Catholic Spirit writer Maria Wiering reports on the National Catholic Youth Conference in Kansas City, MO.
Steve Joerger started telling me about the rocks he saw from the bus window on the drive down, but other students’ voices drowned out the story. We were sitting in a banquet room at The Clubhouse on Baltimore Thursday evening munching on pizza, and I had asked students from St. John Neumann in Eagan about their drive from the Twin Cities to Kansas City.
Five minutes later, Steve said, “No, really, I want to tell you about the rocks.”
Fellow youth group member Kelly Uhrich, 18, laughed and handed him “the speaking stick” (turned out to be someone else’s fork).
“It’s about the change of scenery” from Minneapolis to Kansas City, Steve explained. The different kind of rocks he saw along Interstate 35 prompted deeper reflection about transition and adaptation. “It’s a brand new atmosphere for me. I don’t leave Minnesota all that often, and so it’s like leaving that comfort zone.”
When I interviewed Steve last week, he said that one of his goals was to leave his comfort zone in the way he approached his faith. He desired greater zeal for the Lord, and he hoped NCYC would help to foster that.
His desire was perfectly aligned with the homily given by Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo earlier that evening at the Region 8 (Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota) Mass. He told the youth they had to have zeal for God in the same way they had zeal for other things in their life.
Let Christ reign in your mind, body and soul, he told them, drawing on the conference’s theme.
The Mass was the first official NCYC event the youth from the archdiocese attended, and the excitement was palpable. The St. John Neumann students thought it was awesome that kids from the neighboring dioceses — that they didn’t even know, they added — gave them high fives on the way out of Mass.
“It’s like being at a Twins game when the Twins win,” said Dominic Okoneski, 18.
And most hadn’t ever been at a Mass with that many people.
(The ones who had had been to previous NCYCs.)
“It’s really invigorating to see others’ faces,” said Rebecca Driessen, 16.
“There’s no holding back,” Steve added.
Kelly burst in: “Oh, let me tell you what happened!” she said with the excitement of a two-minute celebrity sighting. “I was serving and GOT TO HOLD HIS HAT!”
Bishop Aquilla’s hat at the Mass? I asked.
“YES!” she said.
Everyone at the table laughed, but it was clear that they thought it was cool, too. This whole NCYC thing is very Catholicism up-close, in a way that most students don’t see the church every day.
