When a young person becomes a teenager, they instinctively search for ways to affirm their manhood or womanhood. In societies where rites of passage are part and parcel of the norm, each young man or woman participates in a formal ceremony during which his manhood or womanhood is publicly and unequivocally affirmed. From that day onwards, he/she is treated differently by those around them and receives more freedom, rights, and privileges. In turn, the initiates begin to think and act more as adult than as a child. St Paul says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) Once, their manhood or womanhood has been affirmed by the society, they dedicate the rest of their lives to pursue maturity.

On the other hand, a young person living in a society that has no formal rites of passage must find their own way to adulthood. Without formal affirmation of their transformation, they vainly try to find adulthood on their own through a variety of means. Unfortunately, their search for adulthood instead of maturity may lead them down several side roads that are fruitless at best, destructive at worst.

Most societies in the west do not perform rites of passage for their children to usher them into adulthood with a sense of commission or blessing from their society or their families. As with other cultures, the rite of passage must be deliberate – something the child knows will happen at a certain time.

It should not be a surprise that it will happen, although elements of the ceremony itself may be kept secret until the proper time. In the absence of a transitional event to mark the move from childhood into womanhood or manhood, young people may spend many years trying to identify ways to confirm their own coming of age. Sadly, they often look for a random action rather than for an approved event to mark this change in status. Young people today are vainly using their first cigarette, drink, sexual encounter, theft, or some other mile marker as transitional events.

Regardless of whether a rite of passage includes tests of endurance, deeper spiritual insights, or personal deprivation, each produces a near-miraculous outcome. When the event is over, a girl or boy becomes a woman or man respectively, well prepared to assume new responsibilities and to walk boldly into their destiny. Sadly, our society has lost sight of what it takes to prepare young people to enter responsible adulthood. Our neglect of this time-tested, sacred cycle of maturity is the root cause of senseless and countless problems facing our society, our families, and individual teens