Diocese of Gary

VALPARAISO – A large group of teenagers and young adults gathered on Friday night, Aug. 21, but they weren’t at St. Paul to play video games, watch a new Marvel movie or listen to a local hip-hop band.
    
Instead, they were there to develop a closer relationship with Jesus through prayer, adoration, music, teen testimony and an animated presentation on how to become “on fire for Christ.”
    
It was the eve of the Diocese of Gary’s Emmaus Missionary Discipleship Conference, and the young people were kicking off the inspirational weekend with an Emmaus Youth Encounter Night titled “Hearts on Fire! Walking with Purpose.”
    
Led by keynote speaker Father Agustino Torres, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal (CFR) who also spoke at the Emmaus Conference itself, the young adult program focused on how to grow closer to Christ.
    
Bishop Robert J. McClory, reminded the attendees that the Diocese of Gary was recently consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and led them in a prayer “to be totally set aside to love Jesus . . . with hearts open to God, you will have a special experience.”
    
Vicky Hathaway, diocesan coordinator for youth and young adults, added that, “Tonight is a beautiful night for us to remember that the Lord is always with us, every step of the way” as she introduced Aiden Sandilla, of Crown Point, a sophomore at Crown Point High School and a member of the Diocesan Youth Council. Offering a teen testimony, he spoke to his peers about how they can encounter Christ in ordinary moments. 
    
“A lot of speakers talk about how they encountered Christ at a retreat or at the National Catholic Youth Conference, during big moments,” he said, but his experience is different.
    
“I attended Mass (as a child) because that’s what my family did, but I never understood what it really meant. Then I became an altar server and I was actively involved” in the liturgy. But when his parish church, St. Mary in Crown Point, closed for repairs and Masses were moved to the school cafeteria and gymnasium, Sandilla admitted he “felt out of place until I realized that I’d spent so much time worried about what was missing, I forgot what was still there – the Eucharist.
    
“(Christ) was someone I could just encounter for myself, he had been there all those years,” Sandilla said. “Sometimes Christ meets us in the most ordinary places, and for me, that was at Mass in a gym. It didn’t feel the same as Mass in the church, but I was still encountering Christ and that didn’t give me all the answers, but it showed me what to look for.”
    
Described by Hathaway as “having a heart for young people through the sacrament of confirmation," Father Torres followed Sandilla’s message by urging his young audience to follow four steps to set their hearts on fire for Jesus.
    
“The first step is ‘love,’” said his Bronx, New York City-based religious community’s Itinerant Preacher and CFR General Council Member. Introduced to a Trinidadian convict while in a maximum security prison, he asked what to say when speaking at an upcoming conference. 
    
“That Trinidad convict said, ‘Tell them we are redeemable!’ Jesus went to the cross so we could have love,” the priest explained.
    
With his order dedicated to working with the poor and evangelization, Father Torres said the second step is to “Enter in,” as shown in the story of Jairus’s daughter, who was raised from the dead by Jesus in the Gospel miracle the priest told in animated fashion for the young people. “We need to love and to enter in to be on fire for Jesus,” he said.
    
By retelling the story of the blind man Bartimaeus, who he transformed into a NYC beggar he called “BT,” Father Torres said the third step is to “Turn from sin,” as Jesus urged Bartimaeus to do while lauding his faith as he cured his blindness.
    
“Get up” is the fourth step Father Torres called for, just like Jesus said to the paralytic man whose friends lowered his pallet through a hole they made in the roof to reach Jesus. After curing him, Jesus told the man to “say thank you to whoever brought you, but now you have to bring someone else. Just invite them,” the same message given to the young people at St. Paul by the priest, who in 2008 founded Corazón Puro, an organization dedicated to awakening and accompanying leaders in areas of great need, beginning with Hispanic youth and young adults.  
    
Father Torres’ presentation was followed by a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration that included silent prayer, music by the St. Paul Life Team Band, and an opportunity for reconciliation.
    
“Having confession and adoration was really good,” said Elliott Poole, a parishioner at St. Mary in Crown Point and a sophomore at Illiana Christian High School. “I liked it best when Father Agustino was singing and his storytelling was awesome.”
    
“Father Agustino has a heart to connect with youths; he knew all the right jokes and he was funny,” added Victoria Ramirez of Hobart, a parishioner at St. Francis Xavier in Lake Station.
    
Jonathan Ayala, a Valparaiso University student from Our Lady of Guadalupe in East Chicago, attended with others from his parish youth group and said he was inspired to reflect on the words of Pope Leo XIV. “At NCYC, we were told we were the future of the Catholic Church, but Pope Leo said we are the present,” he said. “The message I got from Father Agustino is that we all have a calling from the Lord, and we have to take it and go into the world.”

Caption: Sandwiches and snacks were devoured by young people during a social hour after the “Emmaus Youth Encounter: Hearts on Fire! Walking with Purpose” program on Aug. 21 at St. Paul in Valparaiso. Spending time with keynote speaker Father Agustino Torres, CFR (third from left) are (from left) Vanessa Breshock, chaperone Heather Sandilla, Father Agustino, Victoria Ramirez, Camryn Latham and Elliott Poole, all from Crown Point. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)