The second CLE 21:6 event, organized by the Diocese of Cleveland Office of Youth Ministry, had something for everyone.
About 350 students and youth ministers from parishes and high schools across the eight-county diocese gathered on Jan. 7 at John Carroll University. Attendees, organizers and volunteers wore T-shirts with the theme Alpha, Omega, Beginning, End, Source, Summit.
They heard from David Calavitta who offered opening (alpha) and closing (omega) remarks. Calavitta, director of creative and marketing for Life Teen, has served the young Church for more than two decades, including through his speaking ministry.
(See photo gallery above.)
“The Gospel is the only hope worth clinging to. The Gospel is the only hope worth sharing,” Calavitta said.
There were breakout sessions, lunch in groups, a group activity in JCU’s Kulas Auditorium, Mass celebrated by Father Damian Ference, vicar for evangelization and director of the diocesan Parish Life Office, which includes the Office of Youth Ministry, dinner by parish groups, music, dessert, a candlelight procession to Gesu Church (across from JCU), a closing session with Calavitta, adoration, worship and confession.
Relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and St. Manuel Gonzalez Garcia were displayed throughout the event. Attendees were able to venerate the relics and they were blessed with them. The relics also were carried in a candlelight procession at the end of the day from JCU to Gesu, where they were displayed throughout adoration, confession and the closing ceremony.
Blessed Carlo, 1991-2005, was a teenager devoted to the Eucharist who died of leukemia at age 15. He was designated venerable in 2013. St. Manuel, 1877-1940, was a Spanish bishop who founded the Missionaries of Nazareth, the Disciples of St. John and the Children of Reparation. He had a deep devotion to the Eucharist and was known as the Bishop of the Tabernacle. Pope Francis canonized him in 2016.
Father Eric Garris, newly designated diocesan vocation director, was among the concelebrants for the Mass in Kulas Auditorium. He also was homilist.
Father Garris told the group they all left something behind in order to attend the daylong event.
“You need to be found,” he said, explaining that the Epiphany which was celebrated that weekend, was not about finding God. “It’s about God finding you. Where are you? A father wants to find his children and bring them back, to seek the lost.”
At the beginning of Mass, “We are lost,” Father Garris said. “Our story ends with us being found here. Our God is not a God of generalities. He is a particular God … We’re not just Christians because it makes sense but because of Jesus.” He encouraged attendees to let themselves be found.
“Where is the Lord leading you? We don’t know. We’re all called to some type of holiness. The Lord has something specific for each of you. Stop running. Let the Lord find you,” he added.
“What we celebrate today began in a manger 2,000 years ago. Today the question is, will you let yourself be found by him? Today, he is seeking 348 people from the Diocese of Cleveland. Let him find you,” Father Garris said.
After Mass, Father Ference and Father Garris blessed the group with the relics before they were dismissed by parish groups for a dinner break. The group reconvened in the Dolan Science and Technology Center for dessert before receiving lighted candles and beginning the candlelight procession across campus to Gesu. Leading the way were priests, seminarians, deacons and Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.
Once at Gesu, they filed into the pews, extinguished their candles and heard a closing presentation from Calavitta. He shared how his mother sent a series of texts around Christmas updating him on his father’s medical condition and other family matters. She always ended the messages with LOL, which confused him. After talking to her, he discovered she thought it meant “lots of love,” not the typical “laugh out loud.”
“Omega – the end – can have a negative connotation,” Calavitta said, explaining it can mean the end of a relationship or a good meal. “Jesus is the alpha and the omega – the beginning and the end. He’s infinitely more powerful and loving. If God stopped thinking about you, you’d cease to exist,” he said.
Calavitta told the group there is a purpose to everything – a beginning and an end. He noted how the “end” of an acorn is when it grows into an oak tree, which produces more acorns.
“God is the alpha and the omega – the reason for our existence, the fulfillment of our lives. He’s what we have hungered for, our source and summit, what we were made for. Apart from God our lives will be unfulfilled. Heaven is our end. We were made for it,” he added.
Being separated from God for eternity is hell, Calavitta said.
He told the group that God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and began to reveal heaven to earth. He showed us what love looks like, Calavitta added.
“Jesus shows us our end, what we were made for. Ultimately, he climbed on the cross to bridge the gap caused by our sin. The cross is not proclaiming your condemnation, it’s declaring your liberation. Your life is worth the life of God the Son who suffered and died for you. That’s how loved and desired you are,” Calavitta said.
For thousands of years people have tried to find ways of fulfillment. “Nothing has done it – only God. Tonight, as God draws close to us, may we find our source and summit,” he said.
The group was invited to spend about the last hour of the event in adoration. Several priests were on hand to hear confessions and prayer groups were available in the church lobby to pray with individuals who had special intentions.
Father Ference urged attendees to “let Catholicism seep into your blood and your bones. It’s a deep, rich, ancient thing,” he said.
Francine Costantini, director of the Office of Youth Ministry, called the sold-out event a success. She and her staff will review this year’s event as they begin planning for the next one.