When I left to Hell, ahem I mean Arizona, this weekend, I did not think that it was going to have such a profound affect on my life. I got over to the Owen's house around 1030 thursday night. I hadn't even started packing until around 9 because I was looking for a pair of shorts I knew that I couldn't go to Steubenville without. It took me a whole hour to find those shorts, and I'm thinking "Dang I'm so tired. I can't wait to get in that bus and fall asleep."
We left at 130 in the morning and I could not sleep. It was so cramped and hot in the back seat that it made it uncomfortable to find a sleeping position. We finally make it to Tucson by 1030 am and I'm thinking that we have another 6 hours until we actually do anything. We get there, get our rooms and I take a quick power nap. When I woke up I was so anxious to get this retreat started, but we still had to eat dinner and wait and wait.
Because we had been waiting so long my expectations had sort of declined. I was just thinking that maybe I should be home instead of all the way out here. I thought that maybe this conference wouldn't be all that I hoped. God slapped that idea out of my head on the first night. At first it was pretty chill, until we got to Eucharistic Adoration. It had to be the longest EA I had ever seen, but at the same time the music playing soothed me and the body of Christ inspired me, and I began praying as hard as I could for all the things in my life. I would pray for my family and friends, all the teens celebrating God's love, all the people that had inspired me to become closer to God, all the people who I've hurt, all the people who had hurt me; I just began praying for everyone. I became so overwhelmed for all the people I was praying for and I wanted to help them all. The night ended and I remember talking to everyone and saying that it felt pretty cool, but that I felt that I could've done that type of praying anywhere. So what's so great about Steubenville? After listening to my friends share though I started thinking about why we would be called Guiding Light. Someone was talking about Divine Intervention, and I started thinking: Maybe its not that we need to guide the community and lead them to God, but to guide each other and strenghten our bond with God through these wonderful people we are with. The theme of the retreat was "All Access." I learned that night that God is always there, we always have access to Him no matter where we are. But I learned later the next night that God has all access to us too, and he can help us; we just need to let him into our hearts.
That night I sent all my prayers to someone in particular. Someone who seems to have grown away from church in the past few years. I asked God with all my heart what I can do to help this person, and thought about all the dilemmas that could affect my relationship with this person and God. It was tearing at me, stressing me to the point where I the next day I sought help through prayer and talking to a priest.
This priest inspired me. He was so approachable and so passionate about God and so real, that I felt this guy could be someone I would listen to. He gave the most passionate homily that made the most sense to me, more than any homily that I have heard in my life. I will always remember what he said as it help me strenghten my relationship with the people in my life and the one person in particular. I remember him saying: "A relationship with God is like the notes instruments of a song. By themselves, they can become annoying and uncomfortable. But when they are strung together to form a pleasant melody, they become enjoyable and coexistant. They need each other to make a pleasant melody and strengthen the bond. Now a song cannot be a song without lyrics. When these people who have helped each other and grown together with God, add their own voices separately, they have made the song, and God's love, their own." When he was done with his talk, I talked to him about the conflict I was having. But even after talking to him, I still felt that I didn't know what I should do. Yet his advice will probably always remain in my head.
That night we had Eucharistic Adoration again. And I thinking, "Oh, this is probably going to be the same as last night. What else do I have left to pray about?" Little did I know it would become the most spiritual night of my entire life. The body of Christ was presented before us once again, and I had no idea on what to do. All was quiet this time, except for the priest telling us to gaze deeper into the Eucharist. Now for some reason, I experience most of my passion with God through music and singing praises, but during this time there was no music and my mind started to drift. I didn't feel I could pray too much without music and being so overwhelmed with prayer the day before, so I kinda just sat there thinking about WHAT to pray, not actually doing it. But when the priest stood up and they began playing the music I felt this overwhelming urge to reach out to Christ. And I extended my hand, and almost immediately I was overpowered with love and compassion for the man who had given us back our connection to God. A wise guy once told me "Sometimes God's love is so intense, that sometimes our only response to it can be through tears." I understand what that means because the floodgates of heaven opened and tears ran down my cheeks as I thanked God for everything in my life, my parents, my gifts, my friends, Father P, my girlfriend, and especially for dying for me so that I can share my life and grow with all of these people without fear or suffering because I know that He will always love me.
The song that was playing was "Let it rain. Let it rain. Open the floodgates of heaven." And it seemed so appropriate.
I thought that my tearful, spiritual experience was over. Then the speaker Paul George took the stage and started talking about our access to God and his access to us through the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works its ways through our lives. My whole life I had not thought much about the Holy Spirit. I always prayed directly to God the Father and Jesus. Paul started saying to us that we should ask the Holy Spirit to come into our lives because when we are baptized and confirmed, we become temples of the Holy Spirit, holding it within us. I began praying. Praying harder than I ever had in my life. Praying for the people away from the church. Praying to give me the strength and knowledge to bring these people back. Praying for God to give me the chance to show this people that the Holy Spirit can work through me and show His love through me to all of these people. I prayed that I would be blessed with the words of God to inspire people and to show them the same love and compassion that Jesus had showed me; and bless me with all these gifts to share them on the GL retreat as I would MC it.
For the first time in my life, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit come into my heart and come into my life and fill me with its love and grant me the gifts that I had asked for. Earlier when I had talked about being overwhelmed, I had no idea what I would be experience during this time. My resolve was dedicated and my soul felt born again. Paul then began talking about how sometimes the Holy Spirit can grant gifts and abilities to those who ask, and the floodgates were opened again for me. He asked the leaders to go up to their youth group and ask them if they were ready to accept the Holy Spirit into their lives. When my leader came up to me, I was more than willing, I was begging for the Holy Spirit to come into my life to help me. And when my leader placed the sign of the cross on my forehead, I could not hold back anything. I felt so blessed and happy and overwhelmed by the power and love of God, and for all the people that were with me experiencing this for themselves. I embraced my friends tighter than I ever had before, and we just cried together. Probably the best feeling I have ever had in my entire life.
The remainder of the night we sang songs and praised the Lord's name. Closing with a memorable "Undignified" brought on by popular demand, and everyone just went crazy. That night my friends and I shared with each other and I told them how I felt to finally, for the first time in my life, be blessed with the Holy Spirit.
I learned so much through these people and through one of the final speakers who talked about God urging him to sit and eat with this one person. And the speaker would never answer God's call. That day, during the closing ceremony, Father Dave Pivonka asked all of those who have felt the call this weekend, felt the call of God to become priests, deacons, and leaders in the church to come forward. I remember one of my leaders immediately standing up and walking out there with dignity. I don't know what came over me, but I felt the urge to go up there and join him, which is probably one of the strangest things I've done. If you know me, I do a lot of strange things, but this one surprised me the most. I got up out of my seat and joined him and the hundreds of others who were answering the call. Now as I walked up there, I knew that I can never be a priest, that is just not the calling for me, and they have the most respect from me than anyone, but I felt this desire to want to become a leader in the church and share my faith with others; so I went up there without regrets. I actually don't even know if my leader even saw me go up there with him. I wasn't doing it for him, because I was answering the call, but I was inspired by him.
I felt the retreat was over, with the most spiritual experience I had ever felt and the Holy Spirit within me, ready to go take on the real world of home. As we entered the van to go back to lovely California and leave Hell, ahem I mean Arizona, one of my friends gave me a letter that he had written. He had written one to everyone, and I felt that was very sincere of him. In it he told me about how he has been there witnessing first-hand my tremendous spiritual growth over the last year, year and a half. It made me realize that, not even two years ago, I was ready to just be "whatever" towards my relationship with God; and how I know that I say it too much but, two people had come into GL and somehow strengthened my desire to be like Jesus through them. This journey has been so quick, yet gradual, that I have barely had any time to think about what is happening to me. I didn't care much about being confirmed or continuing my relationship with God. I just wanted to stop having to go to classes on Tuesday, or maybe it was Monday, nights. All of these people have come into my life and made it better from the Mikes to the Tonys to the Laws to the Daniels to the Scubas to the Jaimeesias to the Karlas to the Codys to the Omars to the Rachels to the Aces to the Allans and to everyone who has given me the gift of love and to love, they have all made my life blessed and wonderful.
We came home that night, and stopped at In-and-Out at Coachella Valley. Tony and I saw Mike sit with someone he didn't know and begin talking with him. We just ate by ourselves with Camila because everyone was spread out across the diner. A man wearing an Ace's Hardware shirt came in with his food and sat at the table next to us. We saw him cross himself and begin praying over his food, unashamed praise to God. Being inspired by Mike and Sean Forrest's talk from earlier in the day, Tony and I went over to his table and asked if we could sit and eat with him. He didn't mind and we began eating with him, if not too awkwardly. It was something we had never done before. We asked him how his days was going, was he planning any vacation for the summer. Then we began telling him about our trip to Steubenville. He realized that we were practicing our faith by sitting there eating with him and he wasn't offended at all. Once he asked what denomination we were and understood that we were Catholic, he began telling us the journey of his own faith and being born again. He had felt God speak to him after he had been cursing God for letting all of these things happen to this poor little girl. When he had ended his drive home and had calmed down, yet being so overwhelmed, Jesus spoke to him once again and told him that "Everything will be ok." This man immediately had faith and converted from his Judaism to Christianity and felt the Holy Spirit with him. He challenged us to practice our faith and understand the bible. I truly feel that it was once again our friend, the Holy Spirit, leading us to this man to have this conversation. I feel blessed to have met him. Before we left he said to us that he would hope to see us again in the future. I said to him, "Sir, I know we will see each other again." And he said, "I will see you again in heaven."
I saw Jesus in this man, and I pray to God that we will meet again, at the day of judgment, and walk through the gates of heaven together. I love him, and I love Him, and I love everyone in my life. And I pray that you will love Him too, because if there's one thing I'm now sure of, is that He loves you too.
