This was originally prepared as a reflection for a youth ministry session at St. Anthony of Padua parish. “Hope” is a word we use a lot on a daily basis. We say things like, “I hope you are doing well,” “I hope I get this job”, “I hope the restaurant has gluten-free food,” “I hope the pandemic will end soon.” We hope for something which is difficult to attain ourselves. We don’t say “I hope there will be air to breathe tomorrow,” because we expect there to be air. But what does “hope” mean in the Christian sense? What is Continue Reading
youth ministry
The virtue of charity or love
This was originally prepared as a reflection for a youth ministry session at St. Anthony of Padua parish. The word “love” in English is used to mean so many different things these days. For example, when I say “I love pizza”, does the “love” in that statement equate to a husband saying “I love you” to his wife? In other languages we find different “types” of love have different words. For example, in Greek, four main types of love are: storge – familial love, love between parent and child philia – friendship or bonds between people with common values or Continue Reading
Charisms: Gifts from the Holy Spirit
We each have our own individual strengths and limitations. It’s sometimes easy for one person to accomplish a certain task than another. For one person, mathematics might come easily and naturally, whereas for another person it may be difficult and frustrating to apply, although not impossible. In the mission of the church, God has equipped each of us with unique gifts to carry out specific tasks within the mission. It isn’t impossible for us to do other tasks, but it won’t be as easy as others that are aided by the charisms with which we have been gifted. Last Saturday Continue Reading
The 4 Liters Water Challenge
At one of our recent EDGE youth ministry sessions talking about the Corporal Work of Mercy “giving drink to the thirsty”, we challenged our youth and ourselves as leaders to complete the 4 Liters challenge. On a normal day most of us use over 350 liters of water, however, for many other people around the world, water is not as abundant and people may be lucky to get four liters of water each day. So the challenge is to live in “water poverty” for one day, using only four liters of water over a 24-hour period. I ended up picking last Thursday to Continue Reading