World Meeting inspired, energized local Catholics

While much news coverage focused on Pope Francis’ visit to the United States and his address to the United Nations and the joint session of Congress, what was sometimes lost was his reason for coming in the first place — the eighth World Meeting of Families held in Philadelphia the week leading up to his visit.

St. John Paul II inaugurated the meeting in 1994 and it’s held every three years in a different country. There are several days of keynotes and workshops around the theme of families. In Philadelphia, children and youth participated in a Youth Congress going on at the same time. The meetings traditionally end with a visit from the pope.

The Archdiocese of Chicago sent an official delegation of 24 people to the World Meeting of Families. Auxiliary bishops, pastors or members of the archdiocese’s Office for Catechesis and Youth Ministry nominated the delegates based on their work with families in parishes.

Two delegates, Deacon Andy and Cindy Neu, are involved in marriage and family ministry at St. Barnabas Parish, 10134 S. Longwood Drive, and said they were amazed by the vast amount of Catholic resources available to families presented at the meeting.

“Well, I thought we were doing a really good job at our parish and I realized that there is so much more that we can be doing,” said Cindy Neu. “I think we’ll go back and offer more at our parish.”

The experience has also expanded their understanding of the Catholic Church.

“When you’re doing ministry at a parish a lot of times you get so consumed with what you are doing and you think that this is the extent of the whole church, whatever is right in front of me,” said Deacon Andy Neu. “And then you realize that there’s a universal church out there and there’s so much going on and so much activity.”

Hearing about what others are doing to help families energizes you to go back to the parish and share what others are doing around the country and world, he said.

Hungry for Christ
While Felician Sister Eliana Remiszewska of St. Turibius Parish, 5646 S. Karlov Ave., isn’t doing family ministry at present she believes God is calling her to do so and that was why she was asked to participate in the delegation.

“What I am learning here is that there is this deep hunger for Christ and it is so wonderful to see so many young families who want to live a Christian life and they want to be helped,” said Remiszewska.

She heard a married couple at the event share how they received a lot of preparation from the church for their wedding but after that there was nothing for them.

“It opened my eyes,” Remiszewska said.

When she returns to her parish she has plans to have the community celebrate wedding anniversaries regularly — five, 10, 15 years and more — and make them public, parish events that all can share in.

Open to young people
Seminarian Ryan Adorjan, 23, and Kathleen Quinlan, 29, represented University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary at the meeting. They shared what went on during the meeting on social media and through videos posted on the university’s website.

“Our goals have really been to focus on creating materials and letting them know what is happening at the World Meeting of Families and how they can take those tools and apply them to their family as well,” said Quinlan, donor relations director for the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

One of the things she will communicate to donors when she returns to the university is how the Catholic Church has many tools to help its people navigate the journey of life.

“By using the tools that we are given, the problems that we have on a daily basis, we can overcome those through God and with God and create supernatural families that start at home and then extend to all of our communities,” she said. “It’s an amazing resource that we have, that’s ours and that we get to share.”

While Adorjan hopes to give talks on the meeting at the seminary and parishes when he returns, all that he’s learned about family life during the week will help him in his priesthood too.

“It’s going to be priceless,” he said.

Both said they wished more young adults attended the meeting to learn how to build healthy and spirit-filled relationships. Young people today feel like the church isn’t relevant to them or they don’t belong there, Adorjan said.

“But I think what we saw this week was that, actually, the church is open to all people regardless of what you’re suffering or what has happened to you or what you’ve done,” he said.

The church can show young people that it’s there with them in the hot-button issues of the day, that it hasn’t abandoned them.

“Thomas Merton said, ‘Your parents wanted the child but God wanted you,’” he said. “I think the church is starting to realize that it needs to do a better job of that, of opening itself up to young people.”