 The aim of the FIRES
Sons and Daughters Encounter programme is to provide an opportunity
for participants – young people in their teens and twenties – to
build better relationships with themselves, with their family members
and with God.
Topics include: self-determination vs. outside influence, self knowledge,
review of relationships within the family, values, vocation, love,
faith, relationship with God.
Sons and Daughters Encounter participants
are invited to listen to talks by youth team members, who honestly
share their lived experiences.
The team presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection
and sharing about handout questions. The two-day programme also includes
Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest.
The programme brings about deep changes in the hearts
of most participants: it helps them deepen their self knowledge,
it encourages them to be honest in
communication and sharing, it helps them see the worth of positive
thinking and living, it makes them feel how much one needs God in
his life.
Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, FIRES
Sons and Daughters Encounter is open to non-Catholic or non-Christian youth
as well. It is an unforgettable positive experience for both believers
and non-believers.
As a possible follow-up of the programme, participants
are offered Dialogues for Sons and Daughters, a
guidebook by Fr Gabriel Calvo. This booklet contains outlines
for fifteen meetings. Young
people who want to repeat the experience of group sharings during
the Sons and Daughters Encounter by using Dialogues
for Sons and Daughters have fifteen great opportunities
to listen to each other, to communicate and understand themselves
and each other better and,
therefore, to grow individually and as a community (see Publications). |
