SPREADING THE LIGHT Holy friendships
DNA of Communion as a youth group lifestyle By Bea Romo and Bob Cummings
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Contributors
un”, “family”, “love” were words used by teens to describe CONNECT, a youth group at Holy Family Parish in Corpus Christi. Along with their religious education classes, CONNECT is an integral part of preparing teens before they receive the sacrament of confirmation. CONNECT is an experience where we aim to build up the “Three Connections.” They are all interwoven and essential to one another other: The first is the connection with God, which is strengthened and complemented by our connection with our neighbors and finally brings us to a greater connection with ourselves – our truest identity. The core group is made of young adults, a young mom and the two of us. We meet every Wednesday with the intention to grow in our personal connection with God and with each other. We pray, reflect, share, challenge each other and plan activities for the teens. We hold each other accountable to live out the Gospel and the principles of the “DNA of Communion” which in a beautiful way, supports our desire to grow in the three connections. The methodology that we use for CONNECT is based on the “Head, Hearts and Hands” approach. We believe that this supports the teens in integrating every area of their lives as followers of Jesus. We give presentations, share, reflect and pray as part of nourishing the heart. We bring speakers with certain expertise on the Social Doctrine of the Church or other matters to cultivate
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Both Bea Romo and Bob Cummings accompany youth at Holy Family Parish in Corpus Christi. They are core group members of CONNECT, and help facilitate the spiritual growth of teens.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
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S O U T H T E X A S C AT H O L I C
the minds, and we love to serve through “hands-on” experiences to strengthen our hands. Christina Zuniga, one of the core group members shares a story: “About six months ago we had a new teen, who started coming to the youth group after one of the service projects. She is predominantly Spanish-speaking and understands little English. I am the opposite, but we worked well together at the service project because it didn’t involve much talking. This also challenged me because I wanted to do more and create a connection beyond “¿Cómo estás?” So, later when I went to our Spanish Mass, I would practice two sentences in case I saw her, and when I did, I would speak them to her, and she’d be surprised and smile. “She was one teen who amazed me because she would faithfully come to our weekly meetings even though we didn’t always have someone to translate the entire meeting. When we had to move our meetings online because of social distancing, she still came. With the help of Google translate, these new activities provided another opportunity to try to integrate a bit more Spanish when we shared. In one of the online sessions, she shared that she was grateful to us,” Zuniga said. She always felt welcomed and never felt like an outsider because of the language barrier. She saw and felt the love from everything that we did for her. And that’s when it clicked – love was the reason she kept coming back.” She has now become one of CONNECT’s teen leaders and a faithful and enthusiastic promoter of CONNECT’s
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WINTER 2020 -2021
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M AY T H E Y A L L B E O N E
