Youth Ministry @ Our Lady of Victory

Christian Love and a Whole LOT More! February 13, 2008

Once again the youth group met for a fun and, hopefully, enlightening meeting during which we made over 100 Valentine’s Day decorations that will be given to Bayley Place residents this week!  Thank you all for your help!  During the decoration making we discussed all the upcoming events that will be happening over the course of the next couple months and as you will see as you read further, there are a lot of things going on!! As the meeting came to a close, we had a little time to discuss Christian Love and what it means to live your life according to Love.  We talked about societies effect on our view of love and how society generally gives us the message that Love should be focused on ourselves and what we can get out of the relationship and how that is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches!  Jesus tells us all to “love one another as I have loved you,” and if we read further we realize what that statement means.  Jesus gave himself entirely to us and to his enemies without asking or expecting anything in return.  And so we are called to die to ourselves and give all that we have and all that we are to our neighbors (which includes our friends and our enemies).  How many times do we hold onto our circle of the world and judge those who are outside of that circle?  How many times do we laugh and make fun of the person who is not like us only to think later of that person’s feelings?  How many times do we hold onto the things that hurt us the most only to realize that we are wasting our lives thinking about the grudge we hold against someone who could be our friend?  We challenge all of you to give of yourselves this Lent and live the Love that God has given in his sacrifice on the cross!

And speaking of crosses…did all of you see the design we have come up with for our new t-shirts?! I Marianne found a scanner and was able to get this image of my sketch. 

If you click on the image, you’ll notice that the words on the back are written over the picture of a Crucifix and the words at the top are going to be on the front of the shirt. 

I think it looks pretty sharp (well, once we set the font and find a decent Crucifix picture) and the message presented is a great challenge to all who read it to become a hero and live out the Victory Christ won for us over sin and death.  Think about it and send us your comments on this design (or send us one of your own) as soon as possible because we will need them for our first fundraiser at Biggs! We’ll probably be ordering the shirts sometime before the New Life Retreat.

Marianne got in contact with Biggs and they had a spot open for us to bag groceries from 11am- 6pm on Sunday, March 30th.  We need at least 6 baggers present the entire time (no, 6 people do not have to stay the whole time), so we will need all the help we can get! 

Other people need our help as well. The Riverview Nursing Home has told us that they would love to have us come and volunteer some of our time there helping to run Bingo or to come up with our own activities and run those with the residents.  However, before we do that, we need to take a tour of the facility and fill out some paperwork.  Marianne would like to call them and set up a time to do this, but needs to know as soon as possible if you are all interested in doing this and what days work best for you to do this. We’d like to get this out of the way by the end of March so that we can start volunteering there in April.

Also, the Pro Life/Pro Family Commission is hosting a Family Movie night on February 23rd and need some help setting up tables and running the concessions stand.  If any of you are interested, let us know and we’ll pass along the message.  You can tell us for sure as late as February 22nd at the Lock- In (see Upcoming Events and Permission Slips pages).  By the way, today is the last day to sign up for the Lock-In and you can bring your permission slips, money and snacks with you that night!

Another deadline is fast approaching as well.  Please sign up for the Alive in You Youth Conference no later than March 12th!  We will be working very hard to make the trip as close to free for you as possible, so don’t let finances be the reason you don’t want to go!  This is going to be a great experience in which you will learn a lot about yourself, your friends and most importantly, your Faith!  Please consider it and talk it over with your parents.

 Last, but certainly not least, our parish has a tremendous opportunity to host a Monstrance which was blessed by Pope John Paul II!!  This is the decorative case in which the Eucharist is displayed for prayer and Adoration.  What makes this particularly special for our Youth Group is that Fr. Reutter has given us permission to host a holy hour designed to be high energy and enjoyable for youth.  We have invited all the youth groups from around the area and it should be a pretty big event!  I need to find someone who is willing to do a short reading during this hour, so the first to post a comment to this effect gets to do it! 

 Sorry for the outrageously long post, but I think you are now completely informed.  Please check the Upcoming events and use this post as a means to sign up for any and all events you want to attend.