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By Lisa Wheeler, For The Georgia Bulletin
INDIANAPOLIS — The gigantic RCA football dome was rocking
with 25,000 teenagers strong in an incredible event that had all the
characteristics of a major American football game or a boy band concert. At one
point, a stage held dancers and twirlers and giant puppets which surrounded the
stage to welcome the beat of the pulsing music.
But it was clear that in this place the crowd did not come to see
big name band members and groups, or football players and cheerleaders.
I was overwhelmed when I considered the alternatives these
teenagers had in the weeks before Christmas in the city that is home to one of
the most famous car races in the country — Indianapolis. In this place, so
often a location of irreverence and chaos, 49 bishops representing 147 dioceses
gathered with members of today’s Church, the youth of America. It was here
that 50 teenagers from Atlanta, representing two churches of the archdiocese
— All Saints Church in Dunwoody and Church of the Transfiguration in
Marietta — joined these 25,000 other young people from around the country
for the National Catholic Youth Conference. The four day powerful dialogue
began focused on these young people’s call to be uniquely Catholic and to
celebrate this faith openly amidst the world.
As a youth minister who struggles continually for advocacy and
awareness of our Catholic youth, it was a time of triumph, an affirmation that
here in this place converted to holy ground, they have a voice.
Our own Archbishop John F. Donoghue processed along with his
fellow bishops into a packed stadium to the tune of “Prepare Ye the Way of
the Lord.” I don’t think he heard our little group above the thumping
crowd as we welcomed him into the stadium with screams of thanksgiving for his
attendance on our behalf.
The conference was titled “Hope at the Crossroads” and
at a time in this country when we search for hope amidst the uncertainty, it
proved to be divinely providential for all who attended. One young woman from
New York City, Jessica Moore, lost her father on Sept. 11. He worked on the
86th floor of Tower Two. In the opening session she was asked why she had come
to this conference. Her response was tearful but complete, “I need to know
that we still have faith, I need to know I still have faith,” she said.
The executive director of the National Federation for Catholic
Youth Ministry, Robert McCarty, arrived at the opening session in a miniature
Indy 500 race car to the cheers of the young crowd. Responsible for putting
this conference together every other year, he engaged this 2001 crowd with
humor and inspiration and reminded them gently that “we are fully
activated in the ‘race’ of our souls.” As he departed the stage,
he left the crowd with these words. “Will we be a country isolated, or
will we be a people of courage, justice and hope? Let the entire world look in.
The young Catholic Church commits young people to be a people of the Gospel. Go
and preach.”
Michele Colasurdo was one of two teens selected by the Archdiocese
of Atlanta to attend a special Youth Congress held simultaneously during the
Conference. Along with 300 teens from around the country, she spent a day with
the bishops discussing the state of vocations in the Church and how teenagers
are called to give testimony to Jesus Christ in the world. Colasurdo was
especially impressed by the attendance of the bishops and their interest in the
views of teenagers on this topic. “We talked with the U.S. Bishops about
decisions and discernment . . . I am thankful for them being an inspiration to
all of us, particularly our archbishop,” Colasurdo said.
For Atlanta, the presence of our archbishop was inspiring and a
source of pride as they met other teens from around the country. I found myself
captivated as he challenged our Atlanta youth in a homily on the Feast of the
Immaculate Conception. He told them, “From the moment that Adam and Eve
sinned in the Garden of Eden, there was no hope for them, or for any of their
offspring, who we are, except that one day, God would send his Son into the
world, so that he could experience our suffering and our joys, our trials and
our successes, the good we experience and the bad — so that He could know,
as we know what it is to be human, and how strongly in our souls we need the
forgiveness and the love of God, so that we might look forward, not to a death
that ends all life and being, but to a death that marks the beginning of a life
fulfilled, and of being perfected.”
The teens from Atlanta had the opportunity to attend many
workshops that covered topics ranging from leadership to literacy, chastity to
coping with stress, popular culture to popular saints. One presenter, Father
Stan Fortuna, a priest with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, knows what it
was like to be at a crossroads in one’s life and he shared that with the
group. Through his hip hop style of rap and freestyle talking, he spoke to the
teens. His workshop was on the universal call to holiness and his message on
discernment to the teens was simple, “You can spend your whole life
‘discerning,’ or you can simply decide, decide to follow him, decide
to live a life of holiness, decide and then discern.” A group of teens
from All Saints Church, Dunwoody, attended that workshop together and talked
afterwards about how what he said really enforced what they have been hearing
back home in their youth group, from their priests and youth leaders and
through talking with each other. Brock Aaron, a freshman from Dunwoody, said,
“It’s true, it’s all about choice, we are the choices we
make.”
Another workshop that proved inspiring was one on the teachings of
St. Ambrose. St. Ambrose was a bishop in the 4th century who taught about two
types of conversions — a conversion by water through our baptism and a
conversion by tears through true repentance. Sarah Peterson, from All Saints
Church and a student at St. Pius X High School, knows all too well what that
means. She shared that this workshop really hit home. She talked about how
receiving grace in the sacrament of reconciliation has really made a difference
in her life and that is what St. Ambrose meant when he talked about conversion
through repentance. “I am amazed too by the love of Christ I see in the
eyes of the presenters, they want me to know Him, and I can’t turn back
now,” she said.
For me, the four days in Indiana were a renewal. A founded hope in
the knowledge that there is a place for our young people among the chaos of
life. A promise made by Christ long ago that he would not leave us and that
“he would be with us always until the end of the age.” Our Atlanta
presence in Indiana, even our little group of 50 with our chief shepherd,
Archbishop Donoghue, sent a powerful message to anyone who wonders if youth are
making a difference in the world. Teenagers, especially in Atlanta, are seeking
Christ through the expression of their Catholic faith and they are advocates of
hope in this world that lately finds itself at a significant crossroad.
Lisa Wheeler is the youth minister at All Saints Church, Dunwoody.
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