Parish youth leaders and all young adults who are interested in serving the Church and forming supportive friendships with like-minded Catholics are invited to attend the Youth Leaders Evangelisation School (YLES) next January.
The week-long live-in experience organised by Sydney Catholic Youth (SCY) will include talks by a range of speakers, workshops, daily Mass and adoration, recreation and two pilgrimage day trips.
It will be held at the Benedict XVI Retreat Centre in Grose Vale from Saturday 15-22 January.
The school will allow leaders aged 18-35 to explore their call to discipleship through community life, daily prayer, and through building a culture of responsibility for ourselves and others in our daily lives.
SCY youth officer Jennifer Healey said the program is developed to encourage leaders to exercise their call to evangelisation within the many contexts of their lives, including ministry.
“It’s an opportunity to gather together, receive formation, to rejuvenate and be reset interiorly after the activity of this year, to make a space to see what God wants to do through you for the Church next year and beyond,” she said.
Two group day trips will be opportunities for a short pilgrimage, one to Coogee to the home of Servant of God Eileen O’Connor and one to the Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy at Penrose Park.
Speakers will include Fr Damian Mosakowski OSPPE, director of Parousia Media Charbel Raish, lay missionary Marie van Rensberg, Fr Greg Morgan, diocesan youth leaders and more.
The theme for the week will be “Abide in me” (John 15:5).
“We all need to trust in God, to lean on Him in order to bear fruit that will last,” Jennifer said.
“It can be easy in ministry to develop a mentality of focusing on what we can do, rather than on how we can be a person of better prayer, to have that life-giving relationship with God so as to make the best of the opportunities I have to be a part of His mission.”
For more information visit the Sydney Catholic Youth website.
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