Saint Helen youth Ministry (6th-12th Grade) // Family Ministry Spring Session 3 // The Journalist and The Baroness: Revealing God’s Love Goal The goal of this session is to provide teenagers with examples of saints and holy men and women who revealed God’s love in radical and profound ways and then challenge them also to be a revelation of the love of God in their social circles Main Ideas • An essential part of being a disciple of Christ is being a witness of God’s love to the world; we need to love others how God loves us. • Throughout the history of the Church, saints and holy men and women have been profound witnesses to this love in radical and ordinary ways and the lives of Bl. Odoardo Focherini and St. Jane Francis de Chantal provides us with strong examples of how this call is lived out. • Loving others as Jesus loves us sometimes means making sacrifices, but the lives of the saints and holy men and women remind us that those sacrifices can always be met joyfully and bear fruit in this life and the next. Scripture Catechism 1 Timothy 4:12 2015 - 2016 2471 – 2472 Engage Opening Prayer Invite your teen to open in prayer! The prayer doesn’t have to be long or arduous, just intentional. It is okay if it’s just an Our Father or a Glory Be – most teens just feel uncomfortable praying out loud because it’s not something they’re used to. The more often they hear you pray aloud and pray aloud themselves, the more comfortable they become in it. Changes // ask your teen the following: If you could change one thing about last week what would you change? If you could convince your friends about something, what would it be If you could be famous for anything in the world – what would you be famous for? Reflect Influencers Influencers on social media have changed our ideas about impacting people. Society says you need a brand, a big following, to promote products and ideas loudly. We tell ourselves we are too young or old, not smart, famous, or good enough to make a difference. This is not true. In life, our most significant impact is ways our everyday actions – both obvious and subtle – affect the people closest to us. Question: Who are the primary influencers in our world right now? Can I Get a Witness? Pursuing holiness and sainthood requires positively influencing others by being a witness to Christ’s love. The word “witness” might make you think of bold preachers and brave martyrs. Sometimes being a witness to the faith means courageously proclaiming Truth or fighting injustice. But equally important are the quiet moments of witness, subtly showing the love of Christ to others. Those small moments – talking to a family member about your faith, comforting a hurt friend, giving to someone in serious need – are our most common opportunities to be witnesses. If we cannot share Christ’s love in quiet, humble situations, our witness means much less when encountering more significant opportunities to share the faith. Share about a time you needed to discern between loudly, obviously sharing your faith and quietly, subtly sharing Christ’s love. What kind of witness was God calling you to be in that moment? Why? Question: What are some ways teens can be witnesses to the faith? The Journalist All the saints were witnesses in their ways. Some served Christ and his people quietly and humbly. Others performed remarkable feats and endured incredible hardships to proclaim Christ to the world boldly. Blessed Odoardo Focherini and Saint Jane Frances de Chantal are two saints that did both – sharing Christ in subtle and obvious ways at different points in their lives. Blessed Odoardo Focherini lived in Italy in the early 1900s. He was married, had seven children, and worked as a journalist. Blessed Odoardo publicly witnessed his faith by joining a lay group that encouraged Catholic influence on society, especially in countries whose governments were growing hostile towards religion. Bl. Odoardo became the president of this group and was awarded a medal by Pope Pius XI for outstanding leadership. As things changed in his country, Bl. Odoardo became a witness in a tremendous but very secret way. When Italy joined Germany’s side in World War II, it became a dangerous place for Jewish people. Blessed Odoardo served Christ by saving Jewish people. He would provide them with fake identification and accompany them to the border between Italy and Switzerland to enter a country safer for those fleeing the Nazis. Blessed Odoardo was captured during a secret mission to rescue a Jewish doctor from a concentration camp. Blessed Odoardo was sent to a concentration camp himself. He died after one year in the concentration camp from an untreated, infected wound. He wrote one hundred sixty-six letters to his wife from the concentration camp, expressing his willingness to die for his faith. Blessed Odoardo Focherini saved one hundred five Jewish people and, after his death, was honored by Israel, Italy, and the Catholic Church for his heroism. Question: What part of Blessed Odoardo Focherini’s story resonates the most with you? Why? The Baroness Saint Jane Frances de Chantal was born in France in the late 1500s. St. Jane came from a wealthy family and married a wealthy baron. She and her husband had a happy marriage and had six children, though two died in infancy. As a baroness, St. Jane lived a quiet witness to Christ, attending Mass every day and using her wealth to care for people in need. Seven years into her marriage, St. Jane’s husband was killed in a hunting accident. St. Jane’s cruel father-in-law forced her and her children to live with him, threatening to stop financially supporting them if she refused. Saint Jane emotionally struggled with these circumstances but worked to become cheerful again and forgive the man who killed her husband. Saint Jane received spiritual direction from a priest who would also become a saint one day – St. Francis de Sales. Once St. Jane ensured her children would be educated and cared for, she and St. Francis de Sales started a new religious order. Now, St. Jane began witnessing to Christ more publicly. In these days, men and women who wanted to join religious communities were often rejected if they had ailments or disabilities. Saint Jane and St. Francis’ new order, the Congregation of the Visitation, accepted women rejected from other orders due to their age or health. Saint Jane’s sisters served people in the world, while most nuns at this time instead remained in convents for quiet lives of prayer. Many criticized St. Jane for running her order this way, but she used her connections as a baroness to gain even more support. When Saint Jane Frances de Chantal died in the mid-1600s, her religious order had 86 houses, and she became the patron saint of forgotten people. Question: What part of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal’s story resonates the most with you? Why? All In Many of us have parts of ourselves that we want to hide from others. But we are whole beings, and every part of us impacts the people around us and us. That is true of our holiness too. Our faith influences others, and others affect our faith. Because our lives and our holiness require interacting with people, we need to be witnesses of Christ. Bl. Odoardo and St. Jane remind us that being a witness of the Gospel necessitates both love of God and the love of neighbor. Flaunting our piety or shaming those whose faith differs from ours is not being a witness. Being a witness means inviting others to know and love God because we know how good it is to know and love God, and we want that same goodness for them. Since being a witness is an act of love toward God and others, it requires sacrifice. In their witness to Christ, Blessed Odoardo Focherini and Saint Jane Frances de Chantal endured struggles we may never face. But they remind us that the sacrifices we make when we witness our faith – both big and small – can be done passionately and joyfully, knowing God will continue the good work we begin. These saints can be our examples and intercessors as we look for opportunities to share Christ with others in big, small, noticeable, and subtle ways. Question: Have you ever tried to hide your faith? What fears held you back from being a witness? RESPOND Multiplication of Love Place a Crucifix in the center of the group or at the front of the room and give your teen a notecard and a pen. Read John 6:1-13 and then use the following as an example to continue to lead the teens through this time of reflection: Who was this boy? Who was he going to feed with those five loaves and two fish? So many people in our lives have sacrificed for us in some way; often, it goes unnoticed, and we have no idea. But maybe we do know…maybe we have seen those sacrifices made for us, our family, our friends. What are some ways that others have sacrificed for you? Ask the teens to take a few moments to recall someone who has made sacrifices for them silently, then continue using the following as an example: Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we see love multiplied. Every one of us can multiply love by making little sacrifices each day.