The Young Mercy Justice Tree:
Making Justice Flourish!!

How do we nourish a dynamic spirituality of justice and mercy among our Mercy school students? This is the question many Mercy congregations have been exploring over the last decade as the Sisters of Mercy continue to withdraw as permanent staff members and leaders from Mercy schools.

Sr. Meredith Evans, congregational leader of the Adelaide Sisters of Mercy, and Sr. Helen Owens, justice desk, invited me to consult with them at the end of 2004 about some future possibilities.

An old scholar of St Aloysius College, Adelaide, I have been involved in parish-based community development work in the Archdiocese of Adelaide for the last six years and am familiar with many of the issues the church is grappling with in regards to the ‘youth pastoral’.

Many traditional church activities appear to hold less and less relevance or meaning for young people, if participant numbers are anything to go by. The evangelical style experiences hold appeal for a minority of ‘churched’ young people but not necessarily for mainstream youth.

Kevin McDonald, a sociologist from Melbourne who has done extensive research into social movements and especially those catalysing the energies of the young names several key characteristics of such movements: not hierarchically organised, springing up around specific events, concerns or issues, having high aesthetic content, mobilising story and art as part of a process of exploring and defining identity and feeling, occupying public space and utilising internet technologies for maximum networking and public exposure.

Young people resist being organised into permanent groupings around ideology or theoretical concern but are drawn to practical issues and actions that make a real and immediate difference. In the Catholic sector, the St. Vincent De Paul, Caritas and Project Compassion have continued to attract and offer life-changing experiences of faith and action to young people.

Following our initial deliberations, a year 9 student from Mercedes College, Adelaide, Joseph Scales, appeared in Meredith’s office during the school holidays, wanting to do some voluntary work with the Mercies. We decided Joseph was an obvious gift from the Holy Spirit (!) and invited him to join with us in thinking about the possibilities for young Mercy students.

Eventually we arrived at the idea of initiating a Mercy student justice network across the five congregations of the ‘Southern Seas’ region (WA, SA and Victoria). This was envisaged as a project of intensive formation and support for two student leaders from each of the five congregations in this region, to seed and develop local networks of the many students and old scholars who ‘hunger and thirst for justice’. It was hoped that this would support and further the work of consciousness-raising and action for justice already being undertaken by local Mercy secondary schools.

We gathered an initial group of leaders in January 2005 at Victor Harbor Adelaide and, as part of their weekend deliberations they chose to name the project ‘The Young Mercy Justice Tree’ (YMJT) and added the motto ‘Making Justice Flourish!’

One of the key tasks of this group of student leaders was to prepare and run an annual social justice workshop open to all secondary students from Mercy colleges throughout the region. Adelaide hosted this event at St Paul’s Retreat Centre from May 13-15 2005.

38 students from 14 different schools attended. Participants came from St Aloysius College Adelaide, Mercedes College Adelaide, Damascus College Ballarat, Notre Dame College Shepparton, St Aloysius College North Melbourne, St Josephs College Mildura, Catholic College Bendigo, Mt Lilydale College Melbourne, Aranmore College Perth, Mercedes College Perth, St Brigid’s College Perth, Santa Maria College Perth, Ursula Frayne College Perth, Mercy College Perth.

Another gathering of the leadership team is planned for the end of September and will be hosted by Santa Maria College in Perth.

We are hoping that this initial group of leaders will continue to support the network as they move into post-school experiences and that we can slowly begin to incorporate a growing network of old scholars as well as senior secondary school leaders. This network will provide an ongoing forum for young people across the region to connect via web technologies as well as providing regular local and regional opportunities to gather for reflection, prayer and celebration around their continuing work for mercy and justice in their studies, their chosen professions and their involvement in local and global communities.

We believe some of the benefits of this emerging model are:

• A simple but flexible structure that is student owned and driven.
• Focus on specific issues of concern that the students bring.
• The fact that it is centred on an action/reflection process,
• We are building relationships locally, nationally and internationally and linking our Mercy students through action and personal connection with global Mercy projects,
• We are responding to the great thirst for justice in our young people and forging connections that will last a lifetime – creating together experiences that can never be undone, sharing our responses to our brothers and sisters throughout the world in order to convert hearts for a lifetime of loving.

Susan Holoubek is currently developing justice formation and leadership development programmes At St Aloysius College Adelaide and is contracted as mentor and field- worker for the YMJT