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3/29/2020

In the shadow of His mercy...

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Laura Mascari
Teacher of Children and eternal Student of Christ

Photo/Image courtesy of Laura Mascari.

“Within her heart was a great need. Close at hand, within the veil of the confessional, was the relief. She flung herself down in the penitent’s place, and, tremulously, passionately, with sobs, tears, and the turbulent overflow of emotion too long repressed, she poured out the dark story which had infused its poison into her innocent life…And, ah, what a relief! When at last, the hysteric gasp, the strife between words and sobs, had subsided, what torture had passed away from her soul! It was all gone; her bosom was as pure now as in her childhood. She was a girl again.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

It was business per usual as I was waiting in line for Confession. I wanted to see the priest, receive my penance, and be on my way as soon as possible. I had been a gazillion times before, confessing the same sin over and over like a broken record. This time seemed no different than the others. I hear the recurring voice in my head: “You are a failure.”
As I was waiting in line, I thought, “You know, it’s kind of annoying that some people treat Confession like a therapy session. There’s not much to confessing your sins. Plus other people are waiting in line, and you should be considerate of them!”

Finally, my turn approached, and I promptly confessed my sins to the priest whom I had never met before. After listening very intently, he looked at me with kindness and asked a very significant question:

“Do you have any wounds that keep leading you to this sin?

I was very caught off guard…but yet, relieved. I was being invited into a place of understanding. I no longer felt the need to hang my head. It was what my heart desired so profoundly…to be understood. I had wounds, yes. But finally, I was bringing them to light.
After sharing a little more about myself, the priest explained that out of my wounds came lies. And out of those lies came action, namely sin. We talked about the lies I heard in my head, namely, that I was a failure. We spoke about why those have brought me to the same sin, over and over. It turns out, my sin was traumatizing me in a vicious cycle.
“What Jesus has placed in my heart to tell you,” the priest said, “is that He has always found joy in you.” I knew at that moment, I was encountering Christ. He was merely using the priest as His instrument.

He finds joy in me. That was enough to break down the walls of numbness and self-defeat. At that, I could not hold back the tears. I noticed the priest began shedding tears, too. I could tell others of the all-encompassing love of God, but in my heart, I became convinced that I was the exception to it. I studied theology and read countless texts on God, but these only scratch the surface if they don’t make their way into the heart. Thankfully, when I had forgotten my dignity and worth in God’s eyes, I was able to rediscover it again in a real, tangible way in the Sacrament of Penance. That is what’s so beautiful about the sacraments – they are where Heaven and Earth meet.

"Many of us have that favorite reoccurring sin. Perhaps you, too, have felt like a failure in the confessional."

But know this: Satan will exhaust every means possible to get you to avoid Confession. Why? Because mercy is his greatest torment. He will have you believe that you are a failure. That you’ve confessed that sin too many times. That you are a lost cause. If you give him an inch, he will go a mile.

Confession is always a place of victory, not defeat. It not only forgives sins, but it also heals us. It’s the dignified place where one says, “I will keep trying.” And you know what? That’s what sainthood is. The saints weren’t perfect people. St. Paul hunted down Christians and killed them in his former life. And yet he says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Anyone in Christ is a new creation.” I left the confessional that day a new creation, remade in the image and likeness of God.

Photo/Image courtesy of Laura Mascari.

During the 1930’s, there was a Polish nun who received special revelations from Jesus and Mary inside her convent – her name was Faustina Kowalska. She would later be declared a saint in the Catholic Church for inspiring devotion to Divine Mercy. Throughout her diary, St. Faustina recounts Jesus pleading with her to tell the world of His great mercy, especially for sinners. He is not speaking of sinners as the secondary recipients. No, they have the right before others to His mercy. He instructs her to write:

“The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy.” (no.723)
-Jesus Christ to Sister Faustina

St. Faustina experienced tremendous torments at the thought of her own misery. In fact, many of the nuns in her convent dismissed her visions and assured her that Christ does not commune with souls as miserable as hers. Yet, it was through the abyss of her misery that Jesus wanted the power of His mercy to be shown.

If you feel like you are too far gone, remember that hope is not lost. Jesus Christ is waiting for you. Yes, you. The one that God has knit together in your mother’s womb with His infinite wisdom. He wants to set you free. Will you let Him?

“The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day, all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity.”
–Jesus to Saint Faustina, no. 699

3/22/2020

The Long and Winding Road of Faith...

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Braden Hogue
Son of the living God, SERVANT of Christ, & believer in community.

We create our own demons. Who said that? What does that even mean? It doesn’t matter; I said it because he said it.
- Tony Stark.

This reflection is a representation of my faith life, and that means it’s going to be a reflection of me, so expect it to be more of a non-formal conversation with myself (with little bits of sarcasm added in here and there).

With that being said, three things have built me to the person that I am today: movies, music, and (most importantly) my faith. These three things will be the running themes of my reflection, with a little bit of my charm thrown in. So without further ado, lets jump in.

I’m Braden Hogue, an English education major, who wants to one day become a principal. I have lived in West Terre Haute my whole life, and now I am at ISU. Either I love Terre Haute so much that I decided to stay, or it was the path of least resistance. My parents raised me Catholic, and they tried their hardest to get me to have a stable faith life. Me being me, though, I resisted. I didn’t like that faith was being pushed on me, without any of my thoughts being taken into account. At the age of 16, I “left” the Catholic Church. I separated myself from any form of faith you can imagine. Looking back now, this was a time when I created a demon. Have you ever attempted to go on a diet? You cut out all of a particular type of food because at the time you think it will make you happier being healthy. Then the diet most likely will end, and you can go back to eating normally, that’s what this separation was for me. The difference, though, is that this situation is flipped. My diet was cutting out God and corresponding prayer life. The diet wouldn’t cause me to be healthier; it just made everything worse.

"After my choice to separate from faith, I went down a path of nothing but demons..."

I have always been a confident person. I could get A’s and B’s throughout my education without having to apply myself. I never really cared a lot about what others thought of me, and I typically never let life get me down. I allowed my life experiences, my own decisions, and my personally chosen goals guide me to whatever path I went down. That’s where my noticeable flaw was. This cockiness and self-confidence brought me to a life of momentary happiness. After my choice to separate from faith, I went down a path of nothing but demons. A few of these demons still work against me to this day. My life was like a hallway with no end. The hallway featured small rooms to go into along the way. I would stop and spend some time in each room, and then inevitably leave the room and travel on to the next. Each of the rooms would take something or add more baggage to the person I was, and very rarely would the rooms add goodness, peace, or relief. Drinking, lies, parties, and ultimately depression would be the greatest of these rooms and the hardest for me to step away from. This was my life, and it was really a sad way for someone to spend their time on Earth.

"You see, to really love anything, and for it to be a beneficial, mutual, self-giving love, God MUST be included, and in my scenario, He was not..."

Finally, a door would present itself as an opportunity for Grace. The door of Love. I had thought that it was my escape from the hallway, and it eventually would be but not at the point that it initially presented itself. You see, to really love anything, and for it to be a beneficial, mutual, self-giving love, God MUST be included, and in my scenario, He was not. I walked into a room that I would stay in for about a year, and I did something I had never done before: I loved someone outside of the family. This person meant the world to me, and I loved her with all my heart. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out, and she never loved me. The relationship ended, and I fell back into a hallway of depression, and this hallway was darker than the last one.

This room brought me to depression and anxiety. Anxiety, being the worst of the demons which I encountered. For those of you that have never experienced anxiety-attacks, it feels like darkness and fear engulf your whole body. You cannot breathe, you are scared, and you feel all alone. It’s like the quote above, you become closed off, and you cannot love anything, let alone yourself. One of my favorite films of all time is Iron Man 3. In this movie, the overconfident Tony Stark suffers from anxiety attacks from past events, and demons from his past haunt him. You may have noticed that this reflection began with a quote from Tony Stark. He suffered from the same demons that I did. He was the most confident person I could think of, and then all of a sudden, he realized that he had to battle himself. Tony was my idle growing up, and when I first watched this movie I thought it ruined the character for me, but in reality, it set him up to be one of the biggest inspirations for where I’m at now in my faith. My primary take away from the film was always to remember to love yourself. Tony found faith in a different form than God, but ultimately his faith was in humanity through Love and service, and I like to think that in this fictional world of superheroes that God guided him to that conclusion. The only way you can love yourself is through God in order to become an instrument of God’s Grace. If we do not love ourselves, as God made us, how can we be of any use to him?

I found the path to loving myself, was only achievable by cooperating with God and by loving God. I went to church again and was heavily inspired by those around me. The dark hallway did end, and at the end of the hall was a door. I went through the door, and I found a community of people that would embrace me with arms wide open. I started by going to St. Joseph University Parish and began attending their outreach called Maximize Your Faith. This ministry to university students has helped me to find God in many different ways. These college students helped me to become a person who loves not only himself but who lives for others, and this was only possible with God as the center of my life. I found friendship, inspiration, and real happiness, just by going through the door and embracing God. These people who helped build my foundation are easily the most inspirational, and I am eternally grateful for each of them. It was a small step for me to agree to go to Maximize, but it brought so many new opportunities to grow my relationship with Christ.

These people would encourage me to go on retreats, spending time with Christ in Eucharistic Adoration, embrace an active prayer life, volunteer to service others while they retreat, go to a weekly bible breakfast, and further involvement in my parish community. All of these opportunities for Grace would bring me to occasions to increase my Love for God, my parish community, and myself. Without these encounters, I wouldn’t be writing this reflection or know half of the people that have brought me closer to the source of all happiness, Christ Jesus.

In closing, I would like to thank the community that helped bring me to this point in my faith journey:

First, Saint Joseph University Parish: thank you all so much for helping me to love myself and helping me through the rough times. The University Ministry has always been there for me, and I appreciate each of the members and each parishioner who supports this ministry.

Next, Franciscan Young Adult Ministry (FRAYAM): thank you for this opportunity to reflect and write about my faith journey in hopes that it will help others on their way. College does not last forever, and I look forward to transitioning into this Young Adult Ministry.

I have grown so close to this parish community, and it will always have a special place in my heart; My Love for you continues to grow.

To the people I met on the University Ministry, Awakening retreats: You guys helped me to understand more fully my demons and how as a community, we can help each other. None of us knew each other before the retreat, and after joining this community of believers, I know I can go to any one of you if I require help fighting off my demons. If any member of this parish community needs anything in the future, I’m here to serve. To all of my mentors: you have all been the best guides for me to help try to figure out where I am going with my life and ways to embrace prayer. I hope to be just as inspirational to younger people as you have been to me. Finally, to God: thank you for guiding me down this path and leading me to all of these people, this parish community, and this faith, that I can now say, I love.

Love you all 3000,

Braden Hogue

3/15/2020

His radiance is like the sunrise...

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John McGlone
Seeker of Wisdom, servant of the most high, student

Throughout my life, I have had three consistent loves: God, my family, and nature. Although these 3 things have consistently stayed most vital to me, my relationships with each of them have changed over time. My three loves are also very interrelated. From a young age, my family promoted and instilled a love for God and nature. We bonded over these two things. For much of my life, these two loves, God and nature, went hand in hand. I have always looked at nature as one of God’s greatest gifts to us. Throughout my life, I have always felt closest to God when I am surrounded by his natural beauty. I had always found it most comfortable to pray and talk with God when I was outdoors.

I have been fortunate enough to have lots of beautiful experiences in nature. I treasure every one of them, whether it be the big things like being surrounded by thousands of geese while duck hunting or climbing to the top of Mount Elbert. I also value the smaller things, such as a good fishing trip or walking through the woods on a chilly spring day to admire the wildflowers. When I am out in nature, prayer seems almost involuntary to thank God for all the beauty around me. My favorite element, out of all of God’s creation, is the sunrise. No two are ever the same. Each sunrise is one of God’s masterpiece paintings.

"His radiance is like the sunrise; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power."

- Habakkuk 3:4

These nature scenes become spiritual experiences, and I have always had the desire to share them with everyone around me. When you really love something, you don’t keep it to yourself. You share it with those around you, especially those that you care about. Most of my experiences in nature have been shared with my family and a few close friends. I took up photography so that I could share the beauty of and my love for all the aspects of nature like sunrises with everyone that I cared about.

When I was about 17, nature was my primary connection with God, and I enjoyed sharing my love for nature with others. The problem was that even though I loved God, I wasn’t actively sharing Him with others. I was very private with my religion and I didn’t recognize this as a problem. I was content. I prayed every day. I loved going to mass. I had a great group of friends who weren’t Catholic but were Christian. They are still some of my best friends. I loved growing in my Catholic faith with my family.

I thought, “I’ve got my relationship with God, and there’s nothing more that I need”.

There was so much missing in my life and I didn’t even realize it or I didn't want to face that reality.

When I got into college, I decided to go to a weekly spiritual event at the Saint Joseph’s University Ministry to see what it was all about. This was hands down one of the best decisions that I have made. I was prompted by the spirit to attend, and God used my “yes” to provide “glorious riches in Christ” (Phillippians, 4:19). I met a group of amazing young people who are passionate about their faith and really searching for something more out of life. This was a first. I was surrounded by a group of Catholics that were my age, who were open about their faith journey, their relationship with Christ Jesus, and who desired growing together in holiness. They welcomed me into their community, and as I got more involved, I realized how confused I had been. I realized that you don’t just have a relationship with God, and that’s it. There’s no limit to how deep your relationship with God can be. However, I mistakenly thought my faith had peaked. In reality, I had plateaued. I needed to be striving for holiness in the community of believers.

"We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly (local community of believers), as is the custom of some, but encourage one another...all the more".

- Hebrews 1-:24-25

I am continually motivated within the Saint Joseph Catholic Community to strive for a deeper relationship with God. I put more into prayer and every aspect of my relationship with Christ. As my love for God grew, God became the sunrise that I wanted to share with everyone around me. My love for God was now like my love for nature. I no longer wanted to keep it to myself. I wanted to share this relationship that I loved so much with others. I have learned a lot from my new community, and I am very thankful to have them as my friends.

Because of the Inspiration that I received from the parish community, I decided to share my love for God with family members and friends. I have seen God bring more good out of this than I could have ever imagined. I never thought that I could inspire anyone to grow closer to God in the way that others have inspired me.

"However, by asking God to use me to do HIS will and bring others closer to him, beautiful things have happened..."

As I said at the beginning of this reflection, my three loves have remained consistent. I love the Lord. My family is crucial. I still love nature and enjoy sharing the beauty of nature with others. I always feel very close to God while I am out in nature, but now I found another way to be close to Him, by living, breathing, and participating in a local Christian community. I feel most connected with God when I am trying my best to share His love and bring others closer to Him. This is no easy task, and I have much to learn. However, striving to put God at the center of my life and asking to be used by Him to reach others is the most fulfilling purpose that I can imagine.

3/7/2020

The one thing that really only matters.

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Michael Kuznicki
Child of God, Engineer, and ETERNALLY Christocentric.

We are all searching for love.

We all have this desire to love and to be loved and not just a surface-level kind of love. We desire to be completely loved. We wish to be loved unconditionally and without boundaries. This desire is a part of our human nature, and we long to experience this unending, limitless love. Because of this inclination, we seek this kind of love in a lot of areas of our life. Many search for it in other people while some substitute it for material things.

Some of us attempt to give this kind of love to the people we care about the most, and sometimes this love is fully reciprocated, and sometimes it’s not.

A little over a year ago, I had the privilege of beginning a relationship with my best friend in the entire world. She was THE person I would go to talk to and had become the one person that I could trust with anything, no matter what it was. Whenever I was happy, sad, excited, worried, or distraught, she was there with me, and nothing could ever change that. Eventually, all the time we had spent together turned into something much more than the fantastic friendship that we had developed over the years.

We began dating, and our relationship was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The love that I had for her was something that I didn’t even know was possible before I began my relationship with her. We couldn’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together, and we dreamed of the day that we could call each other husband and wife.

Unfortunately, we did not spend the rest of our lives together. We didn’t get married, and our relationship didn’t last. For many reasons, our relationship wasn’t perfect. While we agreed on almost everything, the one thing that we knew we didn’t agree on was our faith. I held out hope that we would figure out a way to make this work.

However, the most central part of my life was not something I shared with the one person that I cared about most.

During our relationship, I certainly had my own issues, as did she, and eventually, they caught up to us. When we began a period of turmoil, she didn’t have the foundation of faith to fall back on. We didn’t have a way to recover from the wounds that we were experiencing, and it meant the end of our relationship. This left me so lost. I found myself in the worst mental state that I had ever been in. I had no motivation for the things I was doing, and I found it very difficult to move past this relationship. I had lost the most important person to me, and I blamed myself for all of it.

A couple months after our breakup, I began to fully realize the impact that it was having on me. I realized that I needed to do something about it. I had become so desperate that I would have tried anything to find the love that I had once had. I needed help. Through countless hours of reflecting on my relationship with my best friend, I began to see some of the faults that had manifested over time and they all had one thing in common. Our faith foundation was weak. We did not put God first in our relationship. I realized that I never want to do that again. So, naturally, I needed to do something about this.

I needed to shift my focus back to God in every aspect of my life, including my relationships with other people.

To help shift this focus, I began a fast from dating. I specified an amount of time where I would not only not enter into a romantic relationship with anyone, but not pursue the possibility either. The dating fast allowed me the freedom to focus on putting God at the center of my life instead of searching for love in another person. I was able to learn to find fulfillment in God’s love, instead of only finding that in the love of another. This fast allowed for a ton of spiritual growth in countless ways, but the predominant area of growth was in my understanding of romantic relationships. Without the distraction of trying to develop a relationship with a specific person, I was able to discover the kind of relationship that God has called me to be a part of. I recognize that I do not know precisely where God is calling me.

If I am called to the married life, I know the kind of marriage that is best for my faith-life.

I had tried to put my best friend first in our relationship. She was everything to me, and I found myself sacrificing many aspects of my life that I hold very dear to myself, including my faith. In the kind of relationship that I am called to, my future wife and I will share the same unwavering, limitless, and almost reckless love for Christ that I am striving to achieve.

She will understand why participating in the Mass brings me to tears over and over again.

She’ll know why I spend so much time in adoration with our Lord and that He is truly present here on Earth.
She will know the redeeming power of Reconciliation and how God’s forgiveness is limitless.
She will understand why I have entirely given over my life to Christ and His Holy Mother.
She will appreciate my willingness to suffer and die for the sake of Love-itself, in the very same way that Love died for us all almost two thousand years ago.
She will desire for our children to seek this relationship with Christ too.
She will understand that I am far from perfect, but know that I am striving to become the saint that God each of us to become.
She will strive for sainthood as well, and bringing each other to heaven will be our primary goal.

As I said before, I do not know for sure that God is calling me to marriage, but I do know that the desire for this kind of relationship is in my heart. I also know that this experience has led me so much closer to my heavenly Father.

Lastly, I have come to understand that we must occasionally experience the loss of everything in order to fully understand what it means to gain the one thing that really only matters: Him.

3/1/2020

Lessons from Retreat...

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Jared Wuerzburger
COORDINATOR of Young Adult Ministry

Peace be with you.

As I write this, the Franciscan Young Adult Ministry is on retreat. FRAYAM has the luxury of supportive fathers in Christ, our Pastors, who reserve funds in their budgets to allow the spiritual development and renewal of the next generation of the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church.

This spring, we spiritually voyaged to Our Lady of the Redeemer Farm in Bloomington, IN, over the February 28, 29th, and March 1st weekend.

This young adult community has spent the entirety of this weekend dwelling on the most critical questions: “Who am I?” and “What does God want of me?” Saint Paul, while reflecting on who we are and the nature between ourselves and our creator, spoke the following:

If “we are not our own”, then to whom do we belong?

We belong to our Triune God. Just as we are obligated to treat our biological parents with love and respect, how much more must we obey the will of our eternal father and creator?

This question must come from yet another crucial question: “How can I live where God desires, how God desires, and while serving who God desires?”

In short, how can we discern the will of our God and live in accordance with his divine plan?

We must allow God to overwhelm us. The only path forward is realizing and living the realization that our lives are not about us.

Do I allow God to move me where he desires? Do I allow God to “overwhelm” me spiritually, by adopting his way of being; his moral code? Do I allow myself to be intellectually changed by Christ, his teachings, sacred scripture, and all other mediums known to produce cognitive growth in our Faith? Lastly, am I being spiritually molded through prayer and active elements of life in this Holy Church?

In light of the above, Romans 14: 7-8, God himself desires MORE Theo-Drama and less EGO-Drama.

In the Ego-drama, my life is all about me. I am the author of the screenplay. I have the lead role; I also produce and direct the show. When the storms of life blow up, I am sometimes surprised that they don’t exactly fit with the script I’ve imagined.
When framed as an Ego-drama, my life becomes a matter of making “gifts” to appease my never quite satisfied self. I wear myself out seeking to fill myself up. I have to have all the answers. Such Narcissism demands ourselves to expand at the expense of others; it is a “zero-sum” game bent on annihilation.

In the Theo-drama, on the contrary, others take center stage. Rather than succumbing to illusions of total control, I navigate my way into the Theo-drama by humbly saying “Yes” to the role for which I was quite literally born.

It is crucial that when framed in terms of the Theo-drama, my life becomes a matter of making a gift of myself to others. I’m open to mystery, to wonder, and to awe. I find myself fulfilled by pouring myself into the role which the divine Director asks of me each day. We live God’ s-Drama when we draw our energies from something beyond ourselves, from God.

The obvious question from retreatants becomes: How do we live the Theo-Drama? How do we give ourselves as gifts, daily even, to others? What practices can I employ to draw our energies from something beyond ourselves?

The process employs Discernment, works of mercy, and through our liturgy.

Firstly, living this Theo-drama must happen in Discernment. God is ahead of us, alluring us to move forward toward him. If God is luring us, we must hunt for signs. This HUNT is called Discernment. Having taken in the world around them, confident that God is present in all things, intelligent Christians now seek to discern the patterns, to know precisely what God is up to.

Father Bernard Lonergan’s method of Discernment, primarily based on the Ignatian Discernment of spirits, requires one to follow the next process. One must be attentive to the presence of God everywhere and in everything. God will speak to us via person, place, thing, or circumstance. We must also be intelligent. Please do not take this for an insult. God would not require you to have a level of intelligence that is not innate within you. God does not set us up for failure in our spiritual lives. But, instead, we are to use our “know how” to find connections between events, feelings, emotional responses, and experiences. We must also be reasonable. We must be able to use what we already know of God to determine the message that God is attempting to convey. This is a very prayerful process. Unfortunately, no rule of thumb can be stated in terms of the timeline. You are on God’s time. He will decide... while with you in prayer... the exact moment that he desires you to understand his “message”. Lastly, we must be responsible. We speak here of the responsibility to act. One becomes responsible for using the knowledge they have to act in accordance with the intent of our God’s “message” to us. Thus, if we fail to act on God’s “message” after having correctly discerned the course of action he desires us to take, then we are not, in a word, being responsible.

Father Bernard Lonergan method of Discernment:

Be attentive
1. Everywhere and in Everything
Be Intelligent
1. Finding Patterns of Meaning
Be reasonable
1. Deciding what God is saying
Be responsible
1. accept the full implications of the true judgement we discerned.

Secondly, we achieve more clarity by continuing the ministry of Christ Jesus through love. This is accomplished by enacting the Corporeal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, which are featured in the below infographic.

The last required element that enables us to live the Theo-Drama, or to put God’s plan for us at the forefront of our lives is to engage in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or our liturgy. Bishop Barron wrote Thomas Merton, celebrating his first mass, asked many non-catholic friends to attend. One of them, a Jew, asked: “What exactly is the Mass?” Expecting a theological response, the man was surprised when Merton responded: “The Mass is a kind of ballet, with similar prescribed movements and gestures”.

The Mass is a representation of things that cannot be adequately expressed in words or human emotions. Merton’s answer sums up the gathering, singing, signing, reading, listening, praying, offering, processing, communicating, sending, and being sent that occurs when we gather on the sabbath.. The body of Christ, the Catholic Church, iconically acts out who it is...To the Glory of God and for the transformation of the world.

I beg of you to consider today if you are living the Theo-drama, not the Ego-Drama. We can live in God and he in us by constant discernment, acts of mercy and charity, and by the reception of the Eucharist during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We must give ourselves to God fully all the good, the bad, and the parts of us still broken. He wants it all. He wants to transform it all.

If you live the Theo-drama, you won’t be bored. You will explore the story that God has waiting for you. Christ has outstretched his hand. I ask you to take it.

One final request:

Pray that those who have experienced this retreat will continue the tasks of discernment, works of charity, and share in the eternal and everlasting feast, the Mass.

In the shadow of His mercy...

Laura Mascari
Teacher of Children and eternal Student of Christ

The Long and Winding Road of Faith...

Braden Hogue
Son of the living God, SERVANT of Christ, & believer in community.

His radiance is like the sunrise...

John McGlone
Seeker of Wisdom, servant of the most high, student

The one thing that really only matters.

Michael Kuznicki
Child of God, Engineer, and ETERNALLY Christocentric.

Lessons from Retreat...

Jared Wuerzburger
COORDINATOR of Young Adult Ministry

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In the shadow of His mercy...

Laura MascariTeacher of Children and eternal Student of Christ

The Long and Winding Road of Faith...

Braden HogueSon of the living God, SERVANT of Christ, & believer in community.

His radiance is like the sunrise...

John McGlone​Seeker of Wisdom, servant of the most high, student

The one thing that really only matters.

Michael KuznickiChild of God, Engineer, and ETERNALLY Christocentric.

Lessons from Retreat...

Jared WuerzburgerCOORDINATOR of Young Adult Ministry

Archives

Categories

Get Involved

Resources

About

Laura Mascari
Teacher of Children and eternal Student of Christ

Braden Hogue
Son of the living God, SERVANT of Christ, & believer in community.

John McGlone
Seeker of Wisdom, servant of the most high, student

Michael Kuznicki
Child of God, Engineer, and ETERNALLY Christocentric.

Jared Wuerzburger
COORDINATOR of Young Adult Ministry