Youth leaders from across the Diocese of Venice gathered for a “Day of Reflection” Oct. 21, 2025, at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Retreat Center in Venice.
The retreat was an opportunity for the youth ministers to learn from each other about the joy and challenges of leading youth programs.
Bishop Frank J. Dewane celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the youth ministers, thanking them for the important work they do in keeping an important segment of the Church population active in the faith.
“You have the responsibility to form your students so that they are ready in their lives, to know who the Lord is, and to know what their response to His call will be. They need to be people of action,” Bishop Dewane said. “They learn to do this through prayer and by knowing how to pray. Prayer is the raising of the heart and mind to God. That is a succinct formula the young people can digest. They understand those terms and can dispose of themselves to do that. You, as youth ministers, have to install that in the youth, allowing them to make themselves channels of establishing that relationship with Jesus Christ through an active prayer life.”
A key challenge to this is balancing the goal of keeping the youth engaged and growing in their faith versus them being distracted by a world that pulls them in the opposite direction.
Andres Prias, Diocesan Director of Youth & Young Adult Outreach, said the focus of youth outreach is to “Listen, Teach, Send.” Prias, who has worked with youth for more than 30 years, encouraged the youth ministers to provide the youth real experiences of Jesus Christ.
“You need to be a part of their world, because what you do is not done in isolation from the real world,” Prias said.
To do that, each must offer activities that are both social and faith filled. Finding the right balance will lead to success.
