Levi Zaabel, center, a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Newton, pushes a cart at the Knoxville Area Rescue Mission store in Knoxville, Tennessee during a mission trip last month.
By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
NEWTON — Teens from Sacred Heart Parish kept the love of Jesus in the Eucharist close to their hearts during a mission trip to Knoxville, Tennessee last month. “We started our days with Mass — the highest form of prayer we can participate in — and then we worked,” recalled Luke Gregory, the parish’s director of faith formation and senior high youth ministry. “We drew our strength from the most Blessed Sacrament and received the graces that we needed to fulfill our work duties afterwards.”
The parish offers an annual summer mission trip to high school students and this year chose to work with Alive in You, a hybrid service and conference experience. Twelve youths and four adults departed June 17 from Newton and arrived the following day at Cathedral School of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville. They celebrated Mass at the cathedral and then gathered with parish groups from Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Illinois for evening programming.
“We had a great start to the week and look forward to seeing what else is in store for us,” Gregory wrote on Sacred Heart Parish’s Facebook page. He posted photos and a recap daily so well-wishers could follow along. Newton participant Drew Bratland, an incoming senior, later told The Catholic Messenger he enjoyed meeting all the new people.
Each day had a similar format: Mass, followed by several hours of service work, time for self-care, and an evening program. Parish groups met individually at the end of the night to talk about the day and answer questions related to the theme of the week, the Eucharist. Each night during the parish session, a Sacred Heart youth offered a witness talk about his or her relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist. “Alive in You wanted to focus on the most Blessed Sacrament because of the Eucharistic Revival currently taking place in the Church in the United States,” Gregory told The Catholic Messenger.
On June 19, the group spent the morning at Young Williams Animal Center making dog toys and treats, cleaning kennels and spending time with the cats and dogs. “The kids did a fantastic job and worked their tails off (no pun intended),” Gregory wrote on Facebook. After lunch, the youths and adults volunteered at Knoxville Area Rescue Mission sorting through donations, cleaning shelves and picking out attire for mannequins.
The following morning, the group helped at Family Promise, an organization that provides a community-based response that empowers and equips families experiencing homelessness and housing instability to achieve sustainable independence. “The kids worked very hard today painting and pulling weeds,” Gregory wrote on the parish’s Facebook page. “After work, we had a nice ice cream treat.”
On the final workday, June 21, the group served the local Salvation Army by sorting and organizing clothes, and cleaning and organizing a pantry. The group also did secretarial work, cleaned up the grounds and did some tree trimming. The experience left a lasting impression on incoming senior Ella Machin. “It was so amazing seeing all of the people receiving positive help and doing their best,” she told The Catholic Messenger. “They seemed to be filled with hope, which is amazing considering the situations some of them are in.” That evening, mission trip participants had the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation.
Gregory said the Newton youths inspired him with their willingness to serve. “Whether they were asked to clean shelves at a thrift store, help with painting projects or clean up outside and pull weeds in the Tennessee heat, the youths went out of their comfort zone and rose to the occasion to do what was being asked of them.”
The group spent free time June 22 taking a guided tour of the first maximum-security prison in Tennessee, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, which closed in 2009. A former penitentiary officer led the tour and the group heard from a former inmate. On the final evening, participants heard from Chicago-based Catholic speaker Nic Frank and participated in workshops on topics including Lectio Divina, vocational discernment and eucharistic miracles. Eucharistic adoration, a concert and parish time concluded the evening.
Gregory hopes this year’s participants were able to experience how good works function as an extension of one’s faith life. He looks forward to continuing the parish’s high school mission trip tradition next summer.
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