CYM Meeting: Connection, Retreat, Formation

By Joel Littlepage, CYM, Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, MD

(Takoma Park, MD – November 19) – The SUE Province’s annual coordinators of youth ministry (CYM) meeting took place from Tuesday, October 29, through Friday, October 31, at the Sacred Heart Retreat Center in Newton, NJ.

The Salesian Family is beautifully diverse. It was inspiring to be in the same room with men and women from around the world who give their lives to help the young encounter Christ as they carry the legacy of the Salesian charism across the Eastern United States and Canada. One cannot calculate the value of getting to know each other’s stories over delicious nun-cooked meals, laughing and jostling around a table playing “Grandma’s Dice,” and hearing the joys and sorrows of ministry. Just as our students experience on the SLR Retreats, we CYMs shared contact information and began relationships with each other that we trust will carry forward in beautiful ways. This kind of connection pervaded our entire time at Sacred Heart.

For those of us in full-time ministry, it is vital to be given space to attend to the matters of our own hearts with adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, Mass, outdoor Rosary walks, Morning and Evening Prayer, lectio divina, and sacred silence.

Our first day of the trip was a concentrated day of retreat, which incorporated all of the aforementioned practices. As a recent convert to Catholicism, I received this day as a gift from God, a confirmation of my journey of faith, and a pledge of His love. In my experience, our Salesian Family earnestly lives out the words of Don Bosco: “Entrust everything to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary, Help of Christians, and you will see what miracles are!"

We spent the last two days of our CYM meeting exploring several fruitful paths of formation. Fr. James “Jay” Horan, SDB, gave us a wonderful three-part training on “Salesian Team Ministry,” with abundant scriptural reflection and practical advice on how to form and strengthen teams of students and adults in our Salesian ministries. Fr. Tyler Tenbarge, a diocesan priest from Evansville, IN, and founder of a ministry called Savio, shared with us a fruitful model of ministry among young men that he developed from the life and resolutions of St. Dominic Savio. Now, years later, that ministry is bearing remarkable fruit in many ways, among them increased vocations to the priesthood. Both of these formation tracks equipped me to return to my own field of ministry with new ideas and goals.

We closed our time together with helpful discussions between CYMs and the province staff about how we can improve upon the good work we are doing and expand our missional collaboration in the season ahead.