Always Having Fun!

We are always picking on Mitch!!!

MERCY

Vessels of Love

Do you want to know a secret? The honest truth is I don't always feel like I impact the students. There are youth that come to retreats totally closed off and we have some who come in and are very quiet the entire time. Sometimes, it is difficult to see whether or not they are getting anything out of their day. However, as the feedback coordinator, which is really just a fancy title for the person who sits at a computer recording anonymous evaluations the retreatants had regarding how they thought the retreat went, I really find that they are taking a lot more away from their time with us than I thought. 

Here are some of my favorite responses:

 - "People close to God are full of joy" 

 - Something this person liked best about the retreat was "feeling not alone" 

 - 158 retreatants said their favorite part of the retreat was small groups 

 - "I want to be as involved in my faith as they are" 

 - "Confession actually helps"

Honestly, I have learned that I am simply a "vessel of love" as a friend of mine has put it. The Holy Spirit is the one who works, and our seed planting is doing something, whether we realize it at the time or not. 

-Tina

ALIVE Again.

Any Matt Maher fans among us? If so, I am certainly happy for you.  As for me, his vibe has never quite been my cup of tea. Sorry ‘bout it. The other day though, when it was still that time of morning that is too early for speaking but playing music is helpful for embracing life, his song “Alive Again” came on my Spotify and a line of his lyrics hit me. Here is verse two with the lightbulb line bolded:

“Late have I loved you

You waited for me

I searched for you.

What took me so long?

I was looking outside.

As if love would ever want to hide.

I’m finding I was wrong.”

Think about it. When we love someone or something, do we hide it? I love soccer. I play it as much as I can, I talk about it, and having played NCAA soccer in college is my fun fact about myself on retreat introductions 99% of the time. ZERO HIDING INVOLVED. I love my best friend who lives in Denver, CO. I call her on the phone when I can and many of my life stories include her. Everyone who knows me has heard about Ali Nickel. But it’s not just me, we all share the things we love because they make us happy and they make us alive.

 So why does a part of me continuously feel the need to search for MORE? Is this some warped game of hide-and-seek? Really, would love hide? I explore new pleasures and they’re cool but never enough to fully satisfy me for long. N O T E V E N O N E.  

God, Love Himself, isn’t about hiding. Today I am going to try and just let Him love me. Giving up control. Yep, it’s as hard as it sounds. But the more I look and push and reach, I lose the whole point of love and miss what it could be and even what it should be. If it seems to be hiding, maybe I just need to broaden my perspective and trust a little. It isn’t even logical for love to hide so I’m giving this vulnerability and faith thing a chance.

We don’t hide our love. Where did we get that habit? God. #imageandlikeness 

Expect the God who loves me and you and cannot keep His mind off of us to share His love and let it be more than you anticipate. Let it be different. Let it be better.

“Never lose an opportunity

of seeing anything beautiful,

for beauty is God’s handwriting.”

 – Ralph Waldo Emerson

He loves you.

-Theresa

Truth

      As the year has been progressing, I have been diving deeper. Diving deeper into Love of the Father, Truth, the Passion of our Lord, and in love with my community! All of who I am has been discovering so much about God, my very self, and how to truly love the other. I have also been developing some amazing relationships with the Saints! But the most amazing thing to experience by far is everyone else's growth! It's so beautiful to see others in my community fall deeply in love with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father. To be able to witness the Peace and the Joy and Freedom that have been gained by diving into God makes my soul sore with Joy and thanksgiving to Jesus and Mary! This year has been so beautiful to be apart of and experience the love of this community and be loved by them all. The Lord is so good to us and through all the challenges and obstacles that can sometimes frustrate us, He is there helping us. 

      As for myself, I have been growing, sometimes very painfully, in truth about myself. I have been given the blessing of learning about a lot of my weaknesses and blind spots, and learning to accept the Father's Love and Joy in me in all of it has been a challenge. Learning that just because I fall and cry and whine at Him and complain to Him for giving me blessings and the Cross to carry, He still takes delight in me... ME a little sinner. He just Loves me.  

-Arthur

The Glory Of God Is Man Fully Alive

I came to SPIRITUS in August in the hope of helping the Catholic youth of Wisconsin see how “the glory of God is man fully alive” as St. Irenaeus said. Ironically, I did not anticipate the dramatic way God is bringing this to fruition in my own life as well! SPIRITUS brings me to the foot of the cross every day as I see my infinite need to know the Lord and His generous mercy more in my own life. His love is ridiculously freeing and overwhelmingly fulfilling but my own complacency dinned that realization to thinking I knew God well. How foolish of me to think I could nearly know someone infinitely bigger and better than myself. Every day here, I discover more ways to embrace life in Christ and how to renounce the attachments and habits that keep me from a full life of joy and freedom. In the worlds of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, “to the highest!”

The youth we get to spend time with are absolutely incredible. So many though, do not know how unhappy they are without God in their lives! As happens to all of us, many are numb to the shallowness of life in 21^st century America and the solution to their emptiness. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO LIFE. SPIRITUS is a spiritual lifeline to remind the youth of their worth, purpose, and potential for happiness. 

SPIRITUS retreats give youth the opportunity to be real in a false world and free in the midst of a materialistically enslaved culture; as we walk with them in the discovery of their identity in Christ. I see my life and theirs…all of us children of the Lord with broken pasts and hopeful futures. 

-Theresa

The Face of Jesus

This rug is found in front of the altar at Camp Tekakwitha and Fr. Gary would take care to walk around the image making sure not to set foot on Jesus's face. He explained how in Shogun Japan days persecuted Christians were discovered by being invited into a home with a similar rug, and if they were to walk across the face then they were recanting or were not Christian, but those who purposefully avoided walking on Jesus's face in reverence and respect to the Lord, were arrested immediately. In respect and honor of these martyrs he likewise would avoid setting foot on the face of Christ.

As I look at this image of Jesus, I am reminded of an invitation that has been growing in my heart during my time with SPIRITUS.  The invitation to see the face of Jesus in the face of everyone I meet each day.  When I am on retreat with students I am also looking Jesus in the eyes.  When I share meals with my brothers and sisters here at SPIRITUS, I am sharing a meal with Christ.  When I share a passing smile out in the local communities, Jesus smiles back at me.  It is this invitation to love Jesus in all my neighbors, that has been a daily blessing and grace and I pray that I will continue to want to see You, Lord Jesus in every human face, hidden perhaps but truly there.  I want to make every act to them a service done for You.  Finally, this invitation to gaze into the face of Jesus each and every day is not just for me but for everyone!

-Zach

God works in mysterious ways. At the beginning of this school year when SPIRITUS starts up I was a seminarian for the Green Bay Diocese studying at Mundelein Seminary.  After a few months I discerned that God was calling me out of the seminary and I was trying to figure out where God wanted me next.  The opportunity to work with SPIRITUS presented itself pretty quickly and I decided that it would be a good fit for me.  

It has been a whirlwind time of different retreats, formation and other events going on each week, but it's been great!  SPIRITUS has provided the structure I need to grow in my faith through community, prayer and other forms of formation.  I love being on retreats where we can inspire kids of all ages, one of the most powerful moments of the retreats for me has been when we pray with the kids, it is a powerful experience exposing them to the true love of God.  I look forward to the next several months of retreats and I expect that the kids we encounter will gain much from them as well as the team members growing together in faith.  

-Mike

The Joy of the SPIRIT!

The past months of SPIRITUS have been filled to the brim with the love and joy of the Holy Spirit. The team is full of excitement and gratitude and it has been an absolute delight serving the youth of Wisconsin. It is evident that our young people are seeking truth and that truth is found in Christ and His Merciful Love. I am honored that I am able to be a witness of this beauty and I can't wait for the graces to continue pouring over our team! I thank the Lord everyday for sending us His Spirit and allowing us to witness this gift to the young people we are blessed to encounter on retreats.

May the peace of Christ be with you this day and always!!!

--Lexee

KEEP SMILING!

The SPIRITUS Impact

When asked the question of how SPIRITUS has impacted my life and the lives of youth everywhere in Wisconsin, I can’t help but think of St. John Paul II’s words at World Youth Day in 2000. He said, “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise.”It is precisely the mission of SPIRITUS to ignite the Catholic faith and to awaken a sense of joy and peace that can only be found through a genuine encounter of Jesus Christ himself.






Everyday I get the chance to awaken my faith and meet Christ through the gift of Mass, Adoration, and communal prayer with my team. I can’t stress how much this can transform a person as it deepened my commitment in not finding my worth in people or things but rather through a deep intimacy with my God who is closer than my own heartbeat. SPIRITUS has shown me that less truly is more, for the more time I give to God and others the more I truly receive. The more I let go of my wants and desires, the more freedom I experience in being the woman who God has created me to be.





By interacting with the youth on retreats and in the parish of St. Therese I get to see students experiencing the peace that God so longs to show them especially through one on one prayer. Many of the students are hungering for that peace in their busy schedules and are looking for that intimacy. By taking the time to reflect and hear witnesses they themselves are being ignited to seek and knock on the doors of their hearts which God so lovingly resides in. It is through the knock of SPIRITUS that a simple note of an instrument can become a grand symphony of divine mercy.






-Christen Sheffer