My Way Sunday
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forty winks does not a night make
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Forty-four 16 & 17 year olds - male and female - all gathered together, from 7 of the 8 different high schools in the county and representing 2 of the 3 parishes. It was only 7:45am, and many of them had been up much of the night, I suspect. From the groggy eyes and the yawns and the 'blankies' and even a few pillows, I was judging it was going to be a little harder than normal to get and keep their attention. They were, after all, on Confirmation Retreat - many, if not most, there by parental edict.

It was time for breakfast - 30 minutes to eat donuts or fruit and drink fruit juice or milk. Maybe that would be enough time to wake-up. After breakfast was morning prayer, Liturgy of the Hours - a brief 15 minutes to recollect one's self and try to bring some sense of spirituality into the awakening herd [it seemed like a herd - they moved about in groups seemingly without direction, just kind of foraging].

They gathered for the opening talk of the day. The speaker was me. I had them get up on their feet and I played cheerleader. We shouted some cheers and stomped our feet and tried to get our blood flowing and eyes and ears opened. Seemed to work - at least good enough to start.

I used questions to them as a group to draw out some helpful definitions for the scripture verses I would use. Words like deception, and mockery, and reaping, and sowing, and others were defined. During the presentation I would send them off to small groups for discussion [5 minutes] of something I assigned. Each of the 6 groups would then report back to all their response or the understanding gained in the small group. We did this twice

First part was about not getting deceived by the world around us - Galatians 6:7 was scripture I used along with examples of such deception.

Part two was based on Galatians 6:8 - what goes around comes around ... we reap what we sow.

The third part was meant to illuminate the behavior we exhibit when sowing to feed our sinful nature - Galatians 5:19-21 provided the basis for that.

Fourthly, we talked a bit about the story of the blind-man in John's gospel, chapter nine. Our spiritual blindness was the point addressed here.

Key to all of this, point #5, was the realization that they were being assigned to be defenders of the Catholic faith - they are part of the 'church militant'. We talked about how to share their faith in school and other environments, and how to diffuse emotional confrontations. We talked about our need for mutual support in these efforts.

And I tried to affirm them as worthwhile and important members of the Body of Christ. Their 'mantra' was to be, "I AM THE BEST ! I reap my best because I sow my best - even when it is hard."

They stayed awake - they participated - they didn't stone me. I think they will remember some of it.
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