Lenten Resources

Lent begins this year with Ash Wednesday on February 17th.  Here are some great online resources for making the most of your Lenten journey. If you have a link to add, please pass it along. Check back frequently to see if new things have been added.

• Good Ground Press has some online retreats that you can tackle in your own time. Try this one called "Life is a Puzzle." You can also look over to the left hand side to see their other retreats.
• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has put together some Lenten resources here.
• The USCCB also has some audio resources that you can download to your favorite mp3 player and take with you.
• Check here for some great meatless recipes from Catholicmom.com.

At Blessed Sacrament, you can participate in the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent. The youth will present their annual Stations of the Cross performance on Friday, March 26th. The parish is in the process of putting together a list of other activities and I will post that here as soon as it is available.

2010 March For Life

On January 21 and 22 four youth and adults from our parish had the opportunity to participate in the Diocese of Richmond's delegation to the nation's annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. They traveled by bus as part of a larger delegation to Northern Virginia where they attended the “Life is VERY Good” youth rally hosted by Catholic speaker and musician Steve Angrisano. After the rally, the group spent the night at a hotel and woke very early the next morning to get ready for the Mass and March for Life Youth Rally at the Verizon Center. Then they walked to the Washington Monument and joined the March to the Supreme Court building. The youth reported that they had an amazing time and came back with a renewed sense of the value of life and the importance of being pro-life!

Youth Retreats

Here in the Diocese of Richmond we are fortunate to have a vibrant youth retreat system in place. Each year there are many different retreats offered for youth to participate in. 

Discovery is a peer ministered retreat geared towards 9th and 10th grade students.  During this weekend long retreat, youth will have a chance to discover more about themselves and their relationship with God.  This happens through peer and adult led talks, small group discussions, and community building activities.
Discovery retreats will be held:

• Feb. 5-7, 2010 at Smith Mountain Lake (near Roanoke)
• Mar. 5-7, 2010 at Smith Mountain Lake (near Roanoke)
• Mar. 5-7, 2010 at Camp Hanover (near Richmond)
• Mar. 12-14, 2010 at Grace Bible Camp (near Lexington)
• Mar. 26-28, 2010 at Eastover Retreat Center (near WIlliamsburg)

Christian Awakening is a peer ministered retreat designed for 11-12th graders. It is similar in format to Discovery, but allows for more mature youth to delve deeper into their faith. Youth will look at ways to live out their faith in a vibrant way through service to others while becoming better, more committed Christians.

Christian Awakening retreats will be held:

• Feb. 26-28-2010 at Mary, Mother of the Church Abbey (near Richmond)
• Mar. 19-21, 2010 at Smith Mountain Lake (near Roanoke)
• April 16-18, 2010 at Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center (near Williamsburg)

Kujenga is a peer-ministered retreat designed for African-American youth to learn about their own culture as well as their relationship with God through a celebration of culture and customs. This retreat will take place Feb. 5-7, 2010 at Virginia United Methodist Assembly Center, Blackstone, VA. 

Registrations are typically due not later than two weeks prior to the retreat date. If you would like more information or to register for one of these retreats, please contact Rabia at rlieber@bsccva.com.

Advent Retreat: Signs of the Season

There are many different signs that we all associate with the holiday season: candy canes, mistletoe, bells, cards, angels, etc.  Some of our youth spent a Saturday morning reflecting on these signs and how we can attach a more holy meaning to many of our secular signs.
We opened the retreat by making a paper chain together. Each youth stated a prayer for the retreat and added his or her loop to the chain.  The chain was made of many different colors, just as we are all uniquely made. We hung this chain in the room as a reminder of our communal prayers throughout the retreat.
Next we played a game called "The Giving Game."  This game involved two rounds of giving away and collecting pennies. It gave us the chance to reflect on which is better: to give or to receive.
After a brief break, we came together in small groups to discuss our gifts.  Each group had a gift-wrapped package that had questions written on the outside. The youth were given the opportunity to choose a question to answer and share with the group. Each person had the chance to answer two or three questions and we all got to know more about each other.
The next part of the retreat, was one of my favorites. Each small group received a bag of Christmas items. Their task was to use their imaginations to find the hidden spiritual meaning for each item and create a prayer for it. The youth came up with lots of great ideas, and hopefully, from now on when they see some of these regular every day objects, they might take a moment to stop and think more deeply about them.

We were fortunate enough to share a delicious meal together before moving on to another activity.  We read Leo Tolstoy's "Martin the Cobbler," a story about an old man who discovers that Christ is always among us.
We ended our retreat by reflecting on an empty crèche.  We added straw (in the form of paper) to the crèche with our pledges of service on them.  This was a good reminder of how we can each help to get ready for Jesus by helping those around us.
Our closing prayer was a reflection on the evergreen tree. Just as an evergreen tree stays green year round, God's love for us is always fresh and new.

More links for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany

While you are online today, why not try out some of these seasonal ideas!!

• How would you like to make a personalized book for a younger sibling or cousin for Christmas?  Try here.  You will need a color printer to complete this 30 minute project.

• Want some printables for Christmas gift giving?  Try here.  There are lots of different ideas you can print out.

• Here's a great link to a printable Nativity scene! Make this with a younger sibling, cousin, neighbor or friend. You can print the pieces in color, or print them in black and white to color yourself.  

• How about a family service project you can do together for the holidays?  Check here and make gingerbread dolls to donate to a children's hospital (think UVA) or other charity. The directions call for some simple sewing skills, but I like to cheat by using a hot glue gun!

Do you have any great ideas for the season?  Leave them in the comments or email me and I will add it to the list!

Advent

I found a neat Advent calendar on the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) website. You can access it here. It has daily readings for Advent as well as discussion topics for families, prayers and reflection topics.  Check it out! Remember, Advent starts the Sunday after Thanksgiving!

Confirmation Ropes Course

Each year, our Confirmation class participates in a Ropes Course at Brethren Woods in order to learn some valuable lessons about teamwork and ourselves. We start out with some games where we get to know each other's names. Usually the teens in the group know each other, but there are often adult sponsors that do not know everyone. This is also a great way to break the ice and get people talking. We then move into some trust activities. These are particularly important because the challenge course has some difficult activities for the group to work together on, and if we don't trust each other, it makes them much harder to do. We had several volunteers to do a trust fall with the group where they fell back into the group and we actually picked up and moved around by members of the team. It is quite fun, if you allow yourself to trust the others!

Then we had a few games that tested our listening skills, cooperation and planning. I don't want to give away the outcomes in case any of you are ever given the opportunity to play a similar game, but suffice it to say that we handled the challenge well.

We had to get to a remote village across the Amazon river and the waiting crocodiles!

After the team building activities, we moved into the woods to try our hands at some more challenging...um...challenges! Our leader, Seth, decided to take us straight to one of the more difficult challenges: The Wall. There is a very tall wall that each member of the team must get across with the help of the other team members. We had to work together to come up with a plan and then implement it. I must say that we did a really good job!

First, Randi had to explain some cheer leading moves to Meade:

Then we got started hauling people up and over the wall. Even the adults went. Here's Deacon Fred:

Everyone had to work together and takes turns helping to pull people up the wall:

We actually managed to get everyone safely over the wall! The next challenge involved getting a rope swing to swing over "the ocean" between "two ships." Sounds easy, right? Well not if the rope is stuck between both sides and you have to get it to move from a stationary position. We got that figured out, though, and everyone got to swing across.

All in all, we had a great time with the ropes course. I think the teens and adults really learned a lot about each other and themselves while working together. I can't wait to do it again next year!