CHRISTpower Manifesto

This summer I went on my third CHRISTpower retreat, a week-long service retreat for high school students in our diocese. We stay at the local high school and each day we attend a different service site, reflect on a different theme, and look for Christ in sometimes unexpected places. This year’s overall theme was Mercy in Action, in conjunction with the Year of Mercy. Each day at Mass while on the retreat one member from each group would describe where they saw Christ that day. As a tribute to everyone I have met through this amazing experience these past few years, especially those I met this year, I have written a manifesto of sorts:

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Catholic Education Appreciation Post!

What a wonderful liberty it is to be able to write such a title! In a world that still struggles so greatly with religious persecution, I feel so blessed to have not only grown up within a huge community of faithful, but to have received a formal education within that community as well. 

The Cotton Ball of Sin

If you’re looking for a sign, this is it. Growing up at a Catholic grade school and then attending a Catholic high school, I have seen many, many signs for vocations awareness. I have heard talks from priests and religious sisters alike, and have been encouraged by many to pursue a future in vocations. What was never really explained to me, or any of us really, was that matrimony is a holy vocation as well. We heard a couple of talks later on in our education from beautiful people who were following the vocation to marriage, but is always seemed emphasized that to live a truly holy life, you must give everything to God, and that didn’t seem to be possible in marriage.

With all of the emphasis that the Church must put on vocations to the religious life, I found myself lost in what God actually wanted me to be.

Bring Us Living Water

As Catholics, how often do we ponder our own baptism? For many of us, it was long before we could remember, and that seems to hide it from the forefront of our mind. The Church explains to us that Baptism is necessary for salvation. This is why you must be baptized to be ordained or even to be married in the Church. At Baptism we are given the key to the gates of Heaven, and that is not something to be taken lightly.

New Year, New Saint

New Year, New You: ten common New Year’s resolutions and five things you can do to make sure you keep them!

Everywhere we look at the beginning of a new year tells us how we can make ourselves, our lives, or our careers better and more successful. Exercise more, eat healthier, be kinder, make more money, find yourself, be the person you’ve always wanted to be. As Catholics we are called to always be looking at ways that we can improve ourselves, mold ourselves into the people God has always intended us to be. We must never be satisfied with the temptations and apathy of human nature. 

Fiat 500

“Every once in a while, something comes along so powerful in concept, so revolutionary in its design, it redefines a generation.” (Fiat 500 webpage) Upon entering the word “fiat” in my search bank, the first website that comes up is the Fiat 500 page, advertising the Italian-made American-imported car. This was not what I had meant, but it posed an interesting question: How many teens my age actually know what the meaning of the word “fiat” is, or know that it was not first used to describe a car?