The wounded healer : a model for youth ministry

Abstract

During the last Synod of Bishops (October 2018), the Church discussed important issues relating to young people and having to do with faith, vocation, formation, discernment, and their identity within the local and universal ecclesial community. The Synod of Bishops was a positive answer to Pope Francis’ invitation to have a Church that feels renewed, and that goes forth towards young people at the peripheries of society and who feel wounded, distressed, or left out. An answer to such invitation is a model for youth ministry which specifically aids young people living a fragmented social and spiritual experience. The following dissertation presents a model based on the pastoral image of the wounded healer, advocated by Henri J.M. Nouwen. The model, based on five main areas, portrays the youth minister as a wounded healer who aids young people to address and articulate their inner events, to live a concrete pastoral experience within an ecclesial community, to understand and experience God’s compassion and forgiveness, and simultaneously to become contemplative critics of the world and missionaries of the Good News. The image of the wounded healer is appropriate to the Church’s pastoral work with young people, as it reflects a type of ministry that adheres to the calling of every Christian: to love and to be of service to others.