There is much to learn from the Encuentro Process

The Encuentro process was begun about a year and a half ago. It was a process that focused on gathering the voice of Hispanic youth in the United States. It began first with the parish encuentro, the diocesan encuentro, the regional encuentro of this past weekend, and is now directed to the national Encuentro in June. The energy and work that this process has taken has been vast. Our Associate for Latino Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Antonio Ojeda has been tasked with this work.
What is this Encuentro process? For me as I learn and understand more---it is catechesis at its best. :"...the most visible fruit, most tangible is that the jovenes expressed their words, raised their voices, they prophesied from their lived reality." From the work document of PJH.

For catechesis and Church to come alive and have meaning for youth everywhere, people everywhere, opportunities for the expression of their lived reality is the first crucial step. In many of our communities, we have done the opposite in catechesis, and find it difficult to "get" young people to come to our "programs". As adults, sometimes we don't really know who our young people are--we have not asked them who they are. The Encuentro of the Pastoral Juvenil Hispana are on their way to connecting with The Young Church in their community, because they invested, time, talent and treasure in asking with humility the most basic question to los jovenes throughout the United States, a question all people want to be asked: Will you teach us who you are....??? Only when we know who THE YOUNG CHURCH is, will we have the ability, wisdom and humility to walk with them in faith, and they with us.
The journey I took this weekend has opened my eyes and my heart to many things about this community in in our midst---and I am beginning to understand community, loyalty and family in new ways.
--Sandy Velasco Scott