Real Life Disciples: A powerful summer, signs of hope

I had a seat high up in the arena, which gave me a unique vantage point. I could see the crowd of nearly 5,000 young people in its entirety from where I sat. We had just celebrated the closing mass at the Steubenville Mid-America Youth Conference.
 
It had been an amazing weekend, with more inspirational moments than I could mention. But, it wasn’t over. After the closing blessing, the archbishop asked us all to sit. A priest came forward and started talking about his vocation to the priesthood. He went on to invite young men and women who felt they may have a call to the priesthood or religious life to come forward to the stage. It was a “vocations altar call.”
 
I sat there somewhat mesmerized as hundreds of young people went forward. The priest looked out at all of us exclaiming, “Who says there’s a vocations crisis?!” followed by wild cheering from the crowd. It was an incredibly moving moment.
 
Ironically, that wasn’t the only experience like that for me this summer. Over the past couple months, I’ve been blessed to attend a number of camps, conferences, trips, etc. The summer has been filled with many similar moments, all of them deeply moving as I witnessed young people encounter God in very rich and personal ways.
 
Hundreds of our teens from all over the archdiocese have been a part of these kinds of experiences. More than 800 teens attended Steubenville youth conferences (from 26 different parishes!), and dozens of others attended discipleship camps, mission trips, leadership camps and Totus Tuus programs.
 
“Steubenville this year was an amazing experience! It’s an incredibly moving experience to be in a room with almost 5,000 Catholic teens like me who all are there to worship the Lord and grow in their faith. My relationship with God grew immensely this weekend as did my relationship with everyone from my church who went!” one teen said.
 
“I have been very fortunate to attend several summer faith events the past couple years – Catholic Heart Work Camp, Steubenville conferences, Casting Nets camp. These trips have had a profound impact on my faith life and are a big reason why I have the love for the Catholic faith that I do today!” another said.
 
And another, “Steubenville was a powerful weekend that made me proud to be a part of my youth group and even prouder to call myself Catholic! The conference left me with a yearning to do more than just go to Mass every Sunday. It called me to be a true disciple and spread God’s word.”
 
You can tell these teens have been impacted deeply. Only time will tell if the experience will lead to lasting change. If recent studies are accurate, though, they will. Christian Smith, a highly recognized sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, has numerous longitudinal studies that have tracked faith practice of young people into their adult years. In one of his most recent books, “Young Catholic America,” he speaks of “seven pathways” to adult practice of the faith that they have identified from their many studies of thousands of young people over the past couple decades. One particularly interesting finding – spiritual experiences like these are a part of four of the seven pathways.
 
Events like this aren’t the only tool in the toolbox, and they’re not a silver bullet to keep every young person Catholic, but I do believe that these kind of spiritual experiences can be important sources for conversion and for sparking faith in the hearts of young people. I see these kinds of events as rain on the hard soil of some teens’ hearts (Mt. 4:4;19), supernatural ploughing and cultivation removing the rocks (Mt. 4:5-6;20-21) from the hard soil of others, and divine herbicide dealing with the overgrown weeds and thorns (Mt. 4:7;22) in the soil of others.
 
Archbishop Coakley said in his pastoral letter, “These varied soils are present in the hearts of each one of us. … But, we all have good soil as well, and we are invited to constantly cooperate with grace to expand our receptivity to God’s word in our hearts. Indeed, the primary work of a spiritual life is to cooperate with God’s grace and cultivate the good soil in our hearts to rid ourselves of those things that compete, distract and hinder our receptivity to God’s life-giving word. The more good soil in our hearts, the greater our capacity to bear fruit for the kingdom. Bearing fruit is the evidence of authentic discipleship” (Go Make Disciples 2019, pg. 11).
 
That’s exactly what’s happening with young people at these types of events – their hearts are opening up to God’s word, and that word is changing them!
 
What’s supremely important now is the follow through. Experiences like this are just the planting of the seed. That seed of faith needs a lot of nourishment and watering, and the soil of the heart needs continuous tilling and cultivation. Here are some practical things adults can do to support them:
 

• Pray for the young people in our archdiocese – for the grace of growth and perseverance;
•  If you have teenagers yourself and they have not experienced an event like this, consider sending them next summer; 
• Ask if your parish sent a group of teens to conferences or programs this summer. If your parish did, consider getting involved. These young people need adult mentors, and every youth minister is always looking for more adults to support the ministry efforts.
•  If your parish didn’t, consider offering to help organize a group for next summer. Contact the archdiocesan Youth Ministry Office at [email protected] and we’ll help you!