Scottish Catholic Observer

Bishop John Keenan has said he wants young people to be at the heart of the diocesan Lenten Catechesis and each week will feature school choirs and musicians, testimonies of faith from the young people of the diocese and youth to fill the sanctuary leading Evening Prayers and Reflections at Benediction.

“We have been working with all our Catholic high schools and their music departments are delighted to be able to put their talents at the service of this diocesan festival of faith,” Bishop Keenan said.

Before each bishop’s talk some young people will give a testimony of what it is like being a young Catholic in Scotland and others will give a short witness during Evening Prayer.

“I want to let our young people speak,” the bishop added. “I want the gathering to hear them speak honestly of what it is like for them to believe in God in the world of today and what they feel about the Church in their journey of faith. It is time for them to speak and for us to listen to their hearts,”

After Catechesis, it will be the young people who will fill the sanctuary and lead the congregation in Evening Prayer. “It will be a breath of fresh air for the people of the diocese to see a Cathedral led by the young,” the bishop added. “It is the way it should be.”

Primary children are not being left out either. They will be there to welcome everyone at the doors and to lead the guest bishops to the sanctuary at the beginning of each gathering. “Primary children are full of the joy of the Gospel and their happy faces at the entrances of the Cathedral will set the spirit of this glad celebration of our Catholic faith,” he said.

At next Sunday’s launch Bishop Keenan will give Catechesis on Believing in God in a Secular Age. His idea is that the past generation of pronounced secularism is weakening before an ever more dominant religious global scene but world needs the Trinitarian God who created a world of Love and Truth.

Archbishop Charles Brown, Papal nuncio of Ireland, is one of the speaker at Paisley’s Lenten Sunday Catechesis. The new initiative on the six Sunday afternoons of Lent is bringing together some of the best bishops in the British Isles, with Bishops Mark Davis of Shrewsbury and Philip Egan of Portsmouth teaming up with Archbishop Tartaglia and Bishop Gilbert of Aberdeen.

— http://rcdop.org.uk/diocesan-synod