mass who had been away from these. In this it can be called evangelization. When we speak of a conversion, it is always about a heart turning to God. Christ instituted the Sacraments to aid in this conversion and continually makes himself present to us in them. He humbles himself, again and again, so that we may change. Let me repeat that: so that we may change. We all argee that we are the imperfect ones who need to change, however, in Life Teen, this message of personal change, personal conversion is contradicted. Despite this contradiction, though, we have seen many come to Christ through Life Teen, which is a very good thing. But we need to use a program that does not have such contradictions.
Now, doesn’t approaching a person individually and trying to evangelize them produce the same message (“I’ll change, you don’t have to”)? In other words, doesn’t all evangelization invovle this message? No, because the personal approach accepts and condons the person, not the behaviors or way of life. Life Teen, by inserting more popular music into the Mass, does not so much convey the message that “You are accepted here” as “Your music (lifestyle, etc) is accepted here.” It would be a similar situation if a person trying to reach out to homosexual people were to announce and host a Mass specifically for homosexuals, using only music written and played by homosexuals in a church decorated by homosexuals (I am not associating Life Teen with homosexuality, but simply demonstrating a principle). Is there anything rubrically wrong going on? No, not necessarily. Will this draw them closer to the Church? Perhaps, maybe even probably. However, I think we can see the contradiction and inappropriateness at work here. Despite the purest intention, there is a more honest way of reaching out which needs to be used.
This is just my opinion, so I encourge objections.
)) … it was a respectfull explanation from the priest that kept teens in good mood towards liturgical norms. The priest has a key role - and a core and Parents Group also where it exists.