Mission: "it's not where you come from that matters, but where you're going!"

"We have a mission, we haven't reached our destination yet" - this was the motto of the 30th edition of the Hittanya. On the occasion of the Year of St. Joseph, announced by Pope Francis, the Hittanya youth retreat in Bugac, organized for the 30th time this year in the first week of August, was about harmonious relationships and the creation and maintenance of a good family, which was attended by a record number of campers.

During the one-week spiritual retreat, the lectures provided help in preparing for family life to primary and secondary school youth from the settlements belonging to the Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét in the Hittanya next to the Bugac wilderness.

József Finta, the general vicar of the Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét, said: he was in his third year as a minor priest, and the young people of the semi-church - whom he already knew through the youth ministry - approached him to lead the camp.

This is how I became a part of the history of Hittanya from the beginning - József Finta remembers. Thirty years ago, there were only 30-40 of us in the camp, in recent years (even last year, in the midst of the pandemic), the number of people was constantly around one hundred, and this year a record number of participants are camping here, about one hundred and seventy people.

At the mass that opened the event, Tamás Tóth, secretary of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops' Conference, was the main celebrant, among others, Bishop Marton Zsolt of Vác and Piarist monk István Farkas gave a lecture at the camp.

Miklós Papp, a Greek Catholic priest and moral theologian, spoke to the young people about important decisions in our lives and preparing for marriage:

If we think responsibly, we should strive to develop in the professional and practical field, but it is just as important to take care of how we lead our lives. Unfortunately, there are many educated, graduated people who somehow cannot live their lives well, the lecturer pointed out.

One of the reasons for this is that at school "only the performance of one hemisphere of the brain is graded", which is why religious classes, spiritual exercises, and theology are important; occasions that help us to be able to live well.

We must make our decisions "freely", continued the speaker. True, philosophy says that a person's "tubed freedom" is limited, it is realized within the framework of space, time, abilities, and physical capabilities. The Good Lord created us for freedom, so there is no need to overemphasize our limitations.

We cannot deny the wounds of the past (many teenagers are already familiar with human suffering, the cause of which is a parent or even themselves), but as Miklós Papp put it: "it's not important where you come from, but where you're going!", the positive psychology teaches about the determining importance of our goals.

As part of the jubilee Hittanya, the former religious teachers (now parents who also brought their children) recalled in their brief accounts the beginnings and the fact that the role of the camp as a mediator of values ​​and the basic program structure have not changed over the decades, in addition to the fact that the former nomadic conditions have now changed, the Hittanya has improved and improved a lot.

Source, full article and image: magyarkurir.hu