“If you’ve ever been to a Steubenville conference, you know we are never really finished.”

Father Dave Pivonka said this today at the end of Mass. Father was referring to the opportunity to come forward if any of the teens felt God might be calling them to religious life. However, isn’t this true in a different capacity? We are never really finished. While we may load up on the buses and head back to our assorted homes and parishes, the call to our vocation and to holiness is ever beckoning. No matter what our vocation is, we should all continue everyday to answer that call, whether to married, single, or religious life.

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Today’s Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Peter Wells who serves as the Apostolic Nuncio to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. Bishop Kemme from the Diocese of Wichita was also with us. Additionally, dozens of priests from all over the United States concelebrated.

We all have a desire to be chosen. Whether that be for a sports team, a club, a play, getting into college or attaining a job. There is something deep about the human heart that desires to be chosen. In his homily this morning, Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, reminded us that we are all chosen to be holy.

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Jason began his talk with brutal honestly, describing how in high school he had one foot in the world and one foot in the ‘youth group world’. Two of his reasons for this, which might resonate with some of us, were that:

1. He had met some religious people that were weird, and he didn’t want to be weird.
2. He didn’t want to lose his personality.

He later found out, by the way, that those weird religious folks were probably weird before they became holy. Fair enough. And he has also discovered since that it’s sin that actually dulls our personality, while God helps us to be fully ourselves. Retweet.

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We want to introduce you to the 2018 interns of the Office of Youth Ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Louis— Joe, Katie, Sam, and Chris.

These amazing humans work all summer to make sure that both of our conferences go as planned! They have, collectively, been to 18 Steubenville Conferences! They have gone as teens, young adults, youth minister interns, chaperones, ushers, seminarians, and now as interns.

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