New youth evangelisation approach in Marsascala

Next Friday and Saturday evening, if you are walking along a Marsascala street from 9 p.m. onwards, do not be alarmed if a young stranger walks up to you and invites you to meet Jesus in the local church.

Dawl bil-Lejl (Light in the Dark) is a new method of evangelisation whereby youths approach other youths on the street to spread the Good News of the Gosple. The idea started to evolve in 1999 when a group of Italian young men and women, who called themselves "Sentinelle del Mattino" (morning watchers) started opening up their locality's church at night-time for adoration and combing the streets, inviting other young people to come in.

Evangelisation in the streets is not a question of technique or a special method, but rather a change in mentality. It is founded on the principle that all Christians are called to evangelise, and can call themselves Christian when they proclaim their faith to others.

A group of about 25 Maltese people have already participated in a basic course in this form of evangelisation organised by the youth ministry within the Kommunità Dixxipli ta' Gesù, founded by Fr Paul Fenech.

The weekend course was conducted by Fr Andrea and Chiara, both from Verona, and also involved three seminarists. It rekindled in these young people the fire that was first lit at their baptism, and they have in turn promised to pass on this light to other youths in Malta, especially during the forthcoming Dawl bil-Lejl.

Last July, some of the course participants also had a first hand experience of how the evangelisation experience works when they travelled to Bibbione, a famous tourist resort near Venice, to meet up with a 130-strong contingent from all over Italy. There, they prayed, worked and practised evangelisation on the beach and on the streets, seemingly undeterred by those who viewed them as 'mosquitoes'.

This experience gave the Maltese youths the push they needed to organise the first similar event locally. Some of them also form part of a system termed "celloli parrokkjali ta' evangelizzazzjoni", which is aimed at promoting this new method of evangelisation.

In his encyclical Terzo Millenio Innuente, the late Pope John Paul II had stated that the Church's mission is that of evangelisation. Later, at a gathering the Pope had with young people at the turn of the millennium, he had said: "Do not be afraid to go out in the streets, and in public places, like the first apostles who proclaimed Christ and the Good News of salvation on the squares of cities, town and villages. This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the roof tops."

He had also recalled the line in the Gosple of Matthew 10,27: "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight: what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops", as well as St Paul's Letter to the Romans 1,16 in which he wrote: "For I see no reason to be ashamed of the Gospel..."

For more information, contact Bernardette Decelis or Matthew Agius on e-mail benna63@yahoo.com.