Tess Martin looks at the SLÍ EILE movement which is aimed at attracting young people who maybe don’t go to Mass any more and to try and make the faith more relevant to their lives.
Slí Eile – Another Way – has two meanings. The title of the Jesuit initiative which reaches out to young adults, encompasses both the choice they are being offered and the vision and methodology used in the offering. Rory Halpin SJ is Slí Eile’s director. ‘We are trying to be attractive to young adults, including people who don’t go to Mass any more, to try to make faith more relevant to their lives. It’s a different approach, as the traditional ways don’t seem to have worked.’
Variety of attractions
With 500-600 members on the Slí Eile database, there are up to 250 active members at any given time, most in their mid 20s, with a 70:30 female to male ratio. The alternative route uses a variety of ways to attract which can include appealing to a young adult’s faith, love of music, idealism, interest in current affairs, desire for social justice or belief in friendship. Whatever the route, there is a freedom within, in terms of pace and involvement. The process is informed by the three pillars of faith, community and social justice.
All that may seem rather earnest, yet listening to Rory Halpin, sitting in the Slí Eile office in Upper Gardiner Street, membership also sounds a lot of fun. ‘Many people join through the Gospel Choir Mass on Sunday nights in Gardiner Street and in Ballymun. Joining the choir, or attending the Mass is a stepping stone to other activities.’ These include such innovations as a Justice Crawl on the streets of Dublin, weekly football matches with prisoners in Mountjoy Jail, and discussion day on The Da Vinci Code.
Discovery is the name of the prayer-reflection-action group of six to eight people who meet once a week for ninety minutes over a year to learn about themselves and to discuss how God might be working in their lives. There are about eight such groups currently in progress.
Their members may be involved in other Slí Eile activities, including the retreats and timeout opportunities. These include Advent and Lent days in Glendalough, climbing Croagh Patrick or taking the road to Santiago de Compostela, perhaps allowing Christmas and Easter to be more deeply experienced.
Another gathering, Faith Understood Together, brings people together to discuss how having a faith might inform contemporary questions. ‘With the election coming up, we will be looking again at faith and politics, bringing forty to fifty people together, one night a week over three to four weeks to discuss what this might mean in practice,’ says Rory.
There is also a range of open events, termed once-offs, but cropping up sufficiently regularly to be seen as a re-offering. They include workshops on modern music, relationships and personal development, as well as basketball matches and barbecues.
Volunteering
Volunteering is a big strand and again there are different opportunities and levels, with people donating from one hour a week in Dublin to up to two years abroad. In north inner-city Dublin, volunteer work includes decoration and reconstruction projects, tutoring secondary students, and working with children.
‘What I like about what we do is that we are always trying to add value. So we don’t just place people in projects; there needs to be a reflective element. We bring volunteers together regularly in a mediated meeting to reflect on what is happening for them and to look at the bigger issues involved. Why, for example, are they the ones giving, while other people must receive? What are the bigger issues of social justice and inequality here?’ he says.
‘Our aim is to make a broader person. So someone might be into praying and being very spiritual, but say ‘I don’t want to work in Ballymun, I don’t want to do anything like that’. We might be helping them look at what their spirituality means, and if it is enough of itself. Equally, young people are very idealistic, thanks be to God, so you could have someone very hot on social justice, but who could be helped around their faith.
Levels of experience
Summer volunteering for three weeks in Dublin, Zambia or Colombia is also well established. Volunteers to Africa work with street children in Lusaka, in a school, orphanage and with people with HIV/AIDS. Volunteers to Columbia work in an orphanage and teach basic English to adults.
Going deeper into volunteering, the Ballymun-based Jesuit Volunteer Communities (JVC), a ten- month programme, gives five to six young adults a chance to live together in simplicity and solidarity, to work with marginalized people and to explore their faith. There are five young people currently doing what dozens have done before them.
‘I think it’s true to say that the JVC experience has a profound long-term effect on their lives, and as a result of it, they often change direction, leaving the bank or whatever, to find very different work. A broad aim of Slí Eile is helping people to find out what they want to do, and this could include discovering a vocation to religious life,’ says Rory.
Constant development
Listening to him, it’s clear that the organization is constantly developing. Another project, Pathways, focuses on the 18-20 year olds, and includes presentations to sixth year students, maintaining an invitation at third level, and a specific programme for this age group who join Sli Eile. The latest idea – a work in progress – is to offer longer volunteering opportunities to adult members.
Finally, what about that Justice Crawl? The name, derived from pub crawl, has a group of young people walking through the city of an evening. ‘On Gardiner Street, you will see a lot of refugees; down by the Custom House, we can be reminded of our history; we might pass Merchant’s Quay, working for justice for excluded people including drug users. You will probably pass a number of homeless people. You look at your city, and then come back to discuss what you’ve seen and what it means,’ says Rory.
For further information contact Rory Halpin SJ, telephone 018880606, e-mail director@slieile.ie website: www.jesuits.ie
This article first appeared in The Messenger (March 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
