He puts up with a lot

This summer I became the "Director of Youth Formation," a title that makes me sound a little more important than the lowly youth minister that I am. I am now in charge of first reconciliatin and first communion along with the entire Wednesday evening Faith Formation program, Confirmation, Youth Group, and the Faith Formtation Committee.

Have you ever felt like God was asking too much of you?

I certainly thought so when I got this job. I'm still at the same place, but I have added responsibility (and I could say added anxiety at times). But what could possibly come out of this that would be a benefit to myself and the people I work with? I couldn't think of many good things in regard to the new job, so I just worked through the summer and spent a lot of time in prayer asking God things like, "why!?" and telling him things like, "this was your idea, so you better make it work."

Well, as I was busy complaining, good things kept happening...

I started to notice that even though I was unprepared and not the most qualified for the job, things kept coming together the right way. Deadlines were met. Curriculum was formed. Dates were scheduled. Volunteers were found.

How could this be!? I had only had one year of experience in the field of ministry, so I couldn't credit myself much at all. It had to be God. It just had to be.

So God, I'm still yours and eternally grateful for all that you put up with.

They're getting confirmed tonight!

Tonight, the candidates which I have worked so hard to prepare, will be confirmed as full members of the Catholic Church. I must say, I think they are ready. Pray for us tonight!

For the rest of the day, after anxiously finishing everything on my to do list this morning, I will wait around and try to work on future events. But in all honesty, I will probably try to run over to the chapel and pray. I'm so excited for these kids, and I can't get my mind off of how great of an experience this year has been.

So for now... I'm trying to work, but it's becoming more prayer than work... and that's probably a good thing. Especially today...

The Tuesday before the Thursday

This week, the 9th graders that I have been working with since last September will be confirmed at the Cathedral. Back in September, I would have never dreamed what this day would feel like. I was new at the parish I work at, and didn't feel like I completely knew what I was doing. Let me tell you, God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes I wonder how I got these teenagers this far... without turning them away from the Church ;)
Over the past month, I have been reminded of my own confirmation (forgive me if this sounds a bit cliche). But during the exit interviews that the teens had to go through, they had to name and define the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (I often had to help them articulate what they were trying to say). But I will tell you this, I was impressed by their responses. Their answers were all very thoughtful and I could really see that they were taking the decision to be confirmed very seriously.
Back in January, I didn't think confirmation would ever come and I was worried that the teens would never decide to go through with it. But I was shown that my work means nothing unless I entrust it to the Almighty. I began praying more and more for the confirmation candidates... my prayers usually began with, "Lord please let them decide to get confirmed." And I guess God listened.
I can't tell you how proud I feel for these kids. I am so happy for them, but I think I will be sad to know that after this, some of them will go their separate ways and I won't see them again. Others, I will still see occasionally at Mass. And then those who decide to really truly invest in the parish, I will see every Sunday at the youth group.
Going into my second year as a youth minister will be very different. There is so much more that I will know. And so much more that I can be prepared for. Thank God I had no idea how much work I was going to put into this year :) I'm sure I would have doubted that God put me here and that he would help me at every moment.
Earlier today I wrote an article for our bulletin about the importance of confirmation for high school students. I was inspired when I read an article on adolescent spirituality. Read it, it has some good insights. There is so much that we are up against when we are trying to form our identity as Catholics. The world will tell us one thing, while God is reaching for us to listen to his awesome plan for us!

Mary's month

So, it's the month of May and I've always known that this month had something to do with the virgin Mary and motherhood and hallmark, but I thought I'd look into it a little bit more this time and really try to understand what it is about Mary that we love so much.

I love this image of Mary. Not only because it's pretty, but also because it makes it so clear that she is the queen of heaven and earth. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what it must be like to have that honor as a human being, but Mary was certainly set apart by God to be honored and to mother the Son of Man.

So Mary is queen... I guess I've never spoken to a queen in person before so I don't know how I would act or what I would say. I can guess that I would be pretty nervous. But for some reason, it doesn't seem like we are meant to be nervous around Mary the Mother of G-O-D. And I love St. Therese's quote about Mary saying "she is more mother than queen." This is so true, and I know it is true because of everything that we know about Mary. We know that she is humble. We know that she is sinless. We know that she is loving. What a great combination of virtues for one person (and that's not all of them).

Since it is the month of May, and thanks to Hallmark, our thoughts automatically turn to our mothers, I ask you all to pray some extra prayers to the virgin Mary asking for her intercession. Especially for our country, for all of those who do not know their own mothers, and for those who weren't allowed to be born and know their mother. Mary is everyone's mother (Jesus on the cross said "behold your mother" signifying his gift of Mary and her maternal love and care to the people that he was about to die for).

Here's a great starter prayer for you:

Hail Mary, Full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

for more on Mary and what the Catholic Church says, look here.

We Live in An X-RATED World

Today, children, teenagers, young adults, and adults are constantly bombarded with images from the media. Some of these images might be positive, like when the news shows people doing good for others. However, a large majority of the images we see are negative, even depressing at times.

There are two types of negative images that I am talking about. The first is, the sadness and difficulty of war and an economy crisis. We hear about it all the time these days, and that's because we are in the middle of it. Negative images like these can actually inspire us to depend more on God in difficult situations like war and financial troubles.

The second type of negative image that we see is less obvious. I call these de-humanizing images. These are the images that make human beings less human. Let me explain that... Have you ever seen a commercial that used an attractive man or woman to sell something? It happens in most of our commercials! While this may seem completely harmless, take a look at what this says about the human person. It says that we are tools used for selling things, and that those buying the things are going to buy them because they are attracted to the good looking people selling them. That hardly sounds like the words we hear in Genesis when God created man "in his own likeness and image."

De-humanizing images go even further than that. All of a sudden there are commercials for things like birth control and tv shows that promote sex before marriage. Television and advertising use the human body to sell, but they also avoid issues of morality and make the moral standings of the Church look old fashioned and out of date. Nowadays it can be hard to find someone who understands why sex should be saved for marriage and why birth control is telling us that the female body was not made right.

Those are just a couple of examples... but hopefully it gets the point across enough. So what now? What do we have to do about it all? We can't exactly stop the war, convince everyone that the moral teachings of the Church are true, can we? This requires discussion AND action. Whether this action is something big or just how we talk to others in our daily lives, we should see that Jesus calls us to actively live out our faith, not sit by the sidelines and let the world lose itself without our help. We need to help. If you want to know more about this... come to Youth Group on April 26, 4:00-5:30pm. We'll have some fun, eat some food, and figure out what to do about the direction our media has taken.

What is mission work?

Saint Anthony
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately. My school has mission trips over our academic breaks, and I have never been on one yet. But this year my goal is to go on one. One trip is to the Phillipines and the rest are within the U.S. I probably can't afford to go overseas, but I often wonder at the complexity of what that would entail...

I'm doing a presentation on mission work for my ministry class, and throughout my research I have been coming up with a lot of questions that I would ask a missionary if I met one. I believe these are questions that we should all ask ourselves as well. If we think about a time (or imagine a situation) where we have come into contact with a culture that is very different from our own, how do we act, how do we react, and how do we evangelize?

Evangelization is a very delicate thing, because everyone responds differently to a person's words of faith. It is important to know that when I am speaking with a non-Christian, I have to respect where they are coming from. This means that if they have a different cultural tradition from my own, I can't assume that they will give it all up. I have to come to understand their culture, because aspects of it are most likely very good. So this brought me to ask the question "what parts of a cultural tradition are sacred and should remain and which parts could change?" I don't know the answer to this question because it is probably different in every case.

This question brought me to another question: does sharing my faith mean that I also bring my way of life to this new culture? How could I say that my way of life is the best way to live? Sure, I may have luxuries that they don't have (some countries just don't have toilets, and that is normal), but should we force them to adapt the luxuries that we are used to? Maybe all the luxuries that I have are not necessary. In a class discussion about this topic, we decided that standard healthcare was something that everyone deserves. We also decided that we could not force a country to get toilets.

I will also ask the question of how to relate to a culture that is so different to my own. This is important to think about. I may not speak the same language or look the same. So what is it that can connect us on the same level? Let's go back to basics and say that we all connect on the level of humanity. We all share human experience, emotions, spirituality, music, ...love. Love is such a powerful thing that it speaks to us even if we cannot speak to eachother. And so my friends I come to the bottom line of what mission work needs. It needs love. If you love a people you wish to evangelize to, you will strive to know their needs, both spiritual and physical, and you will strive to know exactly what you can do/say for them that will help them the most and bring them closer to God. So this is where I have found myself on the topic of mission work... there is much work to be done, but first and foremost, the heart of charity is absolutely necessary to understand the full picture of what we are doing when we are evangelizing. We are not counting numbers of people we may have converted, we are not keeping tallies. Evangelize my friends, but do it with complete love of God and of those you are helping, because what we do to the least, we do to Jesus.

Rome, the great adventure!

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

Have you ever thought about going to another country? Maybe you have. If not, I highly recomend it. But not just for the sake of a great adventure, but for the sake of a greater view and understanding of the world that God created. The variety in peoples, landscapes and plants, architecture and art... they are phenomenal. This photo is St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. A fantastic place full of every kind of person from sisters in habit and priests in cassocks, to tourists from Asia, to Romans, traveling Europeans, and many more.

Traveling to a foreign country can give you a great opportunity to learn important values in life that may not be as magnified when you are in your home. One of the most important values that a traveling Christian can learn is the ability to trust God, no matter what! Trust God if you got on the wrong train, if you can't find your hostel, if it rains and you lost your raincoat... just to name a few possible instances. Seriously, these situations show us that we are not in control and that God is. If we allow ourselves to learn from them and know that God had something in mind the entire time, then we have a value well learned when we come back home.

Whether or not you can afford to go to another country, try to look at the world knowing that there is a lot more to the world than one person can know. May God bless you abundantly in humility and love for others!