Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Seekers

This weekend we had 23 teens from St. Francis of Assisi for a confirmation retreat. We have given a few confirmation retreats since I've been here, but never an overnight. I spent most of the week inventing a retreat. I did some cut-and-paste from other retreats we've done here, but large sections of it were new. I based it on the RCIA process.

Wow, I learned a lot from the experience. Some parts of the program went well, and some just seemed to fall flat. My number one problem is that I failed to include much time for them to process the experience with each other. They won't talk much when we're all together, but they will talk to each other quite a bit otherwise, and I should have capitalized on that by giving them small group activities. Oh well.

But one experience I hope stays with them is one I had many years ago, when I was still a recent convert to Catholicism. I was on a young adult retreat with the same concept: recreate RCIA. The first night, with very little preparation, they took half of us out into a pasture and left us there, alone in the dark. We were supposed to just wait, not talk or do anything. Time passed. We looked at the stars, we enjoyed the night breezes, we waited.

Then, we started to hear singing in the distance. It grew louder, and we saw a procession of candles approaching. Soon, we could make out our friends coming to get us. Each of them took one of us and guided us back to the church. But before we could enter, the priest stood at the door. Before we could come in, each of us had to come up with some reason why we wanted to join the church.

So, this Friday, I stood among this group of teens outside our Lodge door. Sr. Siena stood at the door, looking quite impressive in her white alb. We clutched our candles and shivered in the frigid breeze while she asked, "What do you seek?"

"Faith!" We had coached them in the proper response as we walked to the Lodge. Faith! We seek faith! That's all. That's what all this is about. Not even understanding or wisdom or strength---just faith. If we get nothing else, faith will still get us through.

1 comment:

Blanej00 said...

I've enjoyed visiting your blog and learning more about Trinita.

I particularly enjoyed the exercise in the field and can imagine the impact that it would have on, not only young people, but anyone involved in the experience!