Conversation: Youth, mission and a 'call to sainthood' - Selina Hasham, World Youth Day co-ordinator

Sydney
10 February 2002

Archbishop steps into fray over detainees

Worldwide theology video link

Archbishop clarifies divorce ban claims

New heads for 23 Sydney schools

Praise for Catholic Women's League as it launches 'into deep'

Archbishop: Red Mass is a reminder of 'different truth'

Like 'white Australia' policy - bishop

Woomera 'concentration camp'

Welfare groups offer care for children

Ecumenical study programs for Lent

Vietnamese New Year Mass

Editorial: Time for a 'fair go'?

Letters: Think of what the Lord's Prayer says

Conversation: Youth, mission and a 'call to sainthood' - Selina Hasham, World Youth Day co-ordinator

Reflections: In the steps of the Good Samaritan

Pope John Paul II: pilgrimage of peace

As one in hope

Lent: Words of Jesus 'ring out for us today'

No school, no running water for the folk who live in this not so super Dome

Inspirations: Would-be pilgrims' progress

Conversation: Youth, mission and a 'call to sainthood' - Selina Hasham, World Youth Day co-ordinator

By Marilyn Kerjean

The Holy Father's World Youth Days are a growing phenomenon "etching a most startling mark on the globe".
So says Selina Hasham (pictured), National World Youth Day co-ordinator, who is in the midst of preparations for Australia's presence at the 17th International World Youth Day 2002.
It is less a job for her than her own God-given 'mission'.
"It's in my heart, I love it. It's very fulfilling.
"I'm convinced that future Church historians will look back at this period and see the design or the crafting of the Church of the third millennium," she says, "masterfully crafted by John Paul II."
And she thanks God the Church's youth is getting right behind it.
"As a young person in the Church this is an exciting time to be alive, to be involved in the Church, and to respond to the Holy Father's call to 'be builders of the new humanity'," she says.
A record number of young Aussies - as many as 2,000 - from dioceses and groups all over the country are expected to travel to Toronto in July.
Thirteen bishops will go with them, as well a number of priests and lay leaders.
There they will join two million young Catholics from more than 150 other countries for a week of catechesis, Masses and other spiritual and social activities culminating with an all-night outdoor vigil before a Papal Mass.
Pope John Paul II hosted the first youth gathering in Rome in 1985; the next year saw the first official World Youth Day and the birth of an ambitious new chapter in the Catholic Church.
Every second year the World Youth Day gathering is held in a different location and celebrated in the local diocese.
The notable exception was last year when World Youth Day was held in Rome to coincide with the Great Jubilee celebrations for the Holy Year.
Selina has just returned from an international meeting of World Youth Day leaders in Toronto and was excited to see "the entire city gearing up for the event".
She was impressed by the main stage, constructed out of rock salt by a Catholic Hollywood set designer to reflect the World Youth Day theme of 'You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world'.
But more compelling for Selina will be learning of the effect on pilgrims when they return home to their own families, friends and parishes.
She would like to think their experiences would inspire them to "build a Christian culture in this country (through) fervent faith communities".
"When you say 'World Youth Day' it conjures up images of crowds of people," she says, "but it's also about every young person and their encounter with the Lord, and that's why it works.
"They've taken a step in their journey that I believe will impact on them for the rest of their lives.
"(Australia is) a very lucky country in so many ways but also I think we are a spiritual wasteland (however) I think the tide is turning in our Church and it's turning with our youth.
"I don't have any brain space left to be pessimistic about our youth because I keep seeing positive stuff."
For example, she says, former World Youth Day pilgrims have quit their jobs to take up positions such as diocesan youth coordinators in the Church.
Others have found their vocation after taking part in a World Youth Day; deciding to enter the seminary or marry. Some have even chosen a World Youth Day to propose.
But these outstanding examples are not typical.
If a pilgrim returns from the festival seemingly unimpressed or unchanged, Selina is unfazed, so strong is her belief in the World Youth Day charism.
"I'm so confident in the movement of grace and of the Holy Spirit that I know the diverse work that goes on in people's souls is taking place whether we can see it immediately or outwardly," she says.
Selina says she never imagined she would have the job of running the youth pilgrimages for the dioceses of Australia and New Zealand.
She spent four years working with the Catholic charismatic group Disciples of Jesus on its youth mission team in schools.
Selina then considered joining the teaching profession but deferred that avenue to take up a shortterm stint at Harvest Pilgrimages travel agency.
Happily, seven years later, she is still there.
"I couldn't have organised it better myself. It's certainly something that God has done," she says.
Her job has taken her to magical places around the world, but of them all her favourites are the majestic, eternal city of Rome and the simple, rural village of Medjugorie.
"Walking through the streets of Rome is just wading through the history of the Church; it's just beautiful," she says.
"And Medjugorie, it's a new holy place, and the Church is just alive there. Literally millions of souls have gone through that place and have encountered a conversion."
Evangelisation and conversion are two concepts that underpin Selina's sense of "mission" - along with the "call to sainthood".
Selina is not afraid to say that she aspires to be a saint, and that notions of sainthood as "airy-fairy", inaccessible and otherworldly are simply wrong.
Rather, she says, tomorrow's saints will be the ones to come up with "radical responses" for Australia's "radical problems" such as youth suicide.
"We shouldn't undersell our young people, thinking that they're not strong enough or good enough to be brave Christians and really respond with their whole heart," she says.
"That's why I'm not afraid to say I want to be a saint. I know I am the last person in the world who can be saintly because I know how bad I am, really. But I know that is what God wants of me, and God can make me a saint if he wants to."
Selina hopes that the World Youth Days will be one way to foster such mavericks in the Australian Church, even more so if one day it comes to our shores.
"I secretly hope that Sydney or Australia gets to host a future World Youth Day," she says. "It would be a fantastic injection to our Church and to our whole community."
She explains how an unofficial bid was put together in Sydney last year by a team of young adults and delivered to the President of Pontifical Council for the Laity, Cardinal James Stafford, who is responsible for running the World Youth Days.
"It wasn't an official bid (but) Australia has been put out there as a possibility for hosting a World Youth Day."