St. Leo’s Coffee House
July 7, 2010 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Core, Events, Featured, Lifeteen, Youth Ministry
St. Leo’s
Coffee House
Open to all incoming HIGH SCHOOL teens
This Wednesday July 7th 7 – 9 pm
Join us for a great night of:
Live Music with our very own TOM YOUNG + OPEN MIC NIGHT (bring an instrument or your voice and show off your talents)
Ping Pong, foosball and air hockey, plus board games and more.
Plus we’ll have door prizes (including SILLY BANDS of COURSE!)
AND OF COURSE–
Frozen coffee and non-coffee drinks and desserts
Cost is FREE
YOU ARE WELCOME TO BRING FRIENDS.
Call 724-9596 or email stleoyouth@gmail.com with questions. You can RSVP at www.facebook.com/stleoyouth and click on the “Coffee House” event page.
Steubenville Youth Conference 20.10
June 15, 2010 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Events, Featured, Lifeteen, Youth Ministry
A few spaces still available… Hurry and sign up TODAY!
The Steubenville Conference is the highlight of our summer at St. Leo’s. We load up a nice bus and head out to Atlanta, GA. We stay in a very nice hotel, and have a great time plus we got to the Steubenville Youth Conference which is absolutely incredible.
We hear great speakers who will entertain and inspire you.
We hear some great music and have a blast in a concert style setting.
We meet teenagers from all over the country.
We eat a lot of food.
We get to make lots of new friends and have a good time with old friends.
More about the Conference:
Powerful liturgies, dynamic talks, and engaging worship: Life Teen Steubenville Conferences offer the ultimate Catholic experience for your teens to encounter Christ in His Sacraments and in His Church!
Speakers/Musicians:
Matt Maher, Ike Ndolo, Mark Hart, Paul George, Tammy Evevard, and MORE.
For more information on this years line up check in out by clicking here.
Download the Registration Form Here
HIGH SCHOOL MOVE UP PARTY -COFFEE HOUSE STYLE
May 19, 2010 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Featured, Lifeteen, Youth Ministry
St. Leo’s Youth Ministry is excited to host our annual Move Up party as we welcome in our incoming Freshmen and bid farewell to our graduating Seniors. DOWNLOAD THE FLYER HERE AND SPREAD THE WORD
Join us for a great night of:
Live Music with our very own TOM YOUNG 
Costume Karaoke featuring YOU and YOUR FRIENDS
A Wii little ROCK BAND Tournament 
PLUS – Great FOOD and FROZEN DRINKS ALL NIGHT
We’ll also be giving away great prizes all night and there will be plenty of fun stuff to do.
Don’t miss out on this great night to celebrate! All incoming 9th – 12th Grade teens are invited (ESPECIALLY THIS YEAR’s CONFIRMATION CLASS!!!).
You are welcome to bring friends.
DOWNLOAD THE FLYER HERE AND SPREAD THE WORD
Cost is $5 pp
Call 724-9596 or email stleoyouth@gmail.com with questions. You can RSVP at www.facebook.com/stleoyouth and click on the “Move Up” event page.
2009 Fall Retreat: Alive Again
November 10, 2009 by Matt Brown
Filed under Featured, Lifeteen
We had the pleasure of having our 2009 Fall Retreat at the Vineyard Camp in Westfield, NC from September 6th-8th. We had an amazing time and each one of our teens really had a deep experience.
The retreat was entitled “Alive Again” – and based on a poem written by St. Augustine entitled “Ever Ancient, Ever New”.
Here is the quote:
Late have I loved you,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,
late have I loved you!
You were within me, but I was outside,
and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
Created things kept me from you;
yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.
You breathed your fragrance on me;
I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me, and I burned for your peace.
~ St. Augustine, Confessions of St. Augustine
The Theme Song of the weekend was called “Alive Again” – by Matt Maher – you can find the song at www.mattmahermusic.com.
We have provided some of the amazing songs, worship, and testimonies given over this weekend to help you along your faith journey. If you would like to download one, or all of the items, just Right-Click the song title, and click “Save Target As.”
Friday Night
Your Grace is Enough
Bathroom Details
Quailman Introduction & Story
“Quailman Introduction & Story”
Trading My Sorrows
Prince of Peace
Your Grace is Enough
We Are the Beggars
Chris Faddis Testimony
Here I Am to Worship
Saturday Morning
Welcome & Opening Prayer
Prince of Peace
Psalm 63 & Wakeup Call
Trading My Sorrows
Alive Again
Examination of Conscience
Surrender
Instrumental Confession
Surrender Part II
Awake O Sleeper
Grace Like Rain
MightyToSave
You Are My King
Alive Again
We Are the Beggars
Saturday Afternoon
Office Theme Song
Opening Prayer
Your Grace Is Enough
Days of Elijah
We Are The Beggars
Alive Again
Angela Testimonial
Awake O Sleeper
Meditation
Saturday Night
Friendly Conversation
Opening Prayer
Prince of Peace
Garden
Here I Am To Worship
Surrender
Billy Griffith Testimonial
We Are The Beggars
Sunday Morning
Mighty to Save
Youth Ministry Family Mass and Dinner
August 17, 2009 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Edge, Lifeteen, Uncategorized
To kick things off right we want to invite every middle and high school family at St. Leo’s to join us for a special Teen Mass and Dinner on Sunday August 30th.
Teen Mass does not officially pick back up until Sept. 13th but we are inviting your family to join us for Mass on August 30th, it will be a beautiful Mass where Fr. Brian will explain the Mass as we go through.
After Mass we invite you to join us for dinner in the Parish center. Dinner is free-will and we ask everyone to consider a donation of $5pp or $20 per family.
Also we will have the “food pass” for sale which allows you to save some money by paying in advance for food for the school year. We will also have registrations available for retreat and other upcoming events.
Please forward this invite to other families and friends and spread the word!
More information is available at www.stleoyouth.com
God uses the Weak
August 17, 2009 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Edge, Featured, Lifeteen
by Lucy D’Agostino
Over this past weekend I have been struggling with many different issues, all centered around the same theme: I am not smart enough, old enough, influential enough, good enough, holy enough etc…to do [insert task here]. After praying about these various tasks, I heard something that made me rethink these fears. A nun was standing on stage, nervously shaking in her little habit, telling us her story. She explained that she was always under the impression that in order to become a nun you had to be strong. She then explained that God chooses the weak and makes them strong. These words ran through my head for the remainder of the day.
God works in wonderful ways, putting this beautiful nun on stage to say exactly what I needed to hear. But just in case I didn’t get the message the first time, God sent it to me again. The next day at mass the priest repeat the same phrase over and over: “God uses the weak and makes them strong.” God will never present us with a task that we cannot handle. We may not feel strong enough, but we were chosen for a reason. Then while I was frequenting one of my favorite sites, lifeteen.com, (if you do not visit this site regularly I STRONGLY encourage you to start) and the quote of the day was from Mother Teresa.
“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.” – Blessed Mother Teresa
Even Mother Teresa struggled with this, yet she was confident that God would never give her a task she couldn’t complete. Everyone has weaknesses. Only God has the ability to work past them and use us to complete his ultimate plan.
- Do I fully trust that I can handle and task God puts before me?
- If you are having trouble, or feeling weak, ask the saints to pray for you – they have made it through this world and have encountered similar struggles.
Lord I know I am weak, but please make me strong in You. Help me to complete the tasks you have set for me.
Lucy D’Agostino is a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill. She was a member of Life Teen at St. Leo’s Catholic Church in high school and is currently serving an internship at St. Leo’s. During the school year Lucy is very involved in her Catholic Newman Center.
Why is There Evil in the World?
July 22, 2009 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Edge, Featured, Lifeteen
by Lucy D’Agostino
As Saint Augustine puts is, “If there is not God, why is there good? If there is a God, why is there evil?”
Over a cup of coffee in Italy with my professor the question “How can you believe in God and simultaneously see all this evil in the world” comes up. This is not the only time I have heard this question. In fact, I am usually on the asking rather than the answering side. I put down my cup and ponder the answer. First, we must decide what kind of evil we are talking about. I ask my professor this question and he responds, “I just cannot see how a loving God would allow for a child to starve, for a Holocaust to occur, for a child molester to live.” I think about all this and immediately blurt out the typical answer I have been familiar with the majority of my life, Free Will. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. (1731)
I explain that God gave us free will because he loves us. I gave the generic, but true, answers I had always heard that semi-convinced me but still left me wondering. For instance, I understood that God gave us free will because otherwise we’d just be robots obeying his every command, but it seemed contradictory to me that he had the power to do anything, and yet would still allow really awful things to happen. In my mind, it would make sense if we had free will to a certain extent, but when someone is about to murder millions of Jewish people God threw a few lightening bolts or started a little flood and stopped the shenanigans. I suppose this wouldn’t exactly be free will though…in any case the free will argument alone didn’t have me or my professor convinced that the evil in the world made sense. Because I clearly could not come to a conclusion on my own, I ended the conversation and turned to resources given to us by our church.
I cracked open the book Catholic Christianity and found the following points quite relevant:
□ God is good (1 John 1:5)
□ God created everything to be good (Gen 1:35)
□ Therefore evil cannot be a thing for it would have to be a creation of God, and all he created was good
□ However, it is real, it cannot be an illusion
□ It is real like blindness, but not a thing God created like the eye (I really like this comparison)
□ There are two kinds of evil, moral and physical
□ Moral evil comes from mans free will (perhaps my original response was the correct one)
□ God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it (CCC 311)
□ Evil is the separation from God
This book taught me several key points. First of all, I was trying to argue the existence of God even with evil in the world without first defining evil. If evil is the separation from God, how could evil exist without God. In our world everything seems to have an opposite, to maintain equilibrium. To have pure evil we must also have pure good. God fills this role.
While reorganizing my thoughts on the topic of evil, another point came to mind. Many argue that a right and just God wouldn’t allow suffering on the Earth. They argue that the evil simply isn’t fair to those born in unfortunate situations. In my opinion, however, the only way that it is fair is to believe that there is something more than this world. If the poor children dying of starvation only have this world, only this unfortunate life they were born into, that would not be right or fair at all. However, with the existence of a loving God, who will eventually take us all to live with Him in endless joy, their life here seems unfortunate, yes, but in reality just a speck in the grand scheme of eternity. If this unfortunate life is all they have, than life really is unfair and the crazy emo kids have it right. Since we believe in a loving God, however, in the end everything is made right.
—
Lucy D’Agostino is a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill. She was a member of Life Teen at St. Leo’s Catholic Church in high school and is currently serving an internship at St. Leo’s. During the school year Lucy is very involved in her Catholic Newman Center.
Steubenville Youth Conference
St. Leo’s Family Night – Kernal Kustard
April 21, 2009 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Core, Edge, Featured, Lifeteen
We are excited to host St. Leo’s Family Night at Kernal Kustard Restaurant to benefit St. Leo’s Youth Ministry. Simply go to Kernal Kustard anytime from 11am – 9pm and tell them you’re there to support St. Leo’s Youth Ministry. 15% of receipts will come directly to St. Leo’s Youth Ministry!
Plus from 5pm – 9pm St. Leo’s Youth Group will have entertainment for the whole family including live music from 6 – 9pm. Call or email us for more info 336-724-9596 or stleoyouth@gmail.com.
Colbert Defends Christ – Hilarious
April 14, 2009 by Chris Faddis
Filed under Featured, Lifeteen
I love Colbert but haven’t watched in a long time. Check out this video and how he subtly and with humor defends what we believe about Christ. Teens you should figure out how to use this for a class – especially if you take a world religions class or something.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Bart Ehrman | ||||
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Thanks to my friend Todd Lemiuex for sharing this on his blog. You should check it out it is very good and informative. Click his name to see his blog.