Accompanying young people in their search for faith, meaning, and justice is a central priority for the Society of Jesus in the European Conference. In this mission, networking and shared discernment are essential, enabling Ignatian youth ministries to learn from one another and respond more effectively to emerging challenges.

The recent Assembly of MAG+S leaders in Spain reflects this dynamic, echoing the spirit of collaboration fostered by the Youth and Young Adult Ministry (YAM) network of JCEP. The following article highlights key insights from the Assembly, showing how MAG+S is strengthening pastoral accompaniment through intersectoral collaboration, vocational discernment, and the integration of faith and justice.

On 16 and 17 January, 32 leaders from the different realities of the Ignatian pastoral network MAG+S gathered in Madrid to celebrate their Assembly of Leaders. This meeting, held every three years, has become a key space for dialogue, listening, and shared discernment. David Cabrera SJ, MAG+S Delegate, described the purpose of the gathering as “a way of enlarging our hearts and broadening our pastoral horizon.”

One of the central focuses of the Assembly was to discern MAG+S’s response to the new Provincial Apostolic Project, with particular attention to its fourth point: to discern in order to serve better. It was within this framework that Beni, Provincial Socius, offered his reflection, inviting participants to read the present and future of MAG+S as a process of listening to the Spirit. In his intervention, he emphasized that no one evangelizes only part of the mission, and that youth ministry cannot be lived as an isolated field, but rather through an intersectoral and co-responsible approach.

Within this perspective, Beni highlighted four particularly significant emphases for pastoral work with young people: accompanying young adults aged 18 to 30 through an intersectoral logic; fostering collaborative work and avoiding passive or overly delegated attitudes; the need for greater formation in order to better understand and accompany the questions and thirst of young people; and openness to new initiatives born from prayer and discernment. All of this is grounded in love for Jesus Christ and in the awareness of being sent as Church and with the Church, inseparably integrating faith and justice.

Group work allowed participants to delve more deeply into these keys from the concrete reality of the MAG+S contexts. In the shared dialogue, several issues emerged strongly: the tension between activities and processes; the need to care for structures that ensure continuity beyond individual charisms; the importance of the initial proclamation and personal witness; and how to respond to young people who remain outside current proposals. The leaders also highlighted the value of bonds, care, and friendship in God as the foundation of a community of mission, as well as the call to open themselves to the peripheries, to the most vulnerable, and to greater ecclesial and intersectoral collaboration.

The final activity of the Assembly consisted of thematic workshops addressing some of the priority challenges in youth ministry today. These included work on the initial proclamation, emphasizing the need to rediscover the kerygma as the starting point of every journey of faith; the need to reframe the Spiritual Exercises for young people, so that they are not lived as a one-off experience but as part of a broader and more meaningful itinerary; the integration of social commitment through the inseparable pairing of faith and justice; and the presence of a vocational culture, understood not only in terms of specific vocations, but as a path of discernment and life discovery for young people.

The MAG+S Assembly of Leaders thus became a space to “dream of the MAG+S of the future,” pausing, listening, and preparing to set out once again on the journey. It reaffirmed the identity and mission of Ignatian youth ministry in Spain, renewing the call to accompany young people through deep, communal processes that are open to reality. All this was done in the trust that it is the Spirit who continues to guide the mission, and with a shared desire to keep discerning together in order to serve better.