April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
YOUTH AND YOUNG ADULTS
'5G' speaker talks sexuality, sacraments at upcoming events for young Catholics
One event, geared toward college students and young adults, will be held March 14 at Immaculate Conception parish in Glenville and is co-sponsored by St. Edward the Confessor parish in Clifton Park. The other, March 15, is for high-school students at St. Edward's.
The speaker, Meg Hunter-Kilmer, is a 30-year-old native of the Washington, D.C., area who has two theology degrees from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She taught high-school religion in Georgia and Kansas for five years before feeling like God was calling her to quit teaching and hit the road to speak to Catholic groups.
"Let me be your booking agent," she said she felt God say. "'Let me take care of it.' It was an irrational choice, but it just made so much sense that it had to be supernatural."
In 2012, Ms. Hunter-Kilmer took off in her Mazda 3 and began speaking to women's groups, youth groups and Army groups and at parish missions and retreats. She has covered 48 states and 55,000 miles and hasn't yet stayed in a hotel: Her blog and networking always land her a place to hang her hat.
In it with you
Her experiences have made for interesting speaking fodder - she calls herself a "hobo for Christ" - and especially resonate with youth.
Young Catholics "get a lot of people showing up and telling them how to live their lives," she said. "I'm a sinner, but they can sense that I'm at least trying. [I want] for people just to be in love with Jesus and be willing to be sold out for Him.
"God is crazy about you," she tells young people.
Ms. Hunter-Kilmer will be talking about this and Blessed Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body teachings for the youth event, which St. Edward's has dubbed "5G Night." She said she often tells teens the Church's stance on sexuality and morality is "more an owner's manual than a list of rules.
"God is telling us how we work because He wants us to be happy," she explained. "Human beings are infinitely valuable and were made to give themselves away in love. Your sexual choices are not a matter of pleasure."
Teens "understand the concept of chastity as a 'yes' instead of a series of 'nos,'" she said. "They recognize it as a valid proposition, which is not always the case" before she speaks to them.
She also talks about making sacrifices: "Christ is offering us so much more, but there's a cost. The cross you have to carry doesn't even compare to the glory of the resurrection."
YA event
The young adult event will focus on forgiveness and the sacrament of reconciliation. Poor catechesis causes people's apathetic attitude toward sin and their treatment of confession like a dental cleaning, said Ms. Hunter-Kilmer.
"I just want everybody to go!" she said of confession. "It's very easy not to go, or to go but to do it as a very perfunctory thing."
Pride, fear that God won't love them anymore and shame often keep Catholics from using the sacrament - "especially if high school and college were not as sanctifying as they ought to have been," she said. "A lot of people think, 'I didn't murder anybody. It's not that bad. I'll be fine.'"
People usually line up for reconciliation after they hear Ms. Hunter-Kilmer speak.
Getting together
"A lot of times," she said, "it's just that nobody's really encouraged people to think about their sins in this way. In confession, it's really important to recognize that we're confessing our sins to God. The priest is the mediator. We're the ones who nailed [Jesus] to the cross with our sins."
She has found Catholic programming for young adults to be lacking around the country. When she left a faith-nurturing college community, she struggled to find "accountability partners" in the real world.
"So much young adult programming that you encounter is not about the pursuit of holiness," she said. "Social groups are fantastic in as much as they can encourage you in your journey toward Christ."[[In-content Ad]]
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