Before attending a weekend-long confirmation retreat at Loon Lake near Maple Ridge, I was an unknowing and unexpecting kid in Grade 7. I believed God was only present at Sunday Masses and in Wednesday PREP classes. My faith was something I thought I would forget and eventually leave behind.
But two days at My Seven from Heaven, the name of the annual retreat hosted by St. Mattthew’s in Surrey, learning more about my Catholic identity and growing in Christ-centred friendships with my classmates, were enough for God to completely change the plans I had made for myself.
The title My Seven from Heaven comes from the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which all those who are confirmed receive. These are the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, piety, wonder and awe, fortitude, and knowledge.
In Grade 7 I thought these gifts were power-ups. They were nothing more than confidence boosters and intelligence enhancers. I thought they’d make me physically stronger and academically smarter. I never considered their connection to my relationship with God. In fact, I didn’t even know I had a relationship with God. At 12 years old I saw him as an old man up in the sky, sending down blessings and karma, detached from my daily life.
I can vividly recall a skit performed live by the retreat service team. It is of a man who goes through his entire life abusing alcohol and cigarettes and eventually developing a terminal illness because of his addiction. I remember being shaken to the core by a scene close to the end.
The man is lying on his deathbed, sick and completely alone. A nurse helps him over to a priest sitting in a confessional nearby. The man kneels in front of him and speaks fervently, confessing everything to this priest whom he has just met. After forgiving him, the priest then helps the man back to his deathbed, where he passes away.
My 12-year-old mind couldn’t understand what I’d just watched. This man had spent his whole life in sin, done everything he shouldn’t have done, been everything he shouldn’t have been, and yet in the 11th hour he was forgiven. The priest had treated him like one of his own, not even knowing the man’s sinfulness and loneliness and still forgiving him.
Like the man, it was in encountering Jesus through my leaders and fellow classmates at this retreat nine years ago that I recognized the transformative power of God’s mercy.
Despite my youth, I caught a glimpse of myself in that skit. Not my seventh-grade self but a potential version of someone I might be if I slowly forgot my faith. I realized I didn’t want to wait until I was on my deathbed to reach for Christ, to take my faith more seriously, to receive the peace that comes from knowing who I am and whose I am.
From that point on, I was changed. Whether it was during a session talking about how wisdom is recognizing God’s will, or during the talent show singing a song with my friends, I felt something inside beginning to open up.
I sensed space being made to fully receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, an authentic freedom I had never experienced before. Prior to that weekend, I based my worth and value on how others saw me – whether they enjoyed who I was and liked what I did. I lived believing that I was already all I would ever be. My Seven From Heaven taught me that I was a beloved child of God. And like a child, I would grow.
I would grow in my capabilities, my talents, but also in my faith. Through the leaders who served me and have since gone on to pursue their vocations, to the classmates who I now serve with in current youth ministry at Saint Matthew’s, our origin stories all began in a small gym up in Loon Lake, Maple Ridge.
Our service over the years to the parish community, to the children we served and the youth we served with, all came to fruition because we attended a weekend retreat one springtime ago. A retreat where God inspired us with his love and mercy, calling us to “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Mt 19:14).
Rave Quidasol is a youth ministry leader at St. Matthew’s.