Youth Speak News

TORONTO - Jeremy Taggart, drummer for popular Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace, wants to help stop the stigma around mental health issues.

On Nov. 25, he did just that, relating his personal story as keynote speaker for the third annual “No Health without Mental Health” symposium run by the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Taggart spoke about his brother’s battle with schizophrenia.

“We’re here because we’re trying to gauge what is crazy and what is normal,” the former Catholic school student told the audience of about 300 students and teachers. “And it’s a struggle that we all try to gauge every single day.”

It seems the number of teenagers having children is on the rise. It is not an ideal circumstance to have teen parents raising an infant, but it doesn’t mean something good cannot come out of it, and while it is a struggle, young parents can turn to their Catholic faith.

My mother gave birth to me one month shy of her 16th birthday. I was baptized a few months later and when I was old enough, I was sent to Catholic schools. There, I learned about God and my faith. My mother and I went to church sometimes, but she worked a lot and went to school, so we didn’t often go together. Instead, it was left to my grandparents to take me.

Change, one year at a time. That is the idea behind 1Focus, a charitable organization founded by Toronto students Miranda Dela Cruz and Isabel Ng-Lai.

Their goal is to focus on one issue every year. This year, 1Focus announced its first mission would be to promote education by raising $10,000 for three schools run by the Loretto Sisters in Darjeeling, India: Loreto Panighatta, Loreto Lolay and Loreto Sadem.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has created a new comic book as an educational tool to raise awareness of the struggles faced by those in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“We believe in the power of youth to change the world and that they hold the future in their hands,” said Shelley Burgoyne, youth programs officer at Development and Peace. “So by reaching out to them in such a dynamic format we really hope to raise awareness of the struggles of our brothers and sisters in the (Congo) and encourage our Canadian youth to speak out.”

My mother was recently diagnosed with cancer.

She had suspected it for awhile, but reading the emotionless official hospital papers was still difficult. Breaking the news to my sister and I was a challenge in itself. She tried to hide the fact that she was scared, but her forced smile and unusually high voice proved otherwise. Somehow, though, she was able to say: “Well, whatever God has in store for me.”

VICTORIA, B.C. - If a picture is worth a thousand words, then pro-life students at the University of Victoria (UVic) have been doing a lot of talking in an effort to show the truth of what abortion is.

Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), UVic’s pro-life club, partnered with the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform to bring the campaign “Choice” Chain to campus Nov. 16-17.

“Choice” Chain is a campaign where volunteers hold pictures of fetuses aborted in the first trimester of pregnancy with the word “Choice” emblazoned on the top and seek to engage passersby in discussion about the meaning of abortion.

When James and John left their father to follow Christ, did their father Zebedee cry out in protest or did his heart break as they left him to follow their vocation?  

We often hear about biblical heroes like the apostles leaving everything to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11). But it’s hard to understand the full impact of “come and follow me” until you’ve experienced it. Or someone close to you has.

VICTORIA, B.C. - Calling Katrina Laquian busy is an understatement. Already external affairs officer for the Canadian Catholic Student Association (CCSA), the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace’s youth representative for the diocese of Victoria and co-youth representative for the B.C./Yukon region, Laquian, 23, is the newly elected North American co-ordinator for the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS).

A fourth-year sociology student at the University of Victoria, Laquian laughed when asked about how she keeps balanced.

“I just don’t stress any more,” she said.  “I’ve come to a point where I know that things are out of my control and I just need to let go and let God.”

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Teaching children about the new Roman Missal means not only educating them about changes to prayers and gestures, but also about a “liturgical renewal” in the Church, say authors of a new children’s book.

Bernadette Gasslein and Sharon McKeever co-authored The Mass: Step by Step. Starting Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, Canadians will begin to use the new Missal which introduces changes to the prayers and gestures of priests and the congregation.

McKeever said the Missal invites Catholics to rediscover the “key mysteries” of the Mass, such as Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and belonging to the Body of Christ in the world.

You learn more than you’d expect playing the part of the lunatic.

On the third Friday of every month, Catholic Christian Outreach in Kingston, Ont., hosts the “Cornerstone,” a gathering in which an aspect of our Catholic faith is explained in a way that could be appealing to the average university student. Recently, the theme was Jesus’ momentous question to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” and we decided to introduce our theme with a skit. What better apologetic argument is there in answer to that question than the Lewis Trilemma?

The trilemma is an argument laid out by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity that attempts to prove Jesus is divine. Occasionally summarized “liar, lunatic, lord,” it places the questioner in a rhetorical dilemma which leaves no room for any other alternative than He is Lord. Jesus reveals His divinity repeatedly in the Gospels; therefore, if it is not the case that He was divine, He was either completely deluded or He deliberately deceived His followers. But would a lunatic be able to live a life so in fulfilment of the Old Testament? Would a liar — a truly evil man — have lived in a way that was otherwise so morally unquestionable?