Our Youth

Let Them Speak:  A Reflection on Local Catholic Youth Day

April 6, 2017

By Emily and Sarah Downey

Sisters Emily and Sarah Downey are seventh graders at St. Anselm Catholic Academy, Bay Ridge. This was their first Brooklyn Catholic Youth Day.

Our favorite memories we had at Saturday’s Brooklyn Catholic Youth Day were the Catholic music bands. We really liked “The Costa Crew” songs. One of the songs they sang was about suffering, and being that our Dad died about a month ago, we were able to relate to it and got teary eyed.

This helped us with our faith because in this dark and low point of our lives, it’s sometimes hard to have faith in anything. It helped us know that God is always watching out for us.

 

 

 

By Victoria Zagula

Victoria attends St. Anselm Catholic Academy, Bay Ridge.

If someone asked me how my day went, I would say that I thought it actually would be so boring. Instead, it was a really cool experience, an experience with your friends and other schools.

We went on the bus for about an hour and a lot of us thought we would never get out of the bus because it was so long. We came inside, and settled ourselves in a church. Our host came in such a great mood and said much fun it was going be.

I was so caught up hearing the first discussion about being a priest that I didn’t even hear the noise around me. After Mass, we were chosen to go upstairs for 90 minutes listening to music. It was so much fun, especially the rap. Then we were called down for lunch. We then got back to the church and we heard another discussion about how our brains work.

After that we did reconciliation. The whole day was very well planned and I enjoyed it.

By Brianna Diaz

Brianna attends seventh grade at St. Anselm Catholic Academy, Bay Ridge.

In the Brooklyn Catholic Youth Day retreat, I had a lot of fun and it was also entertaining. At first, I thought it would be boring, but it was worth my Saturday, even the teachers enjoyed it and were dancing.

When we went into the church and sat down we had a host that was funny and we had a speech from a guy about education and school. After we did a fun game and then afterwards we had Mass. Also, the people there weren’t trying to make it boring, they were making it very fun for the kids.

This isn’t just about having fun, it was about how God will always be there for you no matter what. My favorite memory in the youth day retreat was when we went upstairs in the church and heard different people singing, but the best part was the rap! At first, two guys were rapping about God, faith, hope and love and then guess what? The two guys turned out to be Brothers of Don Bosco!

This Youth day retreat helped my faith because they said to always be yourself and never change yourself just because someone else told you to. It’s important to know that God will always be there for you through sad, hard and happy times. This retreat was very exciting and inspirational.