Fr. Martin began his session on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory by calling up a volunteer from the crowd and asking her if she is “saved”. “Raise your hand if you think this teen is saved,” he asked the crowd. He was impressed when only a few hands went up. Then he asked if she was redeemed. Many more people raised their hands. He nodded and then clarified, “We are all redeemed, but we are in the process of being saved.” Jesus died on the cross and paid the price for our sins, but we could still reject Him.

What happens when we die?

Our lives are brief compared to eternity. So this is what we should remind ourselves when we have to make the sacrifice to choose what is good and pure and holy. When we die we all have the immediate judgment. At the end of all time, Jesus will come back. There will be no more confusion about Jesus and there will be a final judgement.

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This afternoon, Lisa Cotter reminded up that we live in a time when dating is really confusing. It is extremely difficult to navigate the dating world: there are no norms to dating anymore, and because of technology, as we scroll through our phones, we feel as if we’re connecting with someone, but in reality, we’re not. In order to connect with someone, you need that face to face interaction and we cannot get that through a screen. While texting is a wonderful and convenient thing, unfortunately it doesn’t let us see another’s emotion. We find it difficult to interpret what the other is saying and it can get confusing, so Lisa reminded us that “texting is for information, not emotion.”

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Nic Frank spoke to us this afternoon about families and the impact that we can have on our own family. He began by making a comparison to Canada’s own All Dressed Ruffles. If you took out any of the flavors, these chips wouldn’t be the same. Something would be missing. The same can be said for our families. If we took away any of its members, they would be changed. Something would be missing.

Everyone’s family is different, but regardless of the family you come from, our hearts long for family. We were brought into this world through family and they are all around us. That being said, it is easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to the families we see on TV shows and social media. It can be easy to begin asking ourselves “Is this as good as it gets? Could it be better?” Additionally, some families have been taken down a path that no one intended. The path of divorce, addiction and other hurts can be devastating.

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For the women’s session, the men left the building so Lisa Cotter could just address the ladies. She stressed the importance of our female friends because being feminine can be complicated and only women truly understand what it is like to be a woman. We need each other. But how do we create deep and lasting friendships?

Three Types of Friendship

Aristotle said there are three different types of friendship:

Friendships of Utility– This type of friendship is based on someone being useful to you, like a friend from a class.

Friendships of Pleasure– These friendships are based on the fun times together (teammates, friends from a club, etc.)

Friendships that are useful or pleasurable are not necessarily bad, but as soon as the usefulness or pleasure is not there, the friendship ends.

Friendships of Virtue (Excellence)– These friendships are based upon doing the right thing at the right time, in the right way. These are deepest forms of friendship.

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Natalie from LEAD is a member of St. Mary’s Parish in Cape Girardeau, MO which is in the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. This fall she will be a senior at Notre Dame High School.

Today she shared with us how God changed her life through friendship.

She grew up Catholic with very involved parents.

And yet, as she entered high school, she wanted to fit in and took on a negative attitude – and a big part of this was that she began gossiping about other people. This left her feeling empty and unloved.

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