Youth Speak News

My main resolution this year has been to attend my church’s noon choir rehearsal every Sunday and to be punctual. During 2011, my choir attendance was sporadic at best, despite the fact that I feel closer to the Lord when I praise Him in song. I decided to make my New Year’s resolution faith-based.

At the time of writing, three Sundays have passed, and I have yet to be on time for choir rehearsal, for various reasons.

However, I still take my resolution seriously and refuse to give up on the promise I have made to myself.

The 2012 Friar’s Essay Contest winners have been announced.

The annual contest is sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement and The Catholic Register for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

You can read about the three lucky winners here: "Friar’s Essay winners announced, students take home an iPad2 and Kindle Fire".

We will be publishing the winning entries in the coming weeks in the newspaper and here at CatholicRegister.org.

TORONTO - For a generation wired to the Internet via smartphones and laptops, the Gospel can easily be forgotten in the information overload. To prevent this, the Catholic Chaplaincy at York University (CCY) started To the Top, a web series of Catholic videos for youth.

“Many young people are spending many hours in front of their computers,” said Joseph Zambon, 25, CCY pastoral assistant and cast member of To the Top. “We, the Church, need to break into these places and make sure that young people are hearing the Gospel message. Otherwise, they will be swept away into a secular culture.” 

Launched in fall, To the Top was founded by Dwayne Santos, 21, a concurrent education student at York, as a way to educate both Catholics and non-Catholics about the faith.

London, Ont. - In today’s society there is a lack of meaning associated with the word love, says Damon Owens, executive director of the Theology of the Body Institute.

“When you understand love and you’re able to see this beautiful vision of… what it means to be made in God’s image and likeness, you will be thrilled,” Owens told an audience of about 50 students and alumni gathered at his God, Sex and the Meaning of Life lecture Jan. 12 at King’s University College. “You will be excited and be compelled to live and to love in the fullness and not accepting the counterfeit love the world offers.” 

How did you spend your New Year’s Eve? For as long as I can remember, I have spent New Year’s Eve with family, congregating around cookies and champagne. But this year, I spent it alongside 600 fellow university students at Rise Up, Catholic Christian Outreach’s national conference.

The five-day conference in downtown Vancouver was a far stretch from my past New Year celebrations and it inspired a deep desire to live out my Catholic faith. 

TORONTO - On World Day of Peace, Pope Benedict XVI said the enthusiasm and idealism of youth offers new hope to the world. 

As he talked about the theme of “Educating Young People in Justice and Peace” Jan. 1, he emphasized the potential of young people in today’s society, as well as the responsibilities of parents, educators and youth to look towards Christ and encourage each other. 

Antonio Fernando, a first-year English student at the University of Toronto, said acting on this message would mean better awareness of what’s going on in the world.

“At World Youth Day, (the Pope) wanted us to be open to whatever’s happening in the world, to appreciate where we are coming from and to keep improving ourselves,” said Fernando. 

Angela De Ciantis, a third-year psychology student at Toronto’s York University, takes a more internal approach to this theme.

“It shows a need to understand those terms (justice and peace), because you can have different interpretations,” she said. Not only should youth be aware of issues surrounding them, but they should also reflect on exactly how they see justice and peace, she said.

Pope Benedict XVI talked briefly about family, calling parents “the first educators.” Although Brandon Cheong, a Grade 11 student from Cardinal Newman Catholic High School in Toronto, understands the value of family, he said it is becoming less important from the perspective of our culture.

“You learn how to behave first from your parents, but today, the family is secondary to the values of society,” said Cheong.

“Families are spending less time with each other, so there’s no longer that binding heart of what the family used to be. Families rely more on the education system to say what’s acceptable.”

Also mentioned are the roles of teachers and educators, whom the Pope calls to promote Catholic values. 

Lisa Bailey, a Family Studies teacher at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School, understands this responsibility. “(The Pope’s) message reinforces why we are called to be Catholic educators.  It’s not just to teach the curriculum, it’s about leading by example and walking with students on their faith journey,” said Bailey.

Bailey also said these tasks provide great challenges, particularly when struggling with  influences from society. “There’s a struggle between faith and things that happen in society around youth. You have your morals against what society says. Whether it be movies or television shows, there are conflicting messages that Catholics see that are not always in line with our faith.”

Many internal and external challenges face youth and those who try to encourage them. However, Pope Benedict’s message may yet be fulfilled if young people are willing to take it to heart.

De Ciantis suggests a simple idea: “To be a good example. When you demonstrate your faith, people notice. If you help others, people will be influenced to help more often.”

TORONTO - Timothy Keslick has had a spiritual director for the past three years — and he nows sees his faith as a joy, something to be embraced. 

“It’s good to freshen and strengthen your spiritual life and make sure you’re on the right track… It’s just getting into the habit of being more open to whatever God has in store,” said Keslick, a second-year history and linguistics student at Toronto’s York University.

While spiritual direction is commonly associated with adults, there are many young adults who seek it too, said Vanessa Nicholas-Schmidt, director of Faith Connections, the young adult ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto. Faith Connections connects young adults with spiritual directors. 

Windsor, Ont. - A former teacher at Windsor’s Assumption College High School led a prayer walk around the school Jan. 3 to pray for Catholic schools.

Greg Mailloux decided to lead the prayer walk after having a conversation with a student who told him some of its students were atheists.

“I did inform some people that used to teach here and some friends that I know would be prayerful warriors along with myself,” said Mailloux.

After submitting four essays in 24 hours at the end of last semester, I found myself staring into my latest (of many) tea of the day and glumly contemplating the point of getting a degree.

I am in my fourth year of university, and often feel that I’d rather be any place but here. It’s not that school isn’t challenging or that my extracurriculars aren’t engaging. It’s that it seems there’s more to learn from reading the Asperges or hiking in the mountains than from a week’s worth of readings in history or political science. A better understanding of the social, economic and political reasons for contemporary Middle Eastern post-colonial resistance could be very useful — if nothing else, for looking smart in barroom conversation — but once the notes are done, essays written, it seems there is little left of lasting value. I can’t educate my way into heaven.

The introduction of the new Roman Missal has been a hot topic of conversation since its implementation on the first Sunday of Advent, and it’s no different for Catholic youth.

For young Catholics, the new, more literal translation is the first change to the Mass they have experienced in their lifetime. While the changes in posture and the slight variations on traditional responses in the Mass are significantly less than the changes that previous generations faced in the 1960s (where the Mass was translated from Latin to the vernacular), the changes may still take some getting used to for some — and not so much for others.