Ivan of Medjugorje: Our Lady tells us where today's young people are going

Do you also have a particular task?
Together with the prayer group, the mission that Our Lady has entrusted to me is to work with and for young people. Praying for young people also means having an eye for families and for young priests and consecrated persons.

Where do young people go today?
This is a great topic. There would be a lot to say, but there is much more to do and pray. The need that Our Lady speaks of many times in the messages is to bring prayer back to families. Holy families are needed. Many, however, approach marriage without preparing the foundations of their union. Today's life is certainly not helpful, with its distractions, due to stressful work rhythms that do not encourage reflection on what you are doing, where you are going, or the false promises of an easy-to-measure existence proper and materialism. It is all these mirrors for larks outside the family that end up destroying many, to break relationships.

Unfortunately, today families find enemies, rather than help, even in the school and in their children's companions, or in their parents' work environments. Here are some fierce enemies of the family: drugs, alcohol, very often newspapers, television and even cinema.
How can we be witnesses among young people?
Testifying is a duty, but in respect of who you want to reach, in respect of age and how he speaks, who he is and where he comes from. Sometimes we are in a hurry, and we end up forcing consciences, risking to impose our vision of things on others. Instead, we must learn to be good examples and let our proposal mature slowly. There is a time before the harvest that needs to be taken care of.
An example concerns me directly. Our Lady invites us to pray three hours a day: many say "it is a lot", and also many young people, many of our children think so. I divided this time between morning and noon and evening - including Mass, Rose, Sacred Scripture and meditation at this time - and I came to the conclusion that it is not much.
But my children can think differently, and they can consider the crown of the Rosary a monotonous exercise. In this case, if I want to bring them closer to prayer and to Mary, I will have to explain to them what the Rosary is and, at the same time, show them with my life how important and healthy it is for me; but I will avoid imposing it on him, to wait for the prayer to grow within them. And so, in the beginning, I will offer them a different way of praying, we will rely on other formulas, more suited to their current state of growth, to their way of living and thinking.
Because in prayer, for them and for us, quantity is not important, if quality is lacking. A quality prayer unites the members of a family, produces a conscious adhesion to faith and to God.
Many young people feel lonely, abandoned, unloved: how to help them? Yes, it is true: the problem is the sick family that generates sick children. But your question cannot be cleared in a few lines: a boy who takes drugs is different from a boy who has fallen into depression; or a depressed boy maybe even takes drugs. Each person needs to be approached in the right way and there is no single recipe, except for the prayer and love that you must put in your service to them.