YOUTH GROUP AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUR PARISH

Jan 17th, 2023, will forever live in infamy here at our parish. A small group of young people and parents gathered to celebrate Mass and hop on a bus for what may be the final Archdiocesan trip to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life. And I wasn't there. Months of preparation to lead a trip of young Catholics to fight for life in our nation's Capitol were foiled by a potent flu that left me semi-conscious on my back for 3 days. I was forced to experience this incredible pilgrimage from the couch via group chats. All the stops, all the misadventures, all the meetups, delivered in convenient little blips of my phone. Thy will be done, Lord!

My absence, of course, was not why this trip would forever live in infamy. The infamous nature of this pilgrimage is found in its finality: this is likely the last trip our Archdiocese will make to D.C. as the fight for life has landed so much closer to home, with our legislature recently passing the most aggressive abortion bills in our nation’s history. I’m confident our young people were strengthened on our collision course with history and found great consolation in this truth. A truth made in possible (in part) with generous gifts from our very own Don Bosco Task Force, which pledged some much-needed funds to the high school students that attended this pilgrimage. So here’s a big THANK YOU to the Society for your tremendous generosity.

Now, some of you might be thinking, “Wait, does Holy Cross have a youth group?” Yes, yes, we do. We’ve been up and running a new program since September of 2022, and I would like to use this time to cordially invite your 6-12 graders to be a part of what God is doing with our youth here at Holy Cross. Our approach to youth group is a bit outside of the mainstream. We begin each group with…Mass! Then we move to our youth room and pray a rosary together, lifting up various petitions, publicly or privately, as we invite our Blessed Mother to be a part of every group. Then we’ll do some praise music, 2 or 3 songs, that fit into the overall theme of the night, followed by short readings and expositions from the Catechism of the Catholic Church or some great saint. We end each group meeting by making a single rosary together to be given to some of the poor and needy you’ll see every day around N.E. Minneapolis (particularly on the bridge where Broadway Ave. Overpasses I-94). Our goal is to help our young people see the adventure of being a disciple of Christ, by lifting their eyes off of themselves and out to the hurting world around them, trusting Mary to show us where a young person might be hurting and in need of encouragement. As we grow, we hope to have yearly retreats as well as missionary endeavors to our city to more directly help and support the poor and needy right here in our local community, in particular by expanding our rosary outreach and joining with all of the terrific youth events happening every month by our Archdiocese, which has a particularly strong love for young people.

We would love to welcome your young people into these nights so please prayerfully consider that 6-7:45pm slot on Wednesday nights as a time to help your child develop deep friendships around their Catholic identity. And pray for us!

~Jeromy Darling, Youth Formation & Confirmation Coordinator