Hundreds of teens attend "Transformed" for high school youth

By Margaret M. Russell
The Catholic Free Press

“Begin to model your life after Jesus. That’s how we transform the world – not by shouting,” Ennie Hickman told hundreds of high school students at the end of a  youth rally with the theme “Transformed.”
Mr. Hickman didn’t begin the day with such a challenge. Rather, he first assured the nearly 400 young people, gathered in the Laska Gymnasium at Assumption College, that “God is a father who loves us.”
Timothy Messenger, director of the diocesan youth ministry office, which organized the rally, introduced the father of seven children as a domestic missionary. Mr. Hickman and his wife, Cana, serve in Adore Ministries and speak all over the country about evangelizing the vulnerable and marginalized. Their home base is where they live, a poor neighborhood in Houston, Texas.
Aware that some in the crowd might have been unwilling participants in the Sunday afternoon gathering, Mr. Hickman tried to prepare the youth for the day by explaining the parable of the sower. In it Jesus talks about sowing seeds on good ground and what happens to the seed when it is sown on rocky ground. The passage, in Luke 8, ends with Jesus saying “whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”
“If you do not have ears to hear, there is nothing we can do to change your mind,” Mr. Hickman said. But, “if you do want to know the truth, open your ears and hear it.”
Before sending them off to breakout sessions to explore ways they can be transformed, he told them, “You are beloved, no matter what. You can’t earn heaven. If you are baptized, you have heaven.”
He was plan ting seeds of his own when he asked: “Do you know that God loves you in particular?” And like a good father, “he is for you, not against you,” Mr. Hickman said.
Mr. Messenger stayed in the gym to lead a session called “Transformed by Community.” It was an opportunity for teens to mingle with others from around the diocese. Other sessions were held around the campus.
A group from Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol were among those who participated in “Transformed by Truth,” led by seminarian Derek Mobilio. They were disappointed when the 45-minute question-and-answer session in the Hagan Center was over and said they wished there had been more time to explore issues.
Questions that were asked, and answered, included: What made you want to become a priest? Why can’t priests get married? Do you have to go to confession or can you pray to God directly? How can you convince a friend that Jesus loves them? What should we feel about gay rights and homosexuality?
“I’m not sure I liked how he addressed the homosexual question. I wanted more of a direct answer; a yes or a no,” Kayden Mousseau, a junior from the Athol parish, said later.
But realizing that Mr. Mobilio was going to answer from the Catholic perspective, Logan Wornham, a sophomore from Athol, said he thought he did it well.
During the session, Mr. Mobilio spoke about each person’s inherent dignity and how Catholics must separate the sin from the sinner.
“Look, there is never a condemnation of a person,” he said. “God doesn’t say: Sinner? Out! Gay? See you later!”
“You are not defined by your sins. You are not defined by your sexual attraction,” he noted.
To make the point that sometimes we don’t use things properly, he asked the teens: “What was it made for? What do we use it for?”
Logan said that he understood Mr. Mobilio’s conclusion that sex, in marriage, was made for “babies and bonding.” And he felt he was “trying not to condone (homosexual behavior).”
Participants liked the fact that they got to text their questions to Mr. Mobilio’s cell phone and they didn’t have to ask them in front of the whole group. Trin Astrella and Ryan Couture, both sophomores from St. Mark Parish in Sutton, said some of the questions were “deep ones.”  
“People were curious and they didn’t get any ‘lines,’” Trin said.
The Chapel of the Holy Spirit was the setting for “Transformed by Prayer,” led by Mr. Hickman.
“We can all learn to pray better. So I am going to give you a super easy life hack,” he told a full chapel. “I know you are crazy busy with school, sports, study, youth group, social media. Take the pressure off yourself and remember, God is for us,” he said repeating a message from his earlier talk.
He walked them through five steps for “lectio divina” and outlined a simple way to make their whole day a prayer.
“Give your first thought to God,” he said.
He recommended that each night they open the Bible to a New Testament letter. Then put the Bible on top of their cell phone.
“In the morning when your alarm goes off, the first thing you will see is the open Bible - the word of God,” he said.
Through a careful, slow reading of a passage you will be able to determine what God is saying to you that day, Mr. Hickman noted.
Read a short passage every morning; it only takes five minutes, he said.
“Go back to the beginning, to that thought that God is for you. He loves us, he really, really does,” he said.
Mateo Vera, a sophomore from Our Lady of Providence Parish at St. Bernard’s Church in Worcester, attended “Transformed by Sainthood,” led by Corinne Murphy, an Assumption College graduate. She gave a PowerPoint presentation in the Tsotis Family Academic Center with examples of people who were saints, Mateo said.
“It was good. She showed us how to be a saint,” Mateo said.
And how do you do that?
“Be yourself,” said John Guzhnay, a freshman from Our Lady of Providence. “Start by transforming yourself.”
In his homily during the closing Mass, Bishop McManus told stories about the lives of two saints who have influenced his life, St. Augustine and St. John Paul II, and recommended them as examples to the teens.
John Paul II “knew the youth of the world had to be addressed as they are not only the future of the world, but the present,” the bishop said.
He told the youth that for the last several weeks 250 bishops from around the globe gathered in synod at the Vatican to discuss their generation and their presence in the Church.
He read them parts of a letter the synod fathers wrote to the young people of the world: “We are familiar with your inner searching, the joys and hopes, the pain and anguish that make up your longings. Now we want you to hear a word from us: we wish to be sharers in your joy, so that your expectations may come to life. We are certain that with your enthusiasm for life, you will be ready to get involved so that your dreams may be realized and take shape in your history.”
As Mr. Hickman told the group that God is their father, Bishop McManus reminded them that the Church is their mother and “she does not abandon you.”
“We need you, we love you, we pray for you. We ask you to be strong in your faith,” Bishop McManus said, blessing them and sending them on their way.
 

Photo above: Peyton Deastlov and Kaley Somers from St. Bernadette Parish, Northborough.

Click here to see a photo album from the day