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Friars Student Writing Contest winners
February 19, 2026
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These various dimensions are crystalized in the annual Friars Writing Contest.
This long-standing tradition in the Archdiocese of Toronto is part of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations organizes and promotes this event in the Catholic high schools in partnership the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement and The Catholic Register. Students are encouraged to explore a focus question that expresses the theme of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Many schools incorporate this initiative into their religion curriculum.
From this year’s theme, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling” (Ephesians 4:4), students were invited to reflect and describe how you are growing in knowledge of Christ and how it inspires and shapes their thoughts, relationships and outreach.
From the many fine submissions received, three remarkable essays surfaced as finalists. They were not only well written but also creative in employing evocative images and symbols that explore the gift and task of Christian unity willed by Jesus for the Church. Above all, they give personal testimony to the students’ living and growing faith.
The first place essay was submitted by Robert Rodriguez of Cardinal Ledger Catholic Secondary School in Brampton, Ont. Second went to Emily Rocillo of St. Brother André Catholic High School in Markham, while Daniela Meglio of Aurora’s St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School took third. Rodriguez’s essay is published this week, with Rocillo and Meglio’s to follow.
It is edifying to read how our Catholic faith received through the ages is being passed on and flourishing among our youth by parents, friends, pastors and educators.
An awards ceremony to honour the accomplishment of these students is planned for Feb. 22 at the conclusion of the 11 a.m. Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Brampton.
(Melo is director of the Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations.)
BY Robert Rodriguez
I watched a child at Mass press his forehead to the pew and whisper the same prayer three times — each whisper smaller than the last, as if faith itself were learning to breathe. In that small, ordinary act I heard Paul’s summons in Ephesians 4:13 not as distant doctrine but as a summons to communal becoming: gifts given “for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
The Christian life, I have come to see, is less a solo pilgrimage and more a bridge built plank by plank, where each gift and each person is essential to the crossing.
My knowledge of Christ deepens through three simple, sacramental rhythms: prayer, Scripture and the Eucharist. Prayer taught me dependence; Scripture taught me truth; the Eucharist taught me presence. That trinity of practice does not merely instruct my mind, it re-sculpts it. In Scripture I find Christ’s logic: mercy that chooses the lost, truth that pierces hypocrisy and patience that bears wounds without counting debt. In prayer I learn to empty myself of certainty and cling to Him who is certain. In the Eucharist His body becomes my nourishment and my map, feeding a life that must be poured out. Knowledge of Christ, then, is not information to hoard but formation to be lived; it shapes desires, re-orders priorities and consecrates ordinary choices.
This interior formation reshapes my thoughts. Where ambition once measured my worth, I now return to a question Jesus taught me by His life: Does this choice build up the Body? In the classroom, leadership and friendship I try to let that question be the compass. Relationships change when Christ’s knowledge becomes operative: I listen to anger as a cry for belonging; I see stubbornness as fear seeking welcome. Gentleness becomes a discipline, humility a deliberate practice. In conflict I strive to mirror Christ’s patience — bearing the friction as a forge, not a blade.
Outreach, for me, has become the outward architecture of this inward knowledge. Small acts — tutoring a struggling classmate, organizing a meal for others, standing beside someone who is shamed — are not peripheral; they are structural. Paul’s image of gifts “for building up” means that patience, teaching, hospitality and courage are bricks in the same wall. Catholic faith gives this work sacramental dignity: service is worship,and the Church’s many charisms (spiritual gifts) cohere into a unity that reveals Christ’s full stature. Maturity, therefore, is not uniformity but communion: many members growing into one measure, each gift preserving difference while contributing to wholeness. It is a choir of many distinct voices, singing one song in perfect harmony — it is planks of every shape and grain, fastened together to bear us across one bridge.
To stand out in a world of slogans and quick fixes, the Church calls us to deeper things: steady discipline, patient mercy, courageous truth-telling. Knowledge of Christ summons us from private consolation into public compassion. It refines intellects that can defend truth with charity and forms hearts that can forgive without forgetting. The journey toward the “measure of the full stature of Christ” is long and often hidden — marked by repeated failures, humble recommitments and quiet consolations — but it is a pilgrimage of hope. Each humble gift used for others bends the arc of isolated lives toward unity; each act of service, each forgiven offense, lays another plank across the divide.
If the Body of Christ is to reach its full stature, then my small faith must become communal faith; my private knowledge, shared knowledge; my lone plank, part of a bridge. In that hopeful work — teaching, listening, serving — I find the truest measure of growth.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you who stooped to wash feet and rose to fill Heaven, kindle in us a knowledge that transforms. Make our minds sound in truth, our hearts patient in love and our hands quick to serve. Unite our gifts into one Body; teach us to reach the lost not as projects but as friends. Bend our will to your mercy until we, together, attain the full stature of your glory. Amen.
(Rodriguez attends Cardinal Léger Secondary School in Brampton, Ont.)
A version of this story appeared in the February 22, 2026, issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Youth faith shines".
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