For those who have been following along, thank you for your patience with my not-so-daily (nor even the same week!) updates on Ignite NW. Though posted a whole five days after I returned home, I am happy to share about the last half of this year's youth conference from my notes on each day.
Day 3 (Friday, July 24)
In a way, today is when the conference hits its stride. With two days under our belt, the daily routine is pretty well established - and it doesn't hurt that the Friday schedule pretty much mirrors the day before. We gathered for Mass at the chapel of Christ the Teacher, with Father Nathaniel Maria, OP presiding and Father Ben Bray preaching. Catholics of the Archdiocese of Seattle may recognize one or both names - Father Maria, OP is based out of Blessed Sacrament and the Newman Center at UW in Seattle, Father Bray is a priest of the archdiocese!
(This image of coffee in my hand outside of the chapel, by the way is not pre-Mass, but rather, my holy hour before I leave the building!)
After Mass we had a group photo with all of the participants, chaperones, staff, volunteers, clergy, and religious. Typically, this photo is taken on the last day - and we will take one that day too, with Archbishop Sample after Mass - but many of our clergy & religious are leaving before the weekend, so today was the day to grab a photo that included all of them. As is tradition with such photos, we had a one more serious photo and then one where everyone was goofing off shouting 'whee!' I'll be interested to see that latter one!
The highlight of the day, so far, by the way, has been the toddler one chaperone couple brought (he's been coming since birth, I think!) - he learned about blessings and he is going around to anyone who will let him to bless them by making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Bishop material, to be sure!
After a breakfast that couldn't be beat, Sister Solanus Casey, SOLT gave a talk about our core identity in a world that tells us that we can be whoever we want to be ("you can't!"): that we are made in the image & likeness of God, Who made us in particular and wonderful ways. I especially appreciated how she highlighted the ways we can truly understand ourselves: in 'original solitude' - the union of Adam & God lost in Original Sin but re-created in Christ and in 'original unity' - the union of Adam & Eve, to which we are re-called to in Christ to understand ourselves as a gift to others and others as gift to us. An absolute banger of a talk and a wonderful send-off to another full day of workshops.
I'd like to go on about the workshops by the way, because I feel like I didn't do them just in the last update. The way Ignite NW plans things out, each of the three primary days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) have workshops that fit into one of three themes: Our Relationship with God (Thursday), Our Relationship with the Human Person/Self (Friday), and our relationship with the World (Saturday). Broad as those topics are, they are anything but boring! On the days when there are morning sessions (Thursday & Friday), there are three foundational workshops that set the tone across three sub-topics: Reason, Revelation, and Personal Relationship. In the afternoon, there are 6-7 sessions that move deeper into the sub-topics. There are too many presentations to list them all in full, but the spread is amazing - talks about the credibility of the Bible, spiritual warfare, Eucharistic miracles, the existence of God, understanding the temperaments and ourselves, healing & freedom, abortion & prolife issues, physician-assissted suicide & euthanasia, choosing the right vocation, and even a workshop on interplanetary colonization ("and maybe aliens or whatever")! Anyone who finds themselves bored at this conference is simply not paying attention!
A highlight of today has been witnesses the transformation of my small group (did I mention that I was assigned a small group?). My kids are a collection of twelve former eighth grader boys (two of whom are from my own parish family!). They're all an awesome group of young men and this is their first year a Ignite NW (their age/grade combo being the youngest you can be to come). Though perhaps starting off a bit skeptical about this workshop thing, today they had a palpable excited about which ones they were going to choose - and when we regrouped afterwards to talk about it, I didn't have to do any talking; they were excited to share about what the priest, sister, or lay presenters they'd heard had to say. Not being able to go to any talks myself (they were too crowded!), I still learned quite a bit (not, sadly, about aliens - oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
After dinner we had a second keynote speaker - Bridget Workman - talk to us about pro-life issues. I'm afraid I got pulled away by my duties as greenshirt spiritual director, so I can't report on how her talk went - except to say that the kids were pretty jazzed about it afterwards!
After our small group check in, we clergy & religious, greenshirts & blackshirts retired to our own dorm for the daily debrief and late-night planning session for tomorrow. Of course, it wasn't all work - lots of story telling and laughing into the night! As one of the clergy/religious, a great highlight of this youth conference is the opportunity to simply hang out with other clergy & religious from beyond my normal social sphere. In a way, I feel like I'm an attendee myself, getting to soak in the goodness of Catholic fellowship with peers near and far!
During the course of the many goofings off, someone gave me the nickname "Temu Jason Momoa", which was the source of much delight (including from me!) in the room.
Far too late, blessed sleep after a long day. I'm going to pay a heavy price for these late nights when I finally return home!
Day 4 (Saturday, July 25)
....or maybe I'll pay that heavy price today! Saturday of Ignite NW starts bright and early with morning prayer (did I mentioned that the entire conference prays Morning Prayer - or Lauds - together every day) in the main gathering space of Bauccio Commons (the name of the campus building) at 7:45. This isn't so out of the ordinary for the week, as Mass has been at this time for the last two days. But today is different: we're going to the Dominican parish of Holy Rosary church in Portland!
A bit of a confession here from me: the Dominicans drive. me. nuts. Here's the deal. First of all, these guys have just the coolest habit - they take the basic black & white of clerics and turn it into this awesome white robe with a black cowl and a black cape-thingey down the back. They're practically everyday superheroes walking among us. Secondly, they're the Order of Preachers, so their homilies are always awesome and inspiring. Thirdly, they have their own rite of the Mass (the Dominican Rite)! How can a regular diocesan priest compete with that package?!?! I'm afraid I have no choice: I'm honor-bound to hate them.
By the way, I once told someone this shtick and they didn't realize I was joking. The next time they saw a priest of the community, they very concernedly told him that he needed to talk to me posthaste: "I don't know what you did to Father Maurer, but he hates you guys!". Happily, the worried phone call I got from that priest quickly turned into laughter after I explained to him the context!
In any case, today is special because we're going to Holy Rosary church so we can assist (ie, attend) at a Dominican rite Mass that the local Dominicans are offering just for our conference. This will be my second one, so I'm more prepared than last time for the differences. It's not quite the Extraordinary Form as most of us know it. Don't get me wrong, whether you're a Novus Ordo person (the Mass as most Catholics know it - also called the Ordinary Form) or an Extraordinary Form person (we have two parishes in our archdiocese that offer that - Saint Joseph in Tacoma and North American Martyrs in Edmonds, both led by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter or FSSP), you'd recognize most of the Mass! Yes, it's all in Latin (except the homily), but most of us know much more of that than we realize. ....and if you're a parishioner of mine, prepare to learn more - I've got my eyes on the very Mass setting that the Dominicans used today, the Missa De Angelis (Mass of the Angels)!
But I digress. The Dominican Rite Mass has a bunch of differences from the Extraordinary Form, but it is very deliberate in those differences - in fact, St. Dominic's successor (Blessed Humbert of Romans) codified it specifically to make sure that he and his brothers were praying together in the same way despite being spread across all of Europe. The thing that stands out to most of us is the prominent place not only of the priest but also the deacon, the subdeacon, and altar servers. I don't pretend to be an expert, but as it was explained to me, these ministers extend from the priest in the way of the planets orbiting the sun according to a precise arrangement of movements throughout the Mass. And indeed, as they sweep across the altar together in prayer, there is a beauty to how the eyes - and hearts! - of all are drawn to the priest in persona Christi capitis as he makes present the Lord in His sacrificial work of the cross.
Oh, I should mention that prior to Mass, we had a pro-life testimonial from Francis Mack, after which we prayed the rosary and the Divine Mercy chaplet together! After the Mass, we all piled into buses to return to the University of Portland campus for lunch and our last round of afternoon workshops.
My afternoon, however, was filled with stress, as I had agreed to be part of the evening's talent show.
That's right, there's a talent show tonight! This particular feature of Ignite NW is not put on by the staff & volunteers (though they're welcome to have an act), but rather by the clergy & religious. In prior years, I've demurred and done my best to hide in the shadows. I suspect my parishioners will be surprised by this, but I get terrible stage fright! Preach a homily on damnation & salvation? No problem. Confect the sacraments according to the rites of the Church immemorial? A cake walk. But perform in front of others - especially under the critical gaze of teenagers (never shy in expressing their opinions)? My knees start knocking long before the moment even arrives.
But this year, I decided that I wasn't going to let that deter me - and I had the perfect thing for it: a spoof song my family has been singing at gatherings for years! Two of the greenshirts agreed to be my singing partners and I spent most of my free moments in the afternoon (re)learning my part (the harmony) of the song. Thanks to the magic of the internet and remote access to my home computer, I had the sheet music to work with....wherein I discovered that the way I had learned the music (by memory) was not actually correct! Especially given that my two greenshirt assistants could read music by sight (wow!), I was quite grateful for the three hours or so to go over (and over and over) my part!
Preceding the talent show, happily, was a bit of a consolation for us all: an ice cream social! One might rightly question the wisdom of giving nearly 300 youth a bunch of sugar....but the folks behind Ignite NW are no fools! Paired with this sudden influx of energy is a moment regular attendees look forward to each year: the clergy/religious vs. youth dodgeball fight! You haven't lived until you've watched a throng of Catholics cheering for religious women to TAKE THOSE KIDS DOWN SISTERS, SHOW NO MERCY!!!
Ahem. It was a lot of fun. Also....those kids absolutely stomped us (undoubtedly super-charged by higher-than-recommended servings of sugary ice cream), the girls losing any veneer of gentleness towards the kindly women religious, the boys turning into savages (savages, I say!) against holy brothers and priests, including your humble author. They're lucky confessions were the two nights before, or there might have been some heavy penances imposed afterwards 😉
At last we came to the talent show. Kicking us off was our very own Deacon Dan Powers. I don't know if parishioners from our parish family realize the star power our deacon has, but I, for one, was rather overwhelmed as several hundred voices thundered - thundered! - out "Dea-con Dan! Dea-con Dan! Dea-con Dan!". A known entity, and for good reason! First off, he starts with - of all things - rap! I can't tell you what it was about, except that it was amazing. But then, he pulls out a harmonica and leads the entire crowd in an audience-participation performance, with them snapping their fingers, clapping, and slapping their knees while he played the harmonica AND sang. It was glorious.
Sister Maureen Noeleen Ezeh and Sister Maria Ukamaka Okeke (Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ) got up and led the kids in an amazing set of dancing according to their African background. Sister Maria Magdalene and Sister Mary Michael (Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa) did a teaching sketch about .....how to cut paper! Trust me, it was hilarious. Father Charles Borromeo (Order of Saint Benedict) pulled out his drum and did a whole percussion thing. Father David Brokke (Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity) had a whole sound effects presentation, using only his body! Sister Solanus Casey (also with the society) pulled off a collection of goofy tricks, including licking her elbow (go ahead, try it, I dare you). The greenshirts even had a whole play about saints going into heaven and being welcomed into the communion of saints.
All of this, by the way, before a panel of judges: Sister Marie Therese (Sister Servants of the Eternal Word), Father Thomas Nathe, and seminarian Jeffery Gascoyne, Jr.
In the middle of all that, I was also up there. The setup for my contribution was me sharing about how, in our archdiocese, we priests have been encouraged to plan for our funerals even now, well ahead of time. Having celebrated many, many funerals, I find that I have opinions about how I want things to go - and this reflects a healthy momento mori ('remember death') attitude we each should have. There is one piece, I shared, that I would like sung, but due to it's Protestant background, it isn't fitting for the sacred liturgy. Instead, I plan on having it offered at the reception following Mass. It is titled "Tuna, the Food of My Soul" - and you can listen to it from the man himself (Garrison Keillor, joined by the legendary Jean Redpath, of happy memory) at his website (click this sentence).
Happily, my practice - along with the natural talent of the two greenshirts who joined me (thank you Cecilia & Hope!) - paid off and the subversion of expectations (funeral song, momento mori, and.....tuna casserole?!?) resulted in a lot of laughter, as the lyrics sunk in. Lots of fun to ham up, too, though I don't think I'll be quitting my day job!
But the star of the show was, without a doubt, Father Augustine Wetta (Order of Saint Benedict). Every year Father Augustine creates - admittedly, with the help of AI (commentary on that another day!) - his own music & video. I can't do it justice, but he went ahead and uploaded a video onto Instagram, so I've simply included it in this post. A heck of a way to end the night!
....well, at least officially. Our greenshirt coordinator - Dan - had suggested to me months ago that it would be nice to have a holy hour just for the greenshirts, especially after a long week of pour themselves out for so many. As the kids and their chaperones dispersed back to their dorms, we made our way back to the chapel of Christ the Teacher. Seeing how spent they were, we made a gametime decision to make it a holy half hour, exposing the Blessed Sacrament for prayer while one of the MC's (Marella) sang & played quietly in the back of the chapel. And at the suggest of Dan, I went with the monstrance before each greenshirt and blessed all 25 of them individually, praying briefly over them before going on to the next. After so much movement & noise, it was a tender and poignant moment of grace.
Dan had one last trick up his sleeve. He had led the greenshirts to believe that following adoration, they'd be staying up late to prepare for Sunday teardown - working well into the night to get things ready for an early morning. Instead of a hall full of tasks, he - and a select few others - had staged ice cream and root beer, along with a karaoke machine, for a greenshirts-only thank-you party. I stuck around for a little bit, but, not having the stamina of the twenty-somthings around me, retired quickly to bed!
Day 5 (Sunday, July 26)
Today started fairly early for me today. I love a quiet early morning, so last year I volunteered to offer an early morning Mass for the religious brothers & sisters who had to leave before the Mass with the archbishop at noon. This year we got to have it just slightly later (6:30 am instead of 5 am), but the vibe was much the same: 8-10 of us gathered in the dorm basement chapel to prayerfully offer Mass together. Of course we sang all the Mass parts, made sweeter for having four sisters carrying us through it! All around lovely - and I offered the Mass pro populo (for the people of the parish)....as required by canon law of us pastors and something I delight in doing, carrying with me where ever I am the intentions of my parishioners.
Later in the morning, we gathered as we have every day, for morning prayer and breakfast. Following the meal, everyone joined back up for what the conference calls 'glory stories'. Participants and leaders alike are invited to come up and share how they were inspired, moved, or otherwise touched by the Lord over the conference. This is always a moving experience, especially hearing from youth who perhaps came to the conference with anxieties, reluctance, or even doubts now enthusiastically sharing the ways in which the conference blessed them.
Following those testimonies, we had a married couple and clergy & religious share their own vocation testimonies, with a vocation call for all those who might wish to make their own discernment known and receive prayers in the moment and beyond.
Sadly, missed out on all of this, as I was once again in greenshirt spiritual direction mode - absolutely worth it, but it means I can't tell you much about what was said, save that I'm told that folks were quite moved by the various sharings of youth and adults alike!
Finally, we had Sunday Mass with Archbishop Sample. Having celebrated Mass already, I decided not to concelebrate but instead sit upstairs as a regular Catholic. It is has been years since I've simply assisted at Mass and it was quite nice to focus on the Mass this way. Archbishop Sample gave a lovely homily, exhorting the youth - and all of us! - to embrace our call as apostles on mission. I was especially impressed by his ars celebrandi (art of celebrating the liturgy). As a cleric of many years and an archbishop, he has found an extraordinary balance between the gravitas of an archbishop offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass without putting on airs, disconnecting himself from the congregation, or otherwise diminishing his relatability as a brother and fellow Christian. It was lovely.
Before we all went our separate ways, there were two final photos to take - one of all of the conference with Archbishop Sample and one of just us Olympic Peninsula attendees. Our parish family group, by the way, has their own going-home tradition: Billygans Roadhouse in Vancouver! Many burgers, fries (and a blooming onion!) were consumed before the long drive home (3 1/2 hours!). With so many blessings and graces, a journey well worth having made.
Before concluding this mini-series, I want to be sure to express my gratitude to Deacon Dan, Morgan, and Michael, who were the chaperones for our kids from the Olympic Peninsula. Special mention should also be made of Anne Henninger who came to Ignite NW not as part of our group but offering her first aid skills as nurse to all throughout the conference! Conferences such as this simply could not happen without the dedicated offering of so many adults giving of their time and presence in support of our youth. Please join me in offering a prayer of thanksgiving for their generosity.
“intentional faith – moving from focusing on the institutional Church to personal relationship with Christ.”
Father, these words from your notes are, for me, at the heart of this conference: to move youthful participants to encounter the Person of Jesus Christ. Indeed, this is precisely what everyone is called to. Jesus is the One we all long for.
Thank you to all who made this encounter possible. God bless you all!