Conférence Internationale Catholique du Guidisme - International Catholic Conference of Guiding - Conferencia Internacional Católica del Guidismo

8th July 2002

 When Jesus wants to give a language to the Gospel,
he doesn't look for a theologian or a Priest, or a
Lawyer. He finds a child, he puts amongst and says :,
 «  Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and
become as little children, you will by no means enter the
 kingdom of heaven, Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little
child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives
 one little child like this in My name receives Me.... »
( Matthew 18, 2-6).

Similarly, it was Jesus as a child, slipping away from his parents, who
 got into the Temple of Jerusalem to ask the theologian, priests and
the lawyers to prove their theses to him. . This world that seems upside
 down, is the world of the Gospel. This is what happens all over  the
 world, all the time, on all continents on earth, each time a guide leader
 is in front of childre, teenagers or youngsters.
Their meeting is always a meeting with God
Initially we believe that our task is to bring
God to these children,when what actually                     
happens is that God, in order to meet us personnally
in our daily life, adopts the face of a child          .
 

            Each time a guide asks a question, the most important challenge is not
 to know which one is the good answer, or how can I manage to avoid the
 question, but rather : " what is God asking me through this Guide's question ? "
"What is God wanting me to understand ". " What questionning is hiding
 behind the Guide's questions ? "

 It is quite clear today that the future doesn't belong to those who have answers
 for everything. Those who know everything cannot any longer get into
the Gospel. They are too heavily loaded, they cannot progress, they cannot go
 further, because they already know everything, they are stuck amongst all
their answers. Answers become so quickly prisons, and they are so quickly
outdated by events, by time that passes.

The child will always be for us a surprise, it can only astonish us, question our
 certainties, take us to new places. The guide who is before us is not only the
 promise of a future, she is the future,
                               present already today. The child and the teenager are
                               not only a tomorrow, they are a today. Children and
                               youngsters exist not only as members of the society of
                              tomorrow, they are fully an integral part of our present
                              day society, of our world.

 It is clear that the children, teenagers and the young are not the decisin-makers
 of our society, thet don't have the power, they are not managers, financial experts,
 directors of human resources, salesmen or economists... But they are the prophets
of society.

It is true that the prophets are not very cost efficient, but it would be wrong
 not to listen to them. They don't have any advise to give to us, of course, it
 is not they who will tell us what should be done, but they testify by their mere
presence, by their exixtence in flesf and blood that tomorrow is there, that t
he future is already here, that it has already began, that they begin to push out
 slowly towards the exit, all those who think they are in power today. It is no
longer a question of defending privileges, That can only lead to a museum or
the graveyard.
                                

 Time has come to work on projects rather than principles. What we must do is
to create and not save what can be saved. We must go out. Guiding has to be
 lived outdoors, and not locked in, above all not locked into definitions. The
strength of guiding is not in its heritage but in its vision. The values of which
there is so much talk today are not abstractions but life itself. The guidelines
that everyone is asking for are not ideologies, but the human essence of men,
women and children of today.

God only wanted a single image, a single face : that of a human being. Guiding is in charge of that face, through its educational commitment. And it is that face that is more vulnerable, more menaced everywhere in the world. That face is the open Book that reveals the Gospel to us.
It is our meeting point in Argentine in July 2003.                     
 

 J ean DEBRUYNNE
World chaplain of CICG

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