Three grew to serve church

Twice a year, dozens of Catholic youth attend the Christian Leadership Institute (CLI).

A program of the Albany diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis (OEC), the week-long experience teaches communications and leadership skills, as well as what it means to be young, Catholic and a leader.

For some teens, CLI is part of what inspires them to serve God through ministry: as faith formation leaders, cantors and priests.

Here are the stories of three grads who have gone from interested teens to committed workers for the Church.

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From teen to working with teens

JUSTIN HUYCK is director of youth ministry at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany and coordinator of the OEC's outreach program to inactive young adults.

Nine years after CLI, he can still remember the singing, fellowship, prayer and personal reflection that he delivered at a prayer service -- and how the whole week gave him "an experience of the larger, universal Church."

Mr. Huyck, now 26, grew up at St. John the Baptist Church in Walton before moving with his family to St. Vincent de Paul in Albany as a teenager. His first exposure to a grand Catholic gathering was the 1993 National Catholic Youth Conference in Philadelphia, followed with two conferences of the National Pastoral Musicians (NPM). Those events encouraged him to be involved with his parish youth ministry program.

For Mr. Huyck, the conferences became "times of conversion. There is a real sense of empowerment of young people in this Diocese, though [OEC], through the pastors and through the music ministers."

At Cornell University, he majored in government but found that his real passion was in liturgy, not public policy. He pursued this interest by enrolling at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and is currently in the process of completing a master's degree.

He often refers to something that CLI taught him: In order to become an effective minister, one must "form yourself, discover what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what the gifts that God has blessed you with are. That has been important to me. Our Baptism means something, so not only we are blessed with gifts, but we are expected to use them."

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Living his leadership lessons

JONATHAN SOSEK is faith formation director at St. Francis de Sales parish in Loudonville.

Now 24, he remembers CLI partly because of the experience of community he felt and the leadership lessons he took with him back to St. John the Evangelist parish in Schenectady.

But he remembers something else as well. While he was at CLI in 1997, his grandfather passed away. He took a break to attend the wake and then returned to the retreat. In a moment he'll never forget, he brought out his guitar at a prayer service and played Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" in memory of his grandfather.

"CLI was a really formative experience," he said. "In thinking about CLI, [community] is what I think is its greatest strength. It's an unmistakable Christian community. It shows [teens] how a Christian community operates."

At his parish and at Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons School, he got involved with service projects, prayer and youth ministry. Mr. Sosek attended Sarah Lawrence College, where he earned a degree in liberal arts. He studied Gospel exegesis, Eastern traditions and other religious topics.

A desire to continue his study in religion landed him at McGill University in Montreal, where he's currently completing his master's thesis. He also found an echo of his CLI experience in the college's Newman Center.

"A lot of people there I might not have been friends with if not for our common Catholicism, but yet we have this relationship," he explained. "It's hard to find that these days, to enter into a community that isn't just based on utility or convenience. There are so many wonderful people I've met at church that I would just not meet otherwise."

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CLI leads to rectory

REV. STEVEN MOORE is assistant pastor, St. Mary's Church in Oneonta.

Now 29, Father Moore knew he wanted to be a priest in elementary school, but he didn't act on that thought until he was a student at LeMoyne College in Syracuse.

The CLI graduate was ordained as an Albany diocesan priest last year. In Oneonta, among his many duties, he works with youth. Recently, for example, he traveled with the parish's teens to World Youth Day and the National Catholic Youth Conference in Atlanta.

The future priest completed the CLI week when he was 15, and he often tells the youth in his parish that it was "one of the best things that I've ever done. I'm the first priest CLI produced."

In the early '90s, he was a teen involved with youth ministry at St. Mary/St. Paul's parish in Hudson Falls, where he would type out Mass texts for two retired priests at his parish.

He sat with fellow CLI grads at a retreat center to talk with Bishop Howard J. Hubbard about the events of the week.

"I remember being impressed by the fact that he sat on the floor with us," he said. CLI "encouraged me to go deeper in terms of being a Catholic Christian and a leader. It was my first experience with being with other kids who were also fairly involved in their church and one of the first times that I was encouraged to take on a leadership role."

The future Father Moore later attended World Youth Day in Denver and put his leadership skills to use as a resident assistant at LeMoyne. Called upon to lead a workshop on communication skills, his first reference was "my CLI folder," he explained. "I just went back into my folder, and we did some of the same exercises."

Said the priest, "I see youth ministry as a value, and I know many of our kids came back [from CLI and World Youth Day] all charged up. Teenagers need to feel that they are important."

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Still more graduates of CLI serve in positions across the Albany Diocese, including Brian Evers, youth minister at St. Pius X parish in Loudonville; Kelly Hession, an employee of diocesan Catholic Charities; and the author of these articles.

For more information about CLI, contact the diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis at 453-6630.

(1/19/06) [[In-content Ad]]