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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Vocation stimulator?

Young people pray at the Steubenville North youth conference July 26 on the St. Paul, Minnesota, campus of the University of St. Thomas.
Young people pray at the Steubenville North youth conference July 26 on the St. Paul, Minnesota, campus of the University of St. Thomas.

“If you‘ve been thinking about religious life, or thinking about thinking about it, come up for a blessing from the bishop,” Sister Miriam Heidland told young women at the Steubenville North youth conference July 26.

About a hundred responded to the invitation of the Sister of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, coming forward from the chairs on the floor and the bleachers of Schoenecker Arena on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

Megan Beuter hesitated at first, but eventually joined the group.

“I went up because I think God may be calling me,” said Beuter, a member of St. Mary parish in Solon, Iowa.

Beuter, who will be a senior at Solon High School, said, “I’ve always been afraid of not using my gifts if I went into religious life, but when Sister Miriam talk about women religious helping people through the ministries they do, I felt I wasn’t going to be disappointed if I choose to do that.”

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Paul Harty of St. John the Evangelist parish in Greenfield, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, was one of some 100 young men who accepted the invitation of Father Mike Schmitz to come forward for a blessing if they were thinking they might have a vocation to the priesthood.

Harty, a 16-year-old high school sophomore who belongs to the “Ignited” youth group from the Basilica of St. Josaphat in Milwaukee, said being with so many joyful young people at the Steubenville conference and feeling the overwhelming love they have for Jesus helps him realize he is not alone in efforts to live a faith-filled life.

He said the three-day conference will help him “just being faithful to God’s will in my life.

“It will help me have perseverance, strength and peace to be able to say, ‘Your will God, not mine,’ ” Harty said.

Almost 2,000 young people from across the upper Midwest attended the three days of talks, liturgies, workshops and opportunities for prayer, adoration and the sacrament of reconciliation at the Steubenville North conference in St. Paul.

More than 45,000 young men and women are taking part in Steubenville conferences across the United States this summer.

The conferences are organized by Bloomington, Minnesota, based Partnership for Youth and are an outreach of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

 


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