A time of crisis is always a time which challenges our imagination, our faith, and our reason. It is an opportunity to explore new horizons, to investigate new perspectives, and create new possibilities for fulfilling the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ. While almost all cities, from Tokyo to San Francisco, from Moscow to Cape Town, are locked down, and schools, universities, churches, retreat houses, and pastoral centres are closed, what does it mean for us now to “journey with the youth”?
Before the Covid-19 outbreak, the Catholic-Jesuit Center at Sophia University in Tokyo held Bible classes, catechetical instructions, daily Masses, monthly Magis Program gatherings, and other activities. But due to the current situation, Sophia University has postponed the beginning of the spring semester from early April to the end of May and has decided to hold all classes online during the spring semester. Furthermore, any gathering has been forbidden within the campus.
We made use of this challenging time to discern how we can journey with the youth in such a context and give them an opportunity to discover Ignatian spirituality. Under lockdown, all of us, especially young people, are experiencing loneliness, worries, anxieties, and fears. Considering these realities, the Catholic-Jesuit Center is holding a weekly Online Campus Ministry gathering using the consciousness examen and spiritual conversations.
Through this virtual platform, we are still able to journey with the youth by providing them with a digital and interactive space for prayer and sharing as a form of spiritual support, a forum for listening to their fears, worries and pains, joys, consolations and hopes, but also for learning from them and letting ourselves be moved and inspired by their insights.
“Thanks to the Online Campus Ministry gathering, I feel united with others through prayer, a feeling which gives me peace of mind,” says Miyata Rika who finds the sessions really helpful. “The examen is for me a way to put order in my mind,” she says.
“I feel at home when we meet on Zoom every Saturday. As our church has been closed, it plays an important role as a place where I can be honest with myself and think deeply and carefully about myself,” adds Tasuku Yamada.
Overseas student Vanessa Garret says the online gathering has helped her cope with homesickness. “I miss my family and my friends so much, especially during this time, but after every sharing, I feel relieved and a bit better. I also feel very calm when we are doing the Spiritual Exercises and I learn more Japanese as well,” she shares with a laugh.
Besides their need for spiritual and social support, many students are experiencing fears and uncertainty about their education. A good number of them support their study fees and life expenses with income from part-time jobs, but due to the pandemic, most of them cannot work anymore. Sophia University is helping students who have difficulty paying academic fees. The Japanese government is also considering how to support students who are the most financially affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
Furthermore, this pandemic has made us realise that technology is an opportunity. It is up to each of us to use technology wisely, as a means and not as a finality in our interaction with one another, with nature, and with God. Technology helps us keep in touch with friends and family, enables us to work from a distance, attend meetings, participate in the Holy Mass, and take care of nature. In short, technology makes our life better. One could say we became more and more a real Homo numericus, which is to say that numerical tools and means have become part of our way of being, thinking, living, and acting.
At the same time, addiction is a real danger, especially among the youth. To be sure, we cannot ask young people not to use technology or the Internet because in a country like Japan, technology and the Internet are like the very oxygen of society. We can only give young people spiritual tools, such as the Spiritual Exercises, to help them grow in “indifference” and freedom, so they can discern for themselves what is essential in their life and what is not.
Christian Mukadi is a Jesuit scholastic from the Democratic Republic of Congo and missionary to Japan serving his Regency as a Campus Ministry Officer at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Watch the short introduction video of the Catholic-Jesuit Center’s Online Campus Ministry