 |
Saturday - 05/25/2013
|
|
St. Paul Jubilee 2008-2009 |
|
Exploring the Catholic Catechism |
|
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church |
Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010
Week of March 10, 2003
Teens play, pray, praise their faith
By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Spruce Grove
They learned about God, they sang, they prayed, they played games, they danced, and, most importantly, they had fun.
Close to 100 noisy teenagers from parishes in Edmonton, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and St. Albert took part in the first Heart of Stone & Flesh Rally 2003 at Holy Trinity Church March 1.
One of the ideas behind the rally was to encourage youth to rid themselves of stone hearts and become more Christ-like. Accordingly, they all wore grey T-shirts with the inscription "Are You Stone?" in the front and a biblical passage (2 Corinthians 3:2-3) on the back.
"This weekend is all about leaving behind our hearts of stone and getting hearts like Jesus," speaker John Connelly of Radway's John Paul II Bible School told his audience. He spent close to an hour speaking to the teenagers about Jesus and the importance of cultivating a relationship with him.
"I learned Jesus loves us, even when we make mistakes."- Jessie Miller |
Other speakers at the rally included University of Alberta student Sarah Frey and Father Michael Mireau of St. Theresa Parish.
Rally participants were mostly Grade 7 to 12 students from the parishes of Holy Trinity in Spruce Grove-Stony Plain, Good Shepherd in Edmonton and Holy Family in St. Albert.
Youth ministers from the three parishes organized the rally to help young people get closer to God, noted Mike Landry, youth minister at Holy Family. They developed the event around Sunday's second reading,
2 Corinthians 3:3, which talks about how the word of God is written not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. "As Christians and as Catholics, we are called to be living witnesses of God and God's love and we wanted to get the teens excited about that."
The teens were clearly enthusiastic all thorough the rally. In between lectures, they played games, screamed, ran, sang along and danced to the music of the Holy Family Parish's youth band.
Spruce Grove's Jessie Miller, 12, attended the rally to make up for his poor church attendance. It paid off. He made new friends and learned a few things. "I learned a lot about God and about Jesus," he said shyly. "I learned Jesus loves us, even when we make mistakes."
Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter
Our mission: To serve our readers by bringing the Gospel to bear on current issues in the Church and in secular culture through accurate news coverage and reflective commentary.