Hi!
Recently, we went to the St. Carlo Acutis Youth Day at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. We live only about an hour from the Shrine, and I absolutely love it up there! A few weeks ago they put on this event for high schoolers, themed around St. Carlo Acutis. It looks like they’ve done similar events in the past, but this was our first time at one. My mom, Ben, Ro, and I went, and we brought two of our friends as well.
It was so much fun! There were way more kids there than I was expecting— they had around six hundred people total. It was a full day that included worship music, several talks from Mari Pablo (who I’ve seen on Ascension Presents and was super excited to find out that she’d be there!), a group Rosary around their gorgeous Rosary path (which was very cool— so many people!!!), opportunities for Confession and venerating a relic of St. Carlo, a vocations panel, Adoration, and a beautiful Mass with the Archbishop. Their diocesan youth choir was at Mass and the music was so pretty— I really loved that. The event even provided Chick-fil-A for lunch, along with lots of cool goodies, some St. Carlo–themed and some other things.
I’m so glad we went! It was very fun to go with my Mom, siblings, and our two friends.
I hope they do a similar event next year!
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? There were so many fun and beautiful moments throughout the day, I really enjoyed all of it! One of my favorite parts was seeing Mari Pablo and hearing her speak. I’ve seen her on Ascension and really liked her on there, and she was amazing in person too! She had a great mix of teaching and telling personal stories from her own life, including her conversion story. You can tell she is very passionate about Catholicism and loves Jesus so much. She also has a great sense of humor and had so many funny one-liners— she was super entertaining. The theme of the event was hope, so she talked about that, along with challenges of this day and age and other pieces of following Jesus. It was so cool that she was there to speak and I really loved hearing her!
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I wish there was a little more free time. I think we ended up having a little over an hour or something like that, which included lunch. It was fine— we got to do what we really wanted to do, including venerating Carlo’s relic and visiting the gift shop (their gift shop is amazing!). But I do wish we’d had a bit more time to walk around, look at the Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit and the other stuff they had out, maybe go down to the Apparition Oratory if it was possible, and visit the main chapel because in there they had the veneration of a relic of St. Luke (that was his feast day). But I totally understand why, they had a ton of people there so all the breaks took way longer than planned— it was hard just to leave the room we were all in!
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? I think my biggest takeaways were some of the things the people on the vocations panel said. It included two priests (a diocesan priest and one of the Fathers of Mercy who works at the Shrine), a religious sister, a newly married couple, and Mari Pablo, who is single but hoping to get married and is still waiting to find the right person.
They gave a lot of great tips for finding our vocations, such as…
- Be open.
- Pray about it.
- Give the ones you’re thinking about an honest try (they talked about how all vocations have or can have a built-in trial period).
- Sometimes you just need to jump in and try it.
- Listen to God, hear what He tells you through the still, small voice— but you’ll need to get rid of distractions to hear Him.
- Talk to people who know you, bounce things off of them, and sometimes they will be able to see a certain vocation in you.
- The sister said that oftentimes you’ll just know your vocation deep down (which stood out to me because there’s been one that has been on my heart for a long time. But I want to be careful with that, because that doesn’t mean it’s the one).
- Tell God what you want or don’t want, just talk to Him and tell Him what you’re feeling.
- Also, Mari said that God won’t make you do something that’ll make you miserable or that you’ll hate, it’ll eventually make you very happy. Of course, you need to be open to things that you feel called to even if you don’t fully want it, but it was a good reminder that it’ll ultimately make you happy, not miserable.
Something else that stood out to me was one of the priest’s responses to a question. I can’t remember the question, but he said that when we’re not open, it’s often because we’re afraid that God will take something from us. He shared what this looked like in his own life when he was thinking about being a priest, and then he said, “God is not a taker, only a giver.” He said that we should figure out what we’re afraid God will take from us. This really resinated with me because a lot of my hesitation in following God right now is because I’m afraid He will ask me to do things that I don’t want to do and take things that I love, and I had this on my heart that day beforehand.
Also, just the idea that I should start discerning now, that it’s not too early, was another takeaway.
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? One of the emcees that day is a new employee at the Shrine, his name is John Paul, and he’s their new Director of Communications. He’s a young guy, newly married, and he was bopping all over the place that day— taking pictures and managing different things. Seeing him, seeing this epic event they put on, and being there at the Shrine, surrounded by all the beauty and inspiration that Jesus pours through it, made me curious to learn more about working there or at a similar place, and to learn more about his kind of job. Or maybe more of an event management job at a place like that. I would love to help put on events like that, to be in charge of all the details and to help people come to know Jesus. And I think working at a place like the Shrine would be so amazing and inspirational!
Anyway, these are some of my thoughts about the day.
Thanks so much for reading!
God bless!
Lucy
