Fertile ground: Middle school students focus on Word of God at annual retreat
Students participate in time of adoration during a retreat for middle school students held at Cristo Rey Fort Worth College Prep in south Fort Worth on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (NTC/Rodger Mallison)
FORT WORTH — Like many cradle Catholics, Cooper Ray grew up in a home where the family Bible had to be dusted. “We never read from it,” remembered the St. Philip the Apostle parishioner.
As Ray addressed 125 middle school students from 12 parishes at the Word Made Flesh retreat Sept. 28, he read from his personal Bible, which was falling apart.
“To know Scripture is to know Jesus,” said the keynote speaker, paraphrasing St. Jerome’s words from 16 centuries ago.
Ray encouraged the students to read the Bible, beginning at least once a week. “Dive into the word to get to know the Word,” he said, recommending the students write Scripture verses on bracelets or bathroom mirrors to grow in awareness and understanding.
“Why read the Bible?” he asked. “So we can proclaim what we read with our lives.”
Victoria Ramon, diocesan director of youth, young adult, and campus ministries, planned the Word Made Flesh retreat “to help the youth ministers, at the beginning of their catechetical year, be rooted in Scripture and understanding of sacred Scripture as the heart of everything we do as a Church, and to help the young people find Scripture more accessible.
“The foundation and the understanding of a relationship with God is found in sacred Scripture, because that is where He comes to speak to us,” she continued.
Right in the middle
The middle school students experienced a full day of activities at the retreat, which was held at Cristo Rey Fort Worth College Prep Catholic High School in Fort Worth. Games, singing, inspirational talks, Eucharistic Adoration, and a concluding Mass kept the students active and engaged.
Ramon called middle school “fertile, fertile soil” because the students are asking questions about God and who He is. For many, a retreat like this is their first faith enrichment experience independent of their family.
It’s also a time of dramatic changes, from puberty to a new school. “We find that they want to belong to something, whether that’s a group of friends or a sports team,” Ramon explained, adding that the students’ personal system of beliefs and core values are developing.
Ray, with 20 years of experience as a Catholic speaker, was cognizant of the middle school mindset, which he described combines “kind of goofy” with surprising depth.
Although his primary message was “about Scripture and bringing your faith from your head to your heart and opening your heart to Jesus,” he hopes his witness as an enthusiastic follower of Jesus makes a lasting impression.
Brittany Horvat, coordinator of youth activities at St. Jude Parish in Mansfield, took 10 middle school students to the retreat.
She said, “This is a really big step for students, their chance to encounter the Lord on their own. Even as middle schoolers in sixth, seventh, eighth grade, they can form a meaningful relationship with God now, and they’ve got a community surrounding them to go on that journey with them.”
Continuing to grow
Nathan Medina, a sixth-grade student who attends Holy Cross Parish in The Colony came to the retreat for the first time.
Fun games in the gym and social time with other students were pleasant but didn’t distract him from getting a greater message.
He said, “I learned — don’t be too much on social media. Focus more on God. Get away from distractions, the things that keep you from God.”
This is the second year the diocese organized the Word Made Flesh retreat, and Ramon hopes the retreat continues to grow with the support of parish youth ministers and parents of middle school students.
More middle school students, she said, should have the opportunity of “encountering the living Word of God in a very real way and setting them up with a foundation for their prayer life.”
And when that happens, more Bibles will be opened, and fewer Bibles will be dusted.