My parish is blessed to have to many young people involved in the parish. they serve as lectors, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, altar servers, greeters, collectors. They also help at parish fundraisers and at our soup kitchen. Yeah, sometimes these young people don't always look the way we wish they did and we are trying to impress that upon them without turning them away.
Several of them are seriously considering vocations but I think they are all keeping it as an option.
These young people are truly the future of the church. They are our future priests, deacons, religious, & parents. Too many people don't realize the potential within them. We have one teenage boy who really looks like something that crawled out of the gutter. With his long unwashed hair, straggly beard, chains and wristcuffs no one would think that he is a faithful altar server and one of our best servers are parish dinners. More than that, no one would think that his favorite subject to study is theology and he is considering entering the priesthood. I hope he cleans up his look before entering the seminary though.
While I am in no way endorsing his appearance, I think it is a reminder to look beyond appearances and see the person for who they truly are. After all, St. Francis must have looked like quite a character.
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