Youth Are Stewards of God’s Kingdom

By Marie Elena Giossi

Nearly 50 young people learned more about how they can better receive, share and grow their God-given gifts and talents at diocesan Stewardship Day, Nov. 15, at the Immaculate Conception Center, Douglaston.

Sponsored by the diocese with funding from the Alive in Hope Foundation, Stewardship Day offered something for all 350 attendees of all ages, ethnicities and parishes in Brooklyn and Queens. In addition to the main presentations in English, tracks in Spanish, Creole and Youth were available.

Fourteen-year-old Adanna Morgan was excited about Stewardship Day, particularly the Youth Track, which gave her a sense of being included and important in the Church.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can participate in your church,” said Morgan, who’s active in her parish, Our Lady of Refuge, Flatbush, as an altar server, choir member and youth ministry member.

Morgan was one of nine young people from Our Lady of Refuge’s Creole and English youth groups who attended the day with pastor, Father Michael Perry. The only two young men in the group were Jason Leveille, 12, and Anthomel Tulce, 13, who already share their time and talents as altar servers and members of the youth ministry.

Following an opening prayer service led by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and a keynote address from Michael Murphy, executive director of the International Catholic Stewardship Conference, regarding “Christian Stewardship: Transforming the Treasure Entrusted to Us,” teens and young adults set a course apart from their pastors and youth ministers, and made their way to a first-floor conference room for the Youth Track’s three sessions.

Receiving God’s Gifts

Morning sessions addressed the theme of Receiving God’s Gifts that brought teens to Bill McGarvey, editor-in-chief of BustedHalo.com, and an accomplished singer/songwriter, who shared how he’s found God and himself through music, which has also been a means to connecting more deeply with others.

Growing up in the 1970s in an ultra pious Catholic family, McGarvey explained in between playing his guitar and harmonica, that the faith of his youth was “anemic and shallow.” As a teenager, he was taken in by the “powerful honesty” he found in the lyrics of Bob Dylan and his contemporaries, who he saw as “pilgrims alive in the world.” In the artists he found “a refracted ray of faith,” and in their music, “human truths.”

Marie Elena Giossi Photos 

AMEN! You Go Girl! and Preach It! were positive affirmations Laurie Whitfield, above, and Robert Cammarata offered in their session “Growing My Gifts.” Youth shared their life achievements and individual talents with each other in small groups, below.

That was a turning point in his life and faith, although it took time for him to unite his faith with his career, something he’s achieved at BustedHalo, where he and others strive to get young people “thinking differently about God and faith.”

“Our experience of the sacred is always coming into our lives but it’s never orderly. … It’s a mess,” he said, hence the title of his newest album, Beautiful Mess, which was also the title of his presentation. “The things you love and are passionate about, there’s God in that.”

McGarvey’s way of connecting to God and others through his God-given talent for music struck a chord with Mario Ellington, 17, part of the youth ministry at St. John the Baptist, Bedford-Stuyvesant. He hopes to do the same in his future career as a surgeon, which he believes God is directing him toward. “I want to help people,” he said.

Sharing God’s Gifts

Early afternoon sessions concentrated on Sharing One’s Gifts and teens attended “Our Experience of World Youth Day,” a panel moderated by Father Gerard Sauer, diocesan pilgrimage director, and co-coordinator of the 126-person diocesan delegation to WYD in Sydney, Australia, during July.

Teens watched a six-minute video montage from the most recent WYD and then listened to three pilgrims, Arnelia James of St. Gregory the Great, Crown Heights, and seminarians Christopher Heanue and Carlos Velásquez, give testimony about how they’re sharing their gifts to build the Church and spread God’s kingdom.

Other Sydney pilgrims from Holy Family, Flushing; Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Astoria; and St. John’s University, were also present. They sang along when James Behan took out his guitar to play the song he wrote for WYD, “You Will Be My Witnesses.”

Father Sauer explained to the young people sitting before him that the experiences they saw and heard about wouldn’t have been possible without the Alive in Hope Foundation’s Bishop John Loughlin Fund for religious education and evangelization and the St. Charles Borromeo Fund for continuing education of clergy, which provided $97,565 in scholarships to pilgrims.

He encouraged teens to be open to the Spirit in their lives and where the Spirit leads them, perhaps even to Madrid in 2011.

While Gloria Lafortune, 17, part of the Youth Friends of Jesus, a Creole youth ministry at Our Lady of Refuge, attended Stewardship Day to discover new ways she could “give back to the church community,” she was interested to learn how other young adults and ministers are sharing their talents in their communities. She was particularly impressed with the Alive in Hope Foundation’s commitment to supporting young people.

“It’s a blessing for them (Alive in Hope Foundation) to donate that money so that teenagers can go. They’re doing their Christian duty,” Lafortune said.

If grants are available in 2011, she hopes to be among the diocesan pilgrims going to Spain.

Growing God’s Gifts

Growing God’s Gifts was the focus of the final presentation, “Growing My Gifts” by Laurie Whitfield, associate director of parish stewardship, Rockville Centre diocese, and Robert Cammarata, pastoral development coordinator at St. Brigid’s parish, Westbury. Equal numbers of youth and adults attended this lively presentation, during which attendees shared their greatest life achievements with each other. Participants received positive feedback and provided affirmative responses regarding each others’ individual gifts.

At the heart of the exercise was showing that “everybody has different gifts but all the gifts are needed to build the Kingdom of God,” Whitfield noted.

“Keep Christ in Christmas” Poetry/Art Contest

The Knights of Columbus, Archbishop John Hughes Council 481, Dyker Heights, has teamed with The Tablet to host the “Keep Christ in Christmas” poetry/art contest. All high school students in Brooklyn and Queens are invited to share their creative talents by submitting an original poem up to 250 words, or piece of artwork no smaller than 8 1/2’’ x 11’’, reflecting the theme, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three entries in each category. All participants will receive a Keep Christ in Christmas bracelet. Entry deadline: Dec. 12 at 5 p.m. Winning entries will be printed in The Tablet’s Dec. 20 issue. Submit entries to: Keep Christ in Christmas Contest, The Tablet, 310 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215. Call 718-965-7300 ext. 2020 or e-mail megiossi@thetablet.org, for more information.

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