Steubenville St. Louis

Last weekend I traveled to Missouri with some awesome teenagers and Youth Ministers. It was my first Steubenville Conference and I got to go as a chaperone which was pretty amazing if you ask me. If you are ever doubting your call, sometimes it takes a mountain top experience like this was to be encouraged and affirmed. That is what this weekend did for me. For anyone who has never been to a Steubenville conference, it is for High School students. It is filled with singing praise and worship, Eucharistic adoration, speakers, and Mass! That hardly explains it, but at least it might give you an idea. I have never seen so many teenagers so excited to be Catholic in my life. Seeing the Body of Christ together in one room is breathtaking, and to think that there are so many more people than that in the world who are united through the Church is so beautiful. I encourage anyone to go as a teen, or as a chaperone.

I am learning how to be more comfortable with my call to Youth Ministry, and this weekend was a great aid in that. Please pray that I continue to doubt less and less and trust more and more in God's plan for my life and the lives of those that are around me.

The teens that traveled with us were such a blessing. I could see a transformation in how they believed in their Catholic faith and how they worshiped our Lord at adoration and Mass and all the time. It's not often that we get to see the fruits of what has been planted in people's lives, but this weekend was very fruitful thanks to the conference and the influences in each of our lives, but most of all because of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great renewal, a great time to come back to deeper relationship with him.

I want to thank the youth ministers who were with us for keeping the focus on Christ the entire time. They were truly acting as the instruments of God's plan.

I want to leave you with these words from Saint Edith Stein (otherwise known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross):
"Whatever did not fit in with my plan did lie within the plan of God. I have an ever deeper and firmer belief that nothing is merely an accident when seen in the light of God, that my whole life down to the smallest details has been marked out for me in the plan of Divine Providence and has a completely coherent meaning in God's all-seeing eyes. And so I am beginning to rejoice in the light of glory wherein this meaning will be unveiled to me. "
-Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Amen.