This morning, Rachel Leininger spoke at our women’s session about how our identity as a women is revealed by God.

She began with reminding us that we are tempted to find our identity in other places and things that give us our worth, whether that be our place on a sports team, the role that we play in our family, our spot in a group with friends, or our grades in school. But every time, those things that we let define us are going to fall short of telling the whole story of who we are. The world is really good at reducing our identity.

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Ethan Hunter from Edmond, Oklahoma shared his testimony this morning during the men’s session.

His sophomore year of high school was really rough. The friends he hung around with brought him down, and eventually, pushed him further away from God. He struggled with the thought of taking his life, something sacred that God had given him. But during this moment, he felt God’s presence and it filled him with hope for the future. At the lowest of lows, God did not abandon him.

God changed the way Ethan looked at himself and brought him a true brotherhood to uplift him. He has realized that he is a strong man, and his strength comes from God!

Our women’s session today began with a personal testimony from Julia from Belleville in the Diocese of Belleville.

During high school, Julia made social media accounts in hopes that she would be able to reach more friends. But that’s not how things worked out. People began to tear her down and made her feel worthless.

At her first Steubenville Conference, she still found herself comparing herself to everyone in the room. During Adoration, as the monstrance came by her, she saw her reflection in the glass. From this image, she was reminded that God made her beautifully in His image and likeness.

She encouraged the women to turn to the Lord the next time they are struggling with their worth.

Jonah is from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he attends St. Pius High School in Festus and is a parishioner at Church of Our Lady. This morning he shared with us the moment God taught him to listen to Him in prayer.

Jonah had a tendency to thrust his problems on Our Lord during prayer, expecting Him to solve them without patiently waiting for a response. Essentially, he used to pray in a way where he just wanted God to fix his problems.

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Today’s Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Peter Wells and we are so blessed to have him with us this year. He serves as the Apostolic Nuncio to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland.

We all desire to feel loved, important, cared about. It is in our nature. We want to know we have people who see us for who we are. We desire to know our worth, but at what cost? In his homily this morning, Fr. Dave Pivonka challenged us to examine our true worth.

What is our worth?

Fr. Pivonka started his homily by defining worth as what one person is willing to pay for something, and what one person is willing to sell something for. As he addressed the youth he stated, “As a high school student your world is all about defining worth: you are a starter on the football team, you got an A on a test, you are in theater. You say that is what gives us value and worth, but brothers and sisters those are not the things that define us…you are worth more.”

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