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What Happens When Catholic Kids Help Catholic Kids

What Happens When Catholic Kids Help Catholic Kids

Last updated on: April 27, 2016 at 11:17 pm by Tod Worner

What Happens When Catholic Kids Help Catholic Kids 2016-04-27T23:17:19-06:00 Tod Worner

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“To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.”

– St. Thomas Aquinas (attrib.)

What happens when Catholic kids help Catholic kids?

Let me tell you.

The other night I was invited by a colleague and friend to attend the annual NET Ministries Annual Catholic Youth Benefit Banquet. NET Ministries, which I was only loosely familiar with, is a thirty-five year old endeavor that originated with a visionary young man named Mark Berchem. In 1980, Mark and eleven other young adults were asked to jump in a van, head to southern Minnesota and bring the Catholic Faith on the road to teenagers and young adults. In the span of three weeks, this tireless band of evangelists offered eighteen retreats in as many parishes. The impact these young adults had on their younger audiences was profound…and word traveled fast. By the following year, requests began pouring in to offer similar retreats in Fargo, ND, Sioux Falls, SD and Winona, MN. There was a clear need to awaken the passion for Christ in the hearts of Catholic middle and high school students. So, in short order, twelve young adults with convicted hearts (and a van) soon headed to those three cities. And within a year, a movement was born.

NET, short for National Evangelization Teams based out of the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis*,* now sends a dozen young adults in a van to dioceses in numerous states and countries for year long service. These young team members learn to work together, live together, teach together and pray together. They take very seriously their Scriptural inspiration (and NET namesake) from Mark and Luke, respectively.

“Come after me, I will make you fishers of men,” (Mark 1:17)

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch,” (Luke 5:4)

And their sole purpose is to reach just one more young person on behalf of Christ. Their call is to be Agents of Grace in an often Grace-less world.

To see young people on fire for their faith is exhilarating. To encounter visionaries like Mark Berchem growing a movement from the first ragtag, but exuberant cadre of traveling Catholic kids into an organized movement that recruits, trains and sends off teams to far-flung regions within (and outside of) the United States is inspiring. And to dine in the presence of Archbishop Hebda and Cozzens, priests and nuns, believers and benefactors who see this effort as indispensable is galvanizing.

But let me tell you what truly jarred me at this Benefit.

A young man, a NET team member, told a story of darkness. A junior in high school at a private Twin Cities school, he found himself lost, isolated and increasingly hopeless in the wake of his mother’s death from breast cancer. Ostensibly Christian, he nonetheless found himself inconsolable and dislocated from family, friends and God. Increasingly, he found himself descending deeper and deeper into the black belly of sin. His was nothing less than a dark night of the soul. Until…he met one of the members of NET Ministries. A young team member found this suffering high school student. And listened. This suffering student recalled, “He listened to me. He was the only one who listened to me. And then he helped me,” Before long, their discussions moved from the angst to answers. Conversations led to Prayer. Mass. The Eucharist. Peace began to break in on this student. And his life was changed forever. He converted to Catholicism. Now, he enthusiastically serves as a NET team member. Now, he does for others what was first done for him.

Unquestionably, this story was compelling… But this is the jarring part.

At the conclusion of this testimonial, something happened. All around this packed banquet hall, NET team members – young adults with blue NET T-shirts – positioned themselves at various points between our tables. They each held a stack of white tagboard with the first one showing in large writing their own name and age. And then, as the sweetly haunting piano of Matt Maher’s Empty and Beautiful began to play, each team member in their various positions began flipping and revealing, in sequence, one tagboard after another. One member’s card said, “I felt I needed to live up to my siblings.” Another’s said, “I was wounded by my mom’s death.” Yet another’s revealed,”I felt abandoned by God.” All around the room, each table was witness to a pain, a doubt, a deeply personal suffering shared by the young adult standing in front of them. Not a sound could be heard outside of music and the shuffling tagboard. But then, after this initial tagboard revealed an anguished time in their lives, the tagboard that followed in each stack showed the letters “BTP” (“But Through Prayer”) followed by statements like,”I found God loved me as I am” or “I found my mom is still here” or ” I felt accepted in spite of my sins”. As the song moved along and the tagboards advanced, we were witness to the deeply personal struggles in these team members’ lives, but also the extraordinary graces that came through prayer, the sacraments, and the faithful companionship these NET team members received from team members who helped them in their youth.

It was jarring. And extraordinary. It was one of the most poignant and transformative experiences I have had in recent memory.

Later that evening, moved and haunted by the Matt Maher song, I downloaded it and looked up the lyrics – lyrics that NET felt most fitting to accompany the evening’s stories of loss and grace.

My past won’t stop haunting me
In this prison there’s a fight between
Who I am and who I used to be

This thorn in my side is a grace
For because of it the flesh and blood of God
Was offered in my place, my place

You fought the fight in me
You chased me down and finished the race
I was blind but now I see
Jesus You kept the faith in me

What happens when Catholic kids help Catholic kids?

I just witnessed it.

It was extraordinary. And beautiful.

To make a contribution to the worthy efforts of NET Ministries (or to learn more), please link here

———–
Photo credits: Pixabay
-https://pixabay.com/en/marseille-statue-hand-bronze-142394/
-https://pixabay.com/en/grave-tomb-cemetery-tombstone-1229132/

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