Sunday, November 1, 2015

All Saints All Souls Retreat

First thing first: I am able to work in the Boys and Girls Club now and I was in there last week.
(large virtual applause)
It's been a long wait to finally get in there but I'm convinced Our Lord has his reasons for the long delay. If only I knew those reasons...

Anyway,

I'd like to inform you that I helped to plan, set up and co-lead my first retreat. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those I know who have planned, set up and lead retreats (you know who you are) because man! There are a lot of things and a lot of work that goes into hosting one of those! It just ended today and I'm exhausted! Thank you retreat leaders for all the hard work you put into planning one of those.

After all that work I can confidently say that it was worth every minute of it! I think the kids had a great time and really drew closer to Christ this past weekend.

The kids are from Mary Help's youth group. There were ten of them and were within the 12-16 age range. I knew all of them prior to the retreat because of the youth group but through the Salesian spirit of accompaniment, got to know them more. What a great group of kids; very diverse group of personalities; zealous; energetic and had me and each other roaring with laughter all weekend long!

As I commented in a previous post, this retreat was structured in a format that combines both faith and fun. Because, despite what your friends might say, faith and fun can actually go together. I really like this model because often times retreats and youth groups plan events that are strictly all faith related or strictly all fun. And there is nothing wrong with having it those ways; but its pretty cool to see them both meshed together in this way so that the youth get the best of both worlds.

Let me give you an idea of what I mean based on what our schedule looked like. Friday evening the youth arrived here at Mary Help and we drove almost two hours into Orlando to go to the Mass where the relics of Maria Goretti were being venerated. (More on this event in another post). The Mass and veneration was faith and formation related but the car ride over was fun and so was getting pizza after. We get back to Mary Help late at night and the youth spend the night in the rooms we have set up for them.
The next day we start with skits. The skits are based off of Jason Bach Cartoons (like it on facebook; his saint comics are hilarious). These skits taught them about a few different Catholic Saints that they may not have known about but in a humorous way that had us roaring with laughter during every single practice session. For example, my small group performed the "Assumptions of Mary" and the youth came up with the idea that someone should play a fat lady and Mary should come over to her and "assume" this lady was pregnant. It was a riot! We also played a scavenger hunt that involved running across the property several times to find short Saint biographies and prayer cards that we had to read and collect followed by a family feud game based on the saint bios. We were running around and laughing the entire time! We also had an All Soul's Mass inside the small cemetery here on the property.  We played a Saint themed dodge ball game. The youth minister who ran most of the retreat gave a talk on becoming a Saint and we got into small groups to process the talk. We practiced the skit a few times throughout the day and then after our BBQ with the Salesian brothers and priests we performed the skits for them. They got a kick out of it! We had a candle lit prayer service by the cemetery, adoration and a bonfire to end the night! The next day (today) we played a few more fun games and had more group processing before the Sunday Mass where it all ended.

Maybe this is just the Earl Childhood teacher in me talking but what I found cool is that they were learning about the faith without even realizing it sometimes such as through the skits or scavenger hunt. And the day was also littered with a healthy mix of faith or fun so that they could get the best of both worlds.

It was nice to break the regular routine that I have been following to give all my strength, energy and time to serving God by serving these wonder young people. Gosh! It was a weekend to remember and I'm glad I did it!

Happy All Saints and All Souls Day!

1 comment:

  1. Glad to hear you're enjoying your time there. You're doing great work, God bless!

    ReplyDelete

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