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'Strengthened by God's presence' at Steubenville
by Chad LaPlante special to the Michigan Catholic
Published July 18, 2008
This was the second year I had the privilege of attending the High School Youth Conference at Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio.
This year's conference changed me in many ways.
The music was awesome and uplifting! Bob Rice and his band made the retreat what it truly was meant to be — a time for the youth to open up and to praise God with all their heart, mind, and soul.
The theme for this year's conference was "Witness."
The Scripture is Acts 1:8, "...But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the Earth."
The English dictionary defines witness as "to bear witness to; clarify; or to declare to be correct, true, or genuine." This definition very clearly explains to me why "Witness" would be a correct title.
The challenge to me is how I become His Witness.
While attending the youth conference, I experienced many new feelings toward God, others, and myself. In my eyes, adoration is the most powerful and the most emotional time of the entire retreat.
My personal experience during adoration was very different from last year because I was given knowledge of how my sins had affected my relationship with the Lord.
As I knelt before the Lord, tears were coming to me through the awareness that I had withdrawn from God. How I longed to return to Him by the grace given through the sacrament of reconciliation.
Emotionally this year, I felt that God was with me in a new way. It was as though He was telling me how much He loved me for who I am. He also wanted me to know that where I am in my life is where He truly wants me. Physically, I felt greatly strengthened by God's Presence.
Witnessing the many emotions felt – and some tears shed — by my friends, I felt God calling me to pray over several of them. I felt humbled that He used me to reach out to others and to comfort them in their times of need.
I was a witness to the presence of God in that moment when His healing of those around me occurred through the laying on of hands.
Another great experience was the gift of receiving a blessing from a young priest who had been ordained for just 22 days. He told us that he wanted to give us a special blessing in the first year of his being ordained.
Overall, the conference served as a life-changing experience, and had a very powerful effect on my relationship with God.
Chad LaPlante is a 15-year-old parishioner of St. Charles Parish in Newport, and also a student at St. Mary Catholic Central in Monroe. He was among more than 50 youths from the Monroe Vicariate who attended the Catholic Youth Conferences in Steubenville, Ohio.
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