Greetings from the road!!

We, Retreat Team 1, have been having a great time here in the city where prairie meets mountain! We’ve been in the beautiful city of Calgary for most of the month and then spent the last week of February in Regina, SK. In Calgary, we did many classroom visits as well as helped out with youth group events with Face to Face Ministries and then we went back to retreats in Regina. The retreats we did in Regina were a little different because we got to help out the Regina diocese to run some of their high school retreats. It was just a little different from what we’re used to, but it was such a learning experience to do things a little differently for once. 

Outside of ministry, we had the opportunity to go to Canmore to see The Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Rockies and the mountains in Canmore as well. We got to go pray in the beautiful church, and then go hike around the Three Sisters Peaks. It was so beautiful that it almost didn’t feel real! We also had a hood day (sisterHOOD and brotherHOOD) where all the guys got to hang out together and all the girls got to do the same. The guys went all out and did axe throwing, go-karting, and a video game tournament. The girls opted for listening to a podcast together, lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant, and a walk in the snow. It was a delightful day for both hoods.

In one of the classrooms we visited in Calgary, Anthony felt called to go sit with a student who was alone in the back of the class. The student told him that he had a hard time standing by God, but that he wanted to be close to God. The student said, “When I am not close to God, I feel like something is missing.” The student said that he did pray, but when Anthony asked him what more he could do to improve his relationship with God, he said “I want to pray with the Gospel.” Anthony then asked him if he knew how to pray with the Gospel and the student said he didn’t, so Anthony borrowed a Bible from the classroom and taught him how to reflect on the scriptures through Lectio Divina. When the session was ending, the student said that it really helped him and thanked Anthony. 

Seeing the student’s gratitude really got me thinking. In February, where it’s winter and it’s cold and the days are short, it can be very hard to be grateful for anything. However, in these harder times we should have an even greater attitude of gratitude. Saint Gianna Molla once said: “The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that he, in his goodness, sends to us day after day.” I believe this to be true. Even though we may not see it at all times, God is constantly blessing us with good thing after good thing. We must only have the eyes to see it.

God Bless,

Retreat Team 1 (Chris, Grace, Ange, Anthony, John Paul, Kirk, Mikaila, Serena)