Blog

"Our diocese hosted an overnight that brought together both paid youth ministers and volunteer youth leaders for professional development, retreat, networking, and fellowship. Seeing the value this experience could bring to ministries, I invited one of our young adults—who has been actively helping with our parish youth ministry—to join me. My hope was to accompany her, expose her to the wider diocesan youth ministry community, and help equip her with tools, relationships, and confidence for future ministry. Who knows—perhaps in the future she may become more involved in our local young adult leadership team. Throughout the overnight, I was struck by how formative the experience was—not because of anything I personally taught or led, but because she was given space to observe, listen, ask questions, and engage with seasoned leaders who shared their stories and insights. It was a reminder that ministry is not always about doing the visible work ourselves, but about creating opportunities for others to grow into their gifts. I am grateful that I was able to invite her along, walk beside her, and trust that God was at work in ways both seen and unseen, planting seeds for her continued involvement in ministry."

"One of our young adults took the initiative, and they will be leading a Lenten Bible study!"

"We have a moms' group that gets together on Wednesday mornings, and I have met some really incredible women there. It has been a gift to be a mom alongside them. My son was supposed to have a surgery in early February, and I shared with this group that I was nervous about it. Come early February, we all got the flu, so his surgery was forced to move back. However, I never communicated this with the other moms, but one of the moms from our group remembered and texted me on what was supposed to be the day of my son's surgery to say that she was praying for us and wanted to bring a meal by. Truthfully, it made me cry, because she was treating us as if we were family through her kindness and willingness to just simply be there for us. I thought that that was such a beautiful encounter and testament to what is happening in our moms' group (99% fall under the young adult category)."

"We decided to restart our young adult small group after a brief hiatus, and we've deiced to study lectio divina for this upcoming spring."

"My biggest challenge this month was accepting the decision to cancel our retreat due to low interest. It was difficult because I initially felt a sense of personal failure, questioning whether I could have done more to encourage participation. At the same time, I had to come to terms with the reality that attendance cannot be forced and that engagement depends on timing, interest, and individual circumstances. This experience challenged me to balance disappointment with understanding, and to view the situation not as a failure, but as an opportunity to reflect, learn, and plan more intentionally for the future."

"We recently had our Ministry Fair for new members to come and see all the ministries we have here at the Cathedral. I ended up talking to some new young adults who go to college about 10 minutes away. They were exploring the faith together and ended up joining our Young Adult GroupMe to stay updated on the events we have going on! It was my favorite interaction of the day because, first, they were open to the faith; second, they were walking together on the journey; and, finally, they were willing to take a chance and get involved without knowing exactly where it would lead them. That level of faith can be lost easily, so to see that was really encouraging."

"So happy to announce that we have hired a bilingual young adult to be our full-time Director of Religious Education! Beginning in March, she will be another young adult on staff at our parish. This will really help with our growing parish made-up of many young adults."

"The Spanish-speaking young adult group was open to learning about lectio divina. They broke into small groups and experienced the beauty of personal sharing and reflecting."