To finish what I started before about my visit to Revive Espanola, it was in every way amazing. It was filled with perfect little moments of joy, and it was so much fun to feel like I was both visiting a friend's cottage and on mission again. The highlights after the faith study night (which I already blogged about) are the youth group, when we had an incredibly fun paint war in the school yard, the Summit (a night of Eucharistic Adoration with praise and worship), the Masses in the parish on Sunday, hiking with Angele, swimming/rope jumping with Mary and Angele in Agnew Lake, and just being with my dear friends on the Revive team.
There is something just so incredible about seeing God's kingdom being built on earth through young people. I am so blessed, inspired, and always blown away by these close friends of mine who God has blessed with powerful gifts for evangelization. As I was writing them a thank-you letter after I returned home, the words coming to mind that I felt God wanted me to affirm in them were such things as "leaders of an army" and "phalanx," which was a term Archbishop Prendergast used to describe uOttawa and Carleton's CCO student bodies, and I find it a very appropriate word. It was a huge joy to witness, as an outsider, the powerful movement towards Christ sweeping through the lovely little town of Espanola.
The Revive team are bringing the message of God's love to adults in the parish as well as the youth, but what really struck me when I was there was the readiness of the youth to reach for the torch that the Revive team want to pass on to them. When I was on Impact, I led a faith study with older adults, and I felt that I preferred leading adults to leading my university peers on campus as I normally do, because it is so incredible to see older adults who have already spent their lives trying to live for Christ learn something entirely new about God's infinite love, Christ's sacrifice, and leading others to Christ. However, it was the scraggly pile of mostly pre-teens squirting paint on each other at youth group in Espanola that especially warmed my heart this time, because they were so eager to figure out what this whole God thing is all about. It is amazing to see conversions in older adults of course, and so important, but the future of the Church on earth lies in the hands of the youth.
One of these paint-warring youth actually had quite a radical conversion at the Summit. The Summit, as I said before, is a night of Eucharistic Adoration. In the Catholic Church, we believe that the consecrated host (the bread at Communion) is the true presence of Jesus. When that Host is put on display inside a golden stand called a monstrance, we kneel in the presence of God and pray to Him and adore Him. At this night of prayer and adoration, a seventh-grade girl picked up a booklet called “The Ultimate Relationship," which explains God's love for us and how we are called to a personal relationship with Him, and she realized in a way she had never fully realized before how amazing and important it was to put Christ at the centre of her life and to live for Him. She even said she was excited to tell her friends about how much God loves them, so she certainly also was aware of her missionary identity! It was so amazing to see someone as young as her so ready to take up the mission that all Catholics are called to. It is exactly this kind of radical conversion that the Revive Espanola mission is there for, and exactly what this Church needs in order to revive people's faith and love, particularly in the younger generation, who are the future of the Church!
This same inspiring and radical momentum towards Christ amongst youth is also what I got to witness last weekend at the Journey to the Father youth conference, which was simply awesome! Almost every single person got up for the altar call Sunday morning to give their yes to the Lord in a public way - another phalanx, which blew me away. I was also surprised by the number of people who went up when Bishop Damphousse invited those who felt a call to priesthood or religious life. No doubt thousands of young lives have been affected in a radical way through World Youth Day this past week in Brazil as well!
I'll end with a quote from Papa Francisco:
"We need saints without
cassocks, without veils - we need saints with jeans and tennis shoes. We
need saints that go to the movies that listen to music, that hang out
with their friends. We need saints that place God in first place ahead
of succeeding in any career. We need saints that look for time to pray
every day and who know how to be in love with purity, chastity and all
good things. We need saints - saints for
the 21st century with a spirituality appropriate to our new time. We
need saints that have a commitment to helping the poor and to make the
needed social change. We need saints to live in the world, to sanctify
the world and to not be afraid of living in the world by their presence
in it. We need saints that drink Coca-Cola, that eat hot dogs, that surf
the internet and that listen to their iPods. We need saints that love
the Eucharist, that are not afraid or embarrassed to eat a pizza or
drink a beer with their friends. We need saints who love the movies,
dance, sports, theater. We need saints that are open sociable normal
happy companions. we need saints who are in this world and who know how
to enjoy the best in this world without being callous or mundane. We
need saints." - Pope Francis, World Youth Day 2013
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| The group from Revive Espanola's first youth group night |
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