Lenten Retreat–Gathering around the campfire
By Timothy Armbruster, Vocation Director
“Living Like Jesus” is the theme chosen for this year’s Catholic School theme. Both St Francis Xavier School, in St. Joseph, as well as St. James Catholic School, in Liberty, have been working with this theme for the school year. In keeping with this theme, this year’s Lenten retreat focused on the word “evangelize.” As part of the retreat, we played off the simple definition of the word as “story-telling.” Throughout the day, each student was invited to think about the different ways they learn and they different stories that they know. How did Jesus teach? Through word and example, through telling stories, through parables. The retreat focused on gathering around a campfire and telling stories. What stories do we tell? What stories of our family? What stories of our faith? It didn’t matter what stories they wished to tell, it was important that they had a story to tell. Story-telling, evangelizing, begins with knowing our story, knowing the story of our faith and sharing it with others. As we concluded the day, each student was given a red or yellow flame to write on with the intention of a story to tell and who to share it with. As each flame was added to the campfire, the flame grew brighter. Pictured here are middle-school students who are sharing their flames and sharing their story.
