1     Opening Prayer: This section can be led by anyone in the group. There is a prayer provided, but it can be changed or intentions and reflection time can be added as well.  At this point, a candle should be lit and kept lit somewhere in the room with an open Bible. 

2.    Icebreaker. (First off, have each person fill out a name tag.) The icebreaker is an activity designed to let the group members get to know each other It might be a good idea for this activity to write the questions on a board or on poster paper so that the groups can refer to them. 

3.    The topic of the night. For this meeting, the topic is “you are the salt of the earth," which is half of the theme for WYD 2002. Please read through the material before the meeting so that you're familiar with it. Also, because some of Saint Therese of Lisieux 's relics will be in Calgarv in the month of October, there is a bit of information on her life included in this package. 

4.    Prayer Journal Activity: There are some reflective questions provided or a specific activity for each person to do individually in his or her prayer journal. The purpose of the prayer journal is to trace one's spiritual pilgrimage over the next year. 

5.    Reflections on our Community & Social Service Project:  In this section, the group members will decide what social justice project they would like to do together over the upcoming year. 

6.    Questions and Answers. This is the part of the evening here the people in your group can field questions and concerns that they may have about the coming year and the activities in Toronto. If you don't know an answer, you will have everyone's phone numbers and if need be, you can call people with answers. 

7.    Closing Prayer. This prayer remains constant throughout all 9 meetings. 

[ii]Materials needed for this first meeting and things to remember:

1.   Name Tags:  Each person will require a name tag. 

2.    Candle, Matches, and Bible: To be lit and left on a table for the duration of the meeting. These are to help keep the minds and hearts of each person focused during the meeting 

3.   Volunteering book: This book should be kept in the parish office unless it is being used. 

       4.      Avs: There is available a video on St. Therese of Lisieux from Broughton's in Toronto, Universal Church Supplies, and may be at the library at the Chancery office in Nelson. A video, some pictures, or any other visual aids are a good idea.

Loaves & Fishes bookstore in Kelowna is also a great resource.  Call them at 1800-663-4840 if you are looking for something)  Additional materials on St. Therese are available through Novalis 1-800-387-7164 

5.   Announcement:  Make an announcement in the church bulletin and/or phone people to remind them to come. Include the time, location, and duration of the meeting. Remind everyone to bring their journals and pens. (Be sure to bring extras, just in case.) Invite others to come as well. 

       6.     Meeting Place:   Be sure to book a room in the church (or hall) in which the meeting will be  held. Arrive          there early so that you can set chairs, tables, and such in the manner that you like.

[iii]   Pilgrimage Preparation

Session Two 

Time: 1.5-2.0 hours

[iv]   Opening Prayer:  (Make me a Channel of Your Peace can be sung instead)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O   Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

-Intentions or Personal Reflection

[v]   Icebreaker:   Talent Search  (Youth Works binder.  Section 11)

1) Find a partner, someone you do not know very well.

2) With your partner, take turns answering and discussing the following questions:

            ·    My family and friends tell me that one of my greatest gifts is...

            ·    When I look at who I think I am, the things I'd like to do with my life, the

                  talent that's most important to me is...

            ·    A gift I know I don't have is...

            ·    A talent or gift I really appreciate in others is...

            ·    I use my gifts and abilities to help others. An example of this was

                  when...

3) Afterwards, present your partner to the rest of the group.

[vi]   Topic of the Night: You are the salt of the earth.

 Salt and light are both essential to life. In humans, lack of them is felt by a deep instinct. We know that we require salt from its very taste. It is no wonder that it was a powerful symbol in the ancient world. Salt was added to sacrifices, for instance, to enhance their worth, and of course, was also used practically, as in the preservation of food, which was closely related to life. To tell Christians that they were to be the salt of the earth was at once to pay them the highest possible compliment and yet, at the same time, to warn them of their incredible responsibility. Jesus' followers must serve the world as he does. And so he warns them that if they become indistinguishable from those who do not love God, they will be like salt that has lost its savor, and will be condemning the world to darkness. Of no use to anyone. they will also be rejected by God.(John M. Sherlock.  Bishop of London {Editor}. Journey:  The Way of Discipleship #28.  London, Ontario, 1980.  Page 19.) 

Discipleship is an all-consuming vocation. It must be accepted with mature discernment and consideration. Jesus uses two examples: a wise builder would not begin a project without assessing the ability to complete it; only a fool would go into a battle without considering the odds. The thing to remember for the Christian disciple is that renunciation is the salt of discipleship.  When a follower of Jesus begins to hold anything back, discipleship becomes a charade. The salt parable had various applications. In Matthew's Gospel, it is connected with the light image and used in terms of good example (Matt 5:13); in Mark, salt is the source of peace in the community (Mk 9;50).

Saint Therese of Lisieux

Generations of Catholics have admired this young saint, have called her the "Little Flower", and have found in her short life more inspiration for our own lives than in volumes by theologians. Yet Therese died when she was 24, after having lived as cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went on missions, never founded a religious order, and never performed great works. The only book of hers, published after her death, was a brief edited version of her journal called "Story of a Soul." (Collections of her letters and restored versions of her journals have been published recently.) But within 28 years of her death, the public demand was so great that she was canonized.

Theresa was born in France in 1873 and was the pampered daughter of two very holy people. In fact, they were so holy that her mother, who wanted to be a saint, and her father, who wanted to be a monk, were determined to remain celibate in wedlock until a priest told them that was not how God wanted a marriage to work. They ended up having nine children, five of whom survived and were all girls. Therese was the youngest.

Tragedy struck when Therese was 4 years old when her mother died of breast cancer. Therese's oldest sister, Pauline, became like a second mother and so Therese endured another loss when Pauline entered the Carmelite convent five years after their mother's death. The story of how Therese started to pray on her own is an interesting one.

A few months after her sister's departure, Therese became so ill with a fever that people thought she was dying. The worst part of it for Therese was all the people sitting around her bed staring at her like, she said, "a string of onions." When Therese saw her sisters praying in front of a statue of Mary in her room, Therese also prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and suddenly she was cured. She tried to keep the grace of the cure secret but people found out and badgered her with questions like what Mary was wearing and what she looked like. When she refused to give in to their curiosity, they passed the story that she had made the whole thing up. Without realizing it, by the time she was eleven years old she had developed the habit of mental prayer. She would find a place between her bed and the wall and in that solitude think about God, life, and eternity.

Growing up, all of Therese's sisters eventually joined convents. However before her last sister left their home, Therese had a conversion experience that changed her attitude and her life forever. This spoiled little Queen of her father's wouldn't do housework. She thought that if she made the beds she was doing a great favor! Every time Therese even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn't appreciate her, she burst into tears. Then she would cry because she had cried! Any inner wall she built to contain her wild emotions crumpled immediately before the tiniest comment.

Therese wanted to enter the Carmelite convent to join Pauline and Marie but how could she convince others that she could handle the rigors of Carmelite life if she couldn't even handle her own emotional outbursts? She had prayed that Jesus would help her, but there was no sign of an answer.

On Christmas day in 1886, the fourteen-year-old hurried home from church. In France, young children left their shoes by the hearth at Christmas, and then parents would fill them with gifts. By fourteen, most children outgrew this custom. But her sister Celine didn't want Therese to grow up. So they continued to leave presents in "baby" Therese's shoes. As she and Celine climbed the stairs to take off their hats, their father's voice rose up from the parlor below. Standing over the shoes, he sighed, "Thank goodness that's the last time we shall have this kind of thing!" Therese froze and her sister looked at her helplessly. Celine knew that in a few minutes Therese would be in tears over what her father had said. But the tantrum never came. Something incredible had happened to Therese. Jesus had come into her heart and done what she could not do herself. He had made her more sensitive to her father's feelings than her own.

When she was just 14 years old, Therese knew that she wanted to be a nun. Initially, the superior of the convent refused to take her because of her young age so Therese went to the Bishop who did likewise in refusing to let her join a convent. Therese's father and sister decided to take her on a pilgrimage to Rome to try to get her mind off this crazy idea. Therese loved it. She ran everywhere touching relics and tombs while not being yelled at because she was so young. Finally, she saw the Pope when her three family members requested an audience. Although all were forbidden to talk to the Holy Father, Therese, as soon as she got near him, begged him to let her enter the Carmelite convent. She had to be carried out by two of the guards.

In her autobiographical "The Story of a Soul" she describes her "little way" of simplicity and perfection in the doing of small things and discharge of daily duties that had become an inspiration and a pattern of holiness to "ordinary" people. On September 30,1897, after a painful last illness, she died at the age of 24, with words of divine love on her lips. She is the patroness of France, aviators, florists, and foreign missions, and appeared many times during World War II to give miraculous help to Allied forces.

http://www.monasteryicons.com/product41.html

http://saints.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=105

 [vii]   Activity: Prayer Journal

1)   Jesus uses description of salt to speak about discipleship (Luke 14:34-35). Read the way this image is used in Matthew 5:13 and in Mark 9:50 and describe ways you are challenged to be salt in your community.

2)   Invite everyone to discuss his or her answers.

3)                   Afterthought: Salt is the source of peace in the community (Mark). In the Gospel of Matthew, You are like salt for all people. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. Live by example. HaIf-heartedness is no good.

4)                    

[viii]   Reflections on Community and Social Service Project

-Discussion of what people have decided from the last meeting. As a group, we are going to work on a project for the year. A decision will be made this meeting.

 [ix]   Question and Answer Period

-Field any questions, concerns, or comments that members of the group will have.

[x] Remember Days of Praver

 The following special days of Prayer have been approved by the Canadian

Conference of Catholic Bishops for preparation for World Youth Day 2002;

October 1, 2001  Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux

October 6, 2001  Blessed Marie Rose Durocher

October 11, 2001  Feast of Blessed John XXIII

[xi]   Closing Prayer:

 Prayer for World Youth Day 2002

Heavenly Father, bless us as we patiently await World Youth Day 2002. Help us make our hearts and minds open to your love as we prepare. Lord, give us strength and ingenuity to serve and make way for the visit of the Holy Father.

 Make us ready for the challenges and sacrifices of this pilgrimage over these next months.

 Allow us to grow in our love for you and as a community journeying together in hope.

Guide us, Lord, so that by your teachings we may be ready to prepare worthily. Bestow upon us your light so that we may follow your path and receive all your blessings.

Let us be filled with the Holy Spirit as we share our faith and love with our friends, families, communities, and all the people of the world.

 Grant us the grace that we will forever be dedicated to you and follow you always.

 Amen.