Youth Voices of Carmel @ CCHS
An excerpt from the first Youth Voices of Carmel event: Fr. Filiberto and Sister Helena sat with a group of students at Carmel Catholic High School for an hour long discussion about living your Faith in Carmel as a 21st Century Youth.
This collaborative project seeks to flip the script. Rather than presenting a scripted message to young people, Religious and Lay Carmelites are invited to listen first, allowing youth to lead the conversation through their own questions, experiences, and perspectives. Together, these conversations open a dialogue centered on what it means to live Carmel in the 21st century through the eyes and voices of today’s youth.
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Participants:
Seven Students from Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, IL – Click here to learn more about CCHS.
Fr. Filiberto Oregel, O.Carm. from the PCM Province – Click here to learn more about a religious vocation with the PCM Province.
Sr. Helena of Mary, O.Carm. from the Sisters for the Aged & Infirm – Click here to learn more about the Sisters for the Aged & Infirm.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO BEGINS HERE:
Student: You both kind of mentioned about finding happiness and joy and being grateful in prayer, but what’s something like in your vocation that you use to find joy or something that makes you just really happy and that reminds you this is why?
Sister Helena: It’s really this opportunity. This brings me joy. You know, talking to… a sharing of the faith. I was never a talker. I’m really weird. Religious life makes you a talker, I think. This joy that it brings me to be able to speak about God, to be allowed to speak about God without being politically correct, sometimes it gets me to be politically correct, especially if you’re with young people. That brings me joy. And believe it or not, maybe in the beginning it’s awkward, you know? I may think I’m far out there, too overly… Actually, it has a reverse effect, you know? I’m not standing in the corner of some street and then doing some signs… but spontaneously not being afraid and ashamed of your faith. They talk about all kinds of nonsense these days. Why am I not allowed to speak about something that means something to me? That brings me joy. Now being able to bring Christ to a world that’s hungry for him. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of people that’s just waiting for those words to hear. And you don’t know if God is waiting for you to say yes… to be that instrument. You can be an instrument wherever you are, even as a student.
Fr. Filiberto: And remember that also you keep that zeal in your heart, so you are Carmelites too. Although you are not wearing in a habit, like Sister and myself, you have that zeal. And that zeal in your heart. And every time that you go out, everywhere, people will notice that you have that zeal that always, they can see the differences and say, oh, these people are awesome. And you are!
Sister Helena: Be prophets.
Fr. Filiberto: Yes.
Sister Helena: In your own world, be prophets. Prophets are not afraid. Prophets dare. They dare to be whatever it is. Prophets are not afraid to tell the truth. And prophets know who they are. They have a point of reference. Who am I? To know who you are, you’ve got to talk to God because He was the one who created you.
The Carmelites of the Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, in allegiance to Jesus Christ, live in a prophetic and contemplative stance of prayer, common life, and service. Inspired by Elijah and Mary and informed by the Carmelite Rule, we give witness to an eight-hundred-year-old tradition of spiritual transformation in the United States, Canada, Peru, Mexico, and El Salvador, and Honduras.
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