by Kathryn White
Special to The Leaven
MARYSVILLE — The numbers tell the story.
Two hundred fifteen retreatants. Thirty two chaperones. Four seminarians. Four more young adult leaders.
More than 250 people total from 22 parishes all came together over six weeks and found themselves transformed by their service at more than 25 job sites around the city of Marysville.
What is this amazing adventure? Prayer and Action!
Prayer and Action is a weeklong retreat that brings together teens and their chaperones from across the archdiocese to participate in daily Catholic prayer experiences: the rosary, Liturgy of the Hours, Mass and eucharistic adoration.
Prayer and Action also includes small group discussion and journaling, time for personal prayer, free time and fun group activities. Students also make all the meals, sleep on floors and have nightly gatherings, or “collatio” in Latin: a gathering time for reflection.
Each day builds slowly on the next, with the final evening ending in a foot-washing ceremony, reminiscent of Holy Thursday.
What sets this retreat apart from others is the aspect of going into the community each day to help meet the needs of community members. Of literally being the hands and feet of Christ to the people they meet.
“We show up with virtually nothing — some tools, mostly, donated by the Knights of Columbus,” said Prayer and Action co-lead, seminarian Andrew Cunningham. “They provide for us, and in turn we serve their community. It’s a beautiful mutual giving and receiving and it’s all very simple.”
“The community members are used to doing the work themselves,” Cunningham continued. “When they open themselves up to being served by teens from all over the archdiocese by their own free will, we often see them moved to tears.”
Colleen Seamatter was one of those community members. Teens joined her in helping prepare her late father’s belongings and home for auction.
“My whole life has been dedicated to the Catholic religion,” said Seamatter. “I have been lost since my dad passed. Because my uncle was a priest, we had 63 priests, three archbishops and two cardinals over the years join our family for supper. I just can’t believe he is gone.”
Teens worked to help clear the home. While that was important, what mattered most was the time they spent with Seamatter simply being present to her, offering a hug, and listening to stories of growing up in Marysville and being raised in a Catholic home with five brothers and sisters.
Seamatter, in turn, served the teens by preparing a homemade lunch for those who worked at her home. It was a mutual give and take, serving one another through faith, and impactful for everyone.
A team of students also helped Margaret Huffman with odd jobs around the house, trimming bushes, pulling weeds and staining the ramp into her home — all projects she couldn’t have completed on her own, since she is a widow.
“A group of boys removed all the wallpaper from my living room and dining room and took the shutters off my house, painted them and rehung them. I was in awe,” Huffman recalled. “All the kids worked together on a hot day without complaining.”
Serving at St. Bernard Parish in Wamego, DRE Amy Schwein brought a group of students for the third week this summer.
“We don’t need to go out of state to have a mission trip or a faith experience. We can make a difference right here in our archdiocese,” she said.
Schwein comes back, year after year, and the number of students that join her is growing.
“It used to be difficult to get teens to participate at first. But when they return, they tell their friends,” she said. “Dropping them off at home afterward, they admit they are so tired, but they would turn back around and go back again the next week if they could.”
Claire Bodarick attended Prayer and Action with her parish group from St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lansing.
“I come to Prayer and Action because I’m not just cleaning someone’s home, or yard,” Bodarick said. “I’m doing something with a greater purpose. I’m making someone’s day, for God, spreading God’s joy.”
A recent high school grad, Jesse Lies, from St. Joseph Parish in Flush, has looked forward to Prayer and Action for the past two years.
“Meeting teens from other parts [of the archdiocese] is so fun. Being put in groups with others forces you to talk to new people,” he said. “Helping the homeowners has been fun. This week helps me get closer to Jesus.”
Bridget Heier is a chaperone from St. Stanislaus Parish in Rossville.
“Our world tells our teens, everything is about you. The service aspect is so valuable. To help another person and get outside themselves is how God speaks to us. There is more in this world than just ourselves.”
Rural youth minister Angie Bittner will start as director of Parish Outreach for Prairie Star Ranch in Williamsburg in July. She has been bringing groups from the rural parishes to Prayer and Action for over 10 years.
“Retreatants learn to love and serve sacrificially and participate in the traditional prayer of the church morning, noon and night,” she said. “For smaller rural parishes, it is a chance to see the universal church in action. A group might only come with five people, but those five are divided into work crews with the other 50 to 60 teens. They work alongside people from various backgrounds and regions of the archdiocese.
“Serving alongside the missionary team of young adults who are striving for holiness and joyful seminarians is so inspiring,” Bittner said. “We surround everything we do in prayer, we serve the community, we receive from the community’s generosity, we learn more about our faith.”
“The secret sauce,” she continued, “is not in a big conference experience, but rather learning to love and serve sacrificially and participating in the traditional prayer of the church — to live the daily rhythm of life that Jesus calls us to.”
To learn more about Prayer and Action, email Angie Bittner at: Pandakc@gmail.com.
