Summary: EDGE is a program meant for all 6th-12th grade members of our St. Jude’s parish, which is represented by roughly ten different middle and high schools. We meet from 5:30pm-8:30pm every Wednesday in the Youth Room. This program is designed to nurture the seeds planted in Rock of the Church to deepen their Faith and grow their community. The Students typically arrive within the first half an hour and have the freedom to choose their activity or social engagement for a time until we all gather in prayer to bless our food; typically as the year goes on the students take turns leading us in the blessing. We then have dinner as a group that is prepared and served by myself, the core team, and any older students that have a calling to help. We then transition into our lesson for the day; which like Rock of the Church revolves around our Catholic Faith and Identity, relationships with others, prayer, and our relationship with Christ. I usually tie this lesson into scripture for reference and example. This keynote is tied together with some sort of activity; examples include the students breaking up into small groups to create a picture, skit, or written reinterpretation of the scripture verse we studied, Lexio and Visio Davina, or drafting a prayer or song for what we learned. We also attend Adoration and Benediction once a month for “Abundance” to pray for Vocations. We support a strong Devotion to our Blessed Mother with this group, many “Hail Mary’s” are prayed each week either organically or through focused prayer in the Rosary. We end our evening with organized free time where some of the Students choose to go outside and play together, stay in and work on an art or music project, or socialize amongst themselves playing games and talking. Our theme to our mission is to show how it takes a conscious effort to have a relationship with God and that there is an importance to being intentional about carving out time to talk and listen to Him, to surround yourself with those who are doing the same, and to help those who don’t understand. The goal to this mission is to introduce the understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in and through our lives and how Christ is in both our selves and our neighbor and how to see Him in both. We tend to follow the Liturgical year in our topics of discussion and spend extra time during the advent and Christmas season learning about who Christ is and the Loving, Hopeful relationship He has for us; and during Lent and Easter we focus on Christ’s Loving sacrifice of the Passion and Renewal we receive through His resurrection at Easter
Patron Saints:
- St. Jon Bosco
- St. Jude
- Mary Help of Christians
Key Principles:
- To deepen our Catholic Faith and Identity
- Tie scripture to real life examples to give tangibility to the lessons
- Explore different types of Prayer and their utility
- Strengthen relationships through Christ as well as creating new ones
- Developing a personalized relationship with Christ through the exploration of prayer and meditation of scripture
- Introduction of God’s purpose for you and the gifts he gave you
- Introduction to the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit and how those relate to our lives
Goals for the Future:
- Off Property Service projects throughout the year
- More involvement in weekly masses and parish activities (Ushers, Readers, Choir)
- Service to our Parish through Coffee and Donuts and special event assistance
- Off Property retreat
- Creating a reoccurring prayer service for our Parish sponsored by our youth
- On Property week long day camp during the summer
