Teens learn that schools’ founder had love for them

Every year, the Salesian community of schools in the archdiocese of New Orleans celebrates the feast of Salesian founder Don Bosco.

For the 2012 celebration, the senior peer ministry teams at Academy of Our Lady (AOL) and Archbishop Shaw high schools joined forces Jan. 31 for a combined celebration on both campuses.

The 11th and 12th graders participated in Mass and various activities – including a quiz bowl contest on St. John Bosco’s life – on the AOL campus. A mile or so away, the eighth through 10th graders from both schools, as well as eighth graders from the Salesian-run Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Prompt Succor and St. Rosalie schools, were doing the same things at Shaw.

A bonus for older students at Academy of Our Lady was having 2010 AOL graduate Christi Gongora and Archbishop Shaw 2006 graduate Eric Heiden speak about how the Salesian spirit carried on in their lives after high school.

Gongora, now a sophomore at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, said it was good to be home at AOL. She told students that a religion teacher at Academy of Our Lady changed her life when, during junior year, she was invited to attend a four-day leadership retreat hosted by the Salesians in New York. She said she made life-long friends there. It was those friends who encouraged her to pull through her freshman year of college and do better.

No more spoon-feeding

She cautioned them in life, especially in college, that you get what you put into the experience. She encouraged the boys and girls to attend the leadership retreat if asked.

“You take for granted everything when you are in high school,” she said. “When you are in college, no one is going to hand anything to you or ask you to do anything.”

Even when you are down, “If you are willing to start over, God will help you along the way,” Gongora said.

Heiden, 23, demonstrated to the juniors and seniors the importance of building their lives on a foundation of things that matter, such as family and faith. Cars, friends, jobs, clothes, electronics and the like are not that important.

“We need to keep our priorities straight,” he said. “More often than not, we try to put small things first, and our relationship with God often gets pushed out.”

He, too, went on the Salesian Leadership Retreat as a junior and said it set him on fire with the Salesian spirit. But, he stopped going to church in college and began to let smaller things take the place of God. He was drifting.

All it took was an invitation

A letter from Salesian Father Steve Ryan to attend a weeklong Salesian service retreat called Gospel Roads turned his life around. He was again thrust into the Salesian sense of reason, religious, kindness and love that enveloped him in high school. He realized that the only thing that had changed over the years was he. God was always there.

“Being Salesian means we are all called to be saints and to live a holy life, but being Salesian every day means you don’t have to go out of your way to do it,” Heiden said. “Being truly Salesian means love of the young, helping the young and poor and devotion to Mary Help of Christians (which St. John Bosco founded for nuns).”

Heiden read them a story called, “Push,” about the Lord asking a man to push a large rock. While the man thought he had failed the Lord by not being able to move the rock, the Lord told the man how he was obedient and how he gained strength in his attempts and how he exercised faith in God’s trust and wisdom. He told them Don Bosco couldn’t do it alone. He prayed to Mary for assistance.

Saying ‘yes’ in obedience

“What God wants us to do is to master obedience and have faith in him by praying until something happens. It doesn’t make things easy, it makes them possible,” he said. “Use your best abilities and push. During our life, we will face challenges and face people that say God does not exist, but we must remember to push.”

Junior Lindsey Morris said Don Bosco’s feast day celebration is a reminder of what the Salesian patron stood for – love and caring of youth.

“That’s what they (AOL and Shaw) are trying to do for us – help us bond and come closer together,” she said. “They teach you how to help others. It’s not always about you. You helping other people is like you helping God.”

Salesian Sister Michelle Geiger, principal at Academy of Our Lady, saw much bonding over the daylong feast.

“I hope they get the experience that they are one church and one family, and there are other people who are going to live their faith, and they need to find those friends, she said.

            Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].