Youth Group

As you may or may not know, my ministry for postulancy is working with the high school youth group at St. Francis parish in Milwaukee. Tonight was our third meeting. Each week we get at least one or two more kids coming. God has been good. We started our first meeting with 4 and now we are up about 8. So we have already doubled just within 3 weeks! Our first two meetings were just socials to hang out and get to know each other. Luckily the weather has been great each night we have it so we have a bonfire and cookout out in the courtyard of what used to be the old monastery. One of the high school guys introduced us to a great new version of making S'mores. You basically instead of putting the marshmellow and chocolate on graham crackers, use 2 keebler m&m cookies. It is sooooo good! So tonight since our last two nights were mostly socials, I decided to start mixing it up a little. I knew from asking them, that the kids really dont know what adoration is or understand the mass and the Eucharist. So tonight I started from the beginning talking about relationships in general which leads into relationship with God which will eventually lead into the Eucharist and adoration. Well tonight I wanted to get the point across that just like when you start a friendship with someone, to get to know them you have to spend time with them the same is with God. You have to spend time with Him. So I asked the question, How do you know Jesus is God? I wanted to drive home the point is that you know He is God because you spend time with Him and you get to know Him and He becomes very real to you as you spend time with Him. Well when I asked the question I got a response I was not expecting. The kids didn't even know Jesus is God. So in the best and most simplistic way I could I tried to explain the Trinity to them. I ended up using St. Patrick's 3 leaf clover model. lol. But what was amazing was that even though they didnt realize Jesus is God, God to them is very much real. As we talked about relationships they really opened up about how some of them have never had a relationship with one parent or the other. Or how friends have stabbed them in the back and feel like they can't trust anyone. So I asked, does that reflect your relationship with God in a negative sense? The answer was an overwhelming NO! "God is what keeps us going." "He's the one person we can talk to." It was a very eye opening experience and I am truly blessed to be here with these kids and learn from them as I hope they also learn from me. Please keep the group in your prayers as we continue to grow.

Peace and all good,
Jason