The St. Augustine Young Adults Association held its first annual retreat on June 8 and 9 in Middleway, W.V. at the Priestfield Pastoral Center. Thirty-nine young adults came to learn more about their Catholic faith and spend time with other Catholic young adults through social time, mass, and spiritual reflection.
The first night was started off with a prayer service with Father Paul Dressler followed by social icebreakers. The Catholic young adults played games that helped each other learn about each other. The rest of the Friday evening was spent playing cards, board games, and experiencing fellowship among the young adults.
On Saturday, several sessions were held, including one on evangelism. “It basically means sharing the gospel of Christ,” said Jeanne’ Isler, the Young Adult Association Leader. “We talked about different ways of evangelizing and different opportunities to do that.”
Isler led the second session on “Listening for God’s Voice”. In this session, everyone was told to bring an item that was representative of their faith and explain why this was so. For Isler, her item was a rosary. She said, “I’ve had it my entire life…it reminds me of my grandmother…I find a lot of comfort in the rosary…in particular I think a lot about the Hail Mary prayer…”
A third session was led by Father Paul Dressler. Jorge O’Neil, a parishioner at St. Augustine and a retreat attendee, said, “(Father Paul) essentially was speaking of the journey of St. Francis of Assisi…We have all these ambitions of wealth and fame one day and realize that there is a more important calling in life than our selfish needs. That to me…definitely hit a personal note and put things in perspective.”
