Young adult retreat to build faith, fellowship

By RENEE WEBB
Content and Design Coordinator

Providing gatherings for young adults to connect with one another and be nurtured in their faith is something most parishes continually look for ways to offer.

Father Zach Jones, parochial vicar at Divine Mercy Parish in the northeast part of the diocese, came up with the idea of offering a Young Adult Retreat after talking to other priests who have organized similar events and saw fruits of the gatherings.

“We’ve been looking at trying to get something like this going for a while – a quick 36-hour retreat over the weekend to give people of our parish a chance to step aside, pray and relax,” he said.

Divine Mercy is hosting a Young Adult Retreat on Aug. 9-10 for parishioners aged 18 to 30. The retreat will be held at the rectory of Wesley St. Joseph Church, which is part of Divine Mercy Parish. It will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 and will conclude at 6 p.m. on Aug. 10.

While the retreat is intended for parishioners of Divine Mercy, if space allows, young adults of neighboring parishes could possibly attend. It is limited to 12 young adults.

Father Jones“The demographics for our parish are similar to a lot parishes in the diocese. There are not a ton of young adults, especially faithful young adults, so they can easily feel isolated or out of place,” said Father Jones, who mentioned they hope to catch a lot of students before they go back to college, plus they have a lot of young families in the parish. “I hope this can bring a couple of groups together so they can realize they are not the only faithful young Catholic in the parish.”

The retreat is organized and will be facilitated by Father Jones and Thomas Kollasch, a diocesan seminarian from Bancroft, which is part of Divine Mercy Parish.

“The goal is to bring our young adults together to encounter one another and to pray together,” said Kollasch. “We hope to provide for them space to share life for a time and a place to drink in the font of their peers’ faith and from their peers’ struggles to live faithfully.”

Father Jones said he is hopeful the retreat will foster some friendships and relationships.

“The practice of a retreat is helpful for some people to recognize God’s presence in our lives and his work,” he said. “Then, hopefully, you can do it more easily when you are out in the world.”

The two are still determining the particulars of the retreat as well as the content of theirThomas Kollasch short reflections, but Kollasch has been inspired to pull from the weekend’s Mass readings.“I noticed Jesus’ first words in the weekend’s Gospel are, ‘Do not be afraid,’” said the seminarian, adding that is a good starting place.
Father Jones noted that “do not be afraid,” is a concept most people can relate to through fears and anxieties in life.

“The confidence of our Lord is always helpful so that it can be applied to so many different situations and circumstances,” he said.

The organizers pointed out the format of the retreat will be fairly simple. There will be a few talks, Mass, adoration, liturgy of the hours, time for silence and community time.

“It’s pretty open to see what the Lord has to offer. The people who attend might be coming from all sorts of backgrounds,” he said. “We are going to let the Holy Spirit speak to us that weekend.”

Through the retreat, Father Jones said he hope it offers young adults encouragement to remain faithful on their spiritual journey and provides some quiet time for discernment as well as confidence of God’s presence in their lives.

It is also Father Jones’ hope that this is not the only retreat offered by Divine Mercy Parish.

“If this goes well, we are hoping to continue to offer these – maybe do one every other month possibly for couples or high school students,” he said. “The retreat experience is really important for people and we don’t often have those opportunities.”

As a firm believer in retreats, Father Jones mentioned others could consider offering this type of gathering in their own parishes.