Tonight I went to day 1 of a parish retreat. The topic was the need to pass along faith, from generation to generation and to those who do not have faith. Tonight was kind of an overview of what it means to be Catholic, why people may leave the faith, and what parishes may be able to do better. We talked with each other about why we are engaged on our faith. In general, the Catholic faith is community oriented, has a focus on service, and follows Jesus’ directive in celebrating Mass. I was surprised to hear that for those young people who are being raised Catholic, the median that they decide to no longer identify as Catholic is only 13 years old. The speaker then talked about different ways that parishes could be more engaging and welcoming to young people. His talk was very reminiscent of those I heard 13-20 years ago. That made me ponder and wonder – if parishes have been hearing this message for that long, why is it still an issue? One of the statements that stood out to me was, “God is bigger than all the words that we have to describe Him.” And “From the chaos, God created .” from the book of Genesis. Perhaps we can do what we can to go and make disciples, and at the same time allow God to do His work too. If I make it tomorrow night, it will be interesting to hear what the speaker has to say about different ways we, as faithful individuals, can help to bring others to Christ.

I Found God today listening to a talk about faith.