According to Business.com, there will be approximately 33.5 million teenagers in the United States by the year 2010. This group of teenagers averages $158 billion per year in disposable income. And the marketing industry is well aware of these facts. This kind of disposable income can lead to excessive consumerism. How can we as Catholic youth ministry leaders help teenagers understand how to live responsibly in a materialistic society?

Retreat Program

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) offers a retreat program that challenges young people to give up something for an entire day to stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the planet who live in poverty. This program is called Food Fast.

According to the Food Fast Website, the “program makes the tragedy of hunger tangible and real for young people through twenty-four hours of fasting, prayer, and reflection.” Through the Food Fast program, teenagers learn that not everyone in the world has access to the latest electronic gadgets, text messaging, or Facebook. In fact, young people who participate in Food Fast will quickly realize that even the most basic things needed to survive, such as potable water, are hard to come by in many parts of the world.

Goals of the Food Fast Program

The core messages in the Food Fast program are based on Catholic social teaching. Through Catholic social teaching we learn about the life and dignity of the human person—that each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. Food Fast offers numerous opportunities for teenagers to learn more about the people who live in all regions of the world. Through the life stories presented in the Food Fast manual, young people hear how families live on less than one dollar a day. This statistic offers a wonderful learning opportunity every time someone steps up to the soda machine to buy a drink!

Along with the life and dignity of the human person, we find that because of our inherent dignity, there are certain rights and responsibilities that each person has. The encyclical Pacem in Terris sums up our rights when Pope John XXIII wrote that all of us have “the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services” (#11). In our society, it is easy to assume that these basic rights will always be available to us. Food Fast challenges us to leave our right to food behind for a day so we can experience what it is like to have this basic right suppressed.

By giving up our right to food while participating in Food Fast, participants also embrace the solidarity principle of Catholic social teaching. The principle of solidarity teaches us that we are all created by the same God and are therefore all brothers and sisters in the same human family. The challenge of solidarity in our materialistic society is to help young people realize that many individuals do not have a choice on whether or not to ‘super-size’ their meals or to have bottled water in their backpack. A further challenge of solidarity is to ask teenagers if they are consuming more than what basic needs require. Are we taking supplies of food, water, shelter, etc. away from those who are more in need?

Another goal of the Food Fast program is to empower Catholic youth to take action. By empowering young people to act, we participate in another principle of Catholic social teaching, that of the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. Food Fast is an opportunity for young people to reverse consumerism by donating some of their disposable income to support the mission of Catholic Relief Services—the official international humanitarian agency of the United States Catholic community that strives to alleviate suffering and provide assistance to people in need in more than one hundred countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. Monies sent to Catholic Relief Services is one way for teenagers to share the gifts they have through an agency that has an excellent track record of good stewardship.

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Some youth ministry leaders may be familiar with the 30 Hour Famine from World Vision, the Crop Walk from Church World Service, or other similar programs centering on hunger awareness. It is important to know all the facts about any organization, how their funds are utilized, and if the programming conforms to Catholic catechetical standards before adopting a particular program. Catholic Relief Services is the official overseas relief and development agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), with thirteen bishops on the board of directors and a strong Catholic emphasis and identity.