April 8, 2011
Source and Summit youth retreat: ‘They fall in love with Jesus’
Alyssa Singer, a parishioner at Corpus Christi Church in Evansville, prays the Chaplet of Divine Mercy during the 2011 Source and Summit youth retreat in Evansville. (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Lisa Rauscher has three children, ages 8, 6 and 10 months, so no one’s ready to attend the Source and Summit youth retreat yet, but their ages didn’t deter Lisa from sitting in on the retreat for parents which was held last Saturday at the Little Sisters of the Poor auditorium in Evansville.
Speakers included Deacon Vince Bernardin from Christ the King Church in Evansville and Father Tony Ernst, pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Haubstadt, Holy Cross Church, Fort Branch, and St. Bernard Church in Snake Run.
Their talks paralleled the talks for the youth a few blocks away at Reitz Memorial High School, and the day included Eucharistic adoration and time for private confessions.
Lisa said the topics “apply to parents with children of all ages,” adding, “It’s very important for parents to seek spiritual growth themselves and renewal because that will spill over into the faith life of the family.” About 55 parents attended the retreat.
Over 550 youth and chaperones were at the 2011 Source and Summit retreat which focused on “The Fruit of the Holy Spirit — Seeing and serving Christ in the poor — and the Capital Sins.”
Patty Schneier was a featured speaker at both the youth retreat and at the parent retreat. She’s a life-long Catholic and mother of three from the Archdiocese of St. Louis. In her speeches, she often talks about discovering Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body,” which marked the beginning of her speaking ministry.
On Saturday, she spoke both with the male and female participants at the high school. As she talked with the young women, she reminded them of Jesus’ words, “This is my body, given for you. Take it.”
She encouraged them to follow Jesus as they prepare for marriage, which will become a time when they can echo those words to their spouses.
She noted that for generations and generations, children had been considered a “blessing.” Now, because of legalized abortion, she believes “children are considered mistakes.”
That, she noted, is the opposite of Jesus’ words, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”
“God’s love,” she said, “is always fruitful,” she said, adding, “If you never heard this before — you are the fruit of love — that’s what new life is.”
And the culture that we live in, she said, “does not understand this gift from God.”
She encouraged the young women to be careful about their environment — that they not put themselves in places where they will “give up their purity,” places such as the back seat of a car or a home with the parents absent.
She also warned them not to drink alcohol, “because it’s a threat to your purity,” and she encouraged them to have modesty in what they wear.
Remember, she said, “Your body is created in the image of God.”
She told them about a Valentine’s Day years ago when she was 19, and didn’t have a boyfriend. A girlfriend sent her a card with these words: You have so many gifts. Someday your prince will come, and it will be worth the wait.”
She encouraged the audience to “know the dignity of your body which is created in the image and likeness of God.”
Dennis Dooley is a parishioner at St. Benedict Cathedral in Evansville, and a volunteer at the youth retreat. He believes it’s important for the youth to hear the messages at the retreat “because we want them to carry on the faith for their families. It’s a must, especially if we want vocations —which of course we do.”
He believes that at the Source and Summit weekend the young adults “fall in love with Jesus, and then they find out what God is calling them to do.”