Confirmation students encounter larger community of faith at Source and Summit Retreat
Bishop Michael Olson processes out of Mass at the Source and Summit Confirmation Retreat at Nolan Catholic High School on April 12, 2025. (NTC/Juan Guajardo)
FORT WORTH — Bishop Michael Olson celebrated parish pride, yes, but also the bigger picture during the April 12 Source and Summit Confirmation Retreat at Nolan Catholic High School.
Groups of students and teachers cheered enthusiastically as Bishop Olson name checked the various parishes represented at the retreat, which drew about 365 students both from Catholic and public schools throughout the Diocese of Fort Worth.
“You may have known each other only through football games and things like that before today,” Bishop Olson said. “But now you know you have something more in common than your schools, parishes, or age group in high school. You have Christ in the Church in common. That's what holds you together. Always cherish that.”
This year, what historically had been an annual diocese retreat providing high school students opportunity to discern their vocation retained that element but otherwise shifted focus to students being confirmed this year, Diocesan Director of Youth, Young Adult, and Campus Ministries Victoria Ramon explained. The change addresses a need identified, she said.
“Several parishes in our diocese, whether for financial resources or manpower are unable to host their own confirmation retreats,” Ramon said. “We saw this as an opportunity to help students who might otherwise not have access to a retreat like this, take the load off those parishes, and put this together for as many students in the diocese as possible.”
Acts 1:8 provided the retreat's theme. There Jesus tells the disciples that the power of the Holy Spirit will descend upon them and charges them with spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
“The goal is to help them understand what's happening in their lives now,” Ramon said. “How the Holy Spirit moves them and how they're called to be witnesses. Specifically, how the grace of the sacrament of confirmation helps them effect that witnessing. We want them to witness to Christ in the Church, and in their communities.”
Bishop Olson, who celebrated the day's Mass, contrasted the difference between believing Jesus existed as a good man and wise teacher versus believing in Him.
“Believing in Jesus is to trust Him,” Bishop Olson said. “It means to pray to Him every day, to speak to Him as a friend, speak to Him as your God.”
Bishop Olson reiterated the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the grace that bestows.
“When you receive Him, ask for His love that you might believe in Him,” Bishop Olson said. “That you might be able to courageously face all those things that cause you to doubt.”
Bishop Olson circled such hopes back to the students' larger-scale place in the Church overall.
“Because when you receive Him, He not only becomes one with you,” Bishop Olson said. “But He makes you one together in the Church in which we are united as a group of people with shared opinions but really one in God's love.”
Doing so enables us to love and help one another and see beyond life in the secular world, Bishop Olson said.
Keynote speaker, Dr. Alex Gotay, spoke of the pitfalls of the secular world in the age of social media and information overload.
“Especially in today's world, all of us are searching for something,” Gotay said. “Something to hold onto and identify with. But a lot of us don't know who we are. We latch on to everything except being a child of God.”
The digital revolution while beneficial has also sown division and confusion, Gotay said, as has other aspects of modern life.
“We too often tie ourselves to this world, which tries to define us but forget that through God we are perfectly and wonderfully made. That each of you is special and that God put something inside each of you that this world needs.”
Joking of his family's love of food, Gotay declared Whataburger superior to In-N-Out Burger but rated home-cooked family meals superior to both.
“Fast food fills you up temporarily,” Gotay said. “Where the other takes longer to prepare but fulfills you.”
Far from simply musing on dietary preferences, Gotay's culinary anecdotes instead highlighted several of Bishop Olson's points. Two main points being recognition of Christ's true presence in the Eucharist and the importance of investing time to truly come to know God rather than simply of Him.
Gotay and Bishop Olson urged attendees to carry the spirit of the day beyond the retreat.
“Confirmation is a step into the uniqueness of how the Holy Spirit is constantly recreating you,” Gotay said. “But we need to stay excited for what we have, what we're living for, and what God has given us through the Church: faith that's alive and active. We need to take up the torch and become fire.
“God has uniquely designed each of us for this time to step into this world that needs us.”
Azle's Holy Trinity Parish's Youth Minister Ginger Benes commended the retreat organizer's efforts.
“My hope coming in was to see my students convicted by the Holy Spirit and get inspired to connect to a deeper relationship with Him and the sacraments,” Benes said. “But also to bring them to an event like this that's part of the diocese overall. We're a small community and don't always get to have these speakers and events and opportunity to see how big the Church really is.”
Parishioner Emily Reyna, 18, agreed.
“Coming from a smaller parish to be here with several hundred other students to share and learn more about our faith and religion is something I was very much looking forward to,” Reyna said.
