More fun and pictures

NCYC participant, Jennifer Williams and her Mom and our chaperone, Dawn waiting to begin Mass.


Dinner Fun!

Some pictures from NCYC

Steve Angrisano warming up the crowd before closing Eucharist.


Yea, I know, Catholic kids don't want to go to Mass. There were at least 10,000 youth waiting from 5pm for the doors of the Sprint Center to open at 7pm for the closing liturgy whcih began at 8:30pm...yea, Catholic kids don't want to go to Mass.

Let's Kick Some Miter!

Today, as I was meandering through the expansive exhibit hall at NCYC, I noticed a priest standing near a booth. As I walked by, he walked up to me and said what may be the strangest phrase anyone has ever told me: "Philip," he said, reading my name-tag, "have you ever bowled with a bishop?" As you may have guessed I was intrigued. "Ummm... no I actually haven't" I replied. I talked with him a little more, and he pointed to where I could bowl with a bishop and "kick some miter," if I was so inclined. As It turned out, a booth advocating the priesthood had set up a Nintendo Wii console, and was letting youth challenge a bishop in Wii Sports bowling. This, in my mind, illustrated just how amazing NCYC is. Things happen here that do not happen anywhere else. As I sat in mass with over 20000 people, I mulled over some of the other reasons. Nowhere else do people walk around with signs advertising free hugs for all. Nowhere else do you see two priests jumping and dancing during a rap concert. Nowhere else do you see 170 priests and seminarians saying the communion rite simoultaneously. None of these things you can see anywhere else, which is what makes NCYC like nothing else on earth.

Good Bless,
Philip Arbogast-Wilson

great dinner, goodnight!

The night was better than good...it was great and Peter's description gives a great view of what is going on here. The youth are truly excited to be here and they appreciate the presenters, performers, peers, parents, pastoral ministers, and priests who make this possible (p-people rule!) Our Chaperones (they deserve the capital "C" and don't you wish you were one?)have been wonderful, understanding, adaptable, resilient, and God-guided,have always looked out for our youths best interests. Our older and more experienced youth have taken our "freshpersons" by the hand and helped them appreciate NCYC more fully. Tonight we recognized that great youth come from people who are committed to raising them well. You have our gratitude.

Tomorrow, freshpersons previously un-heard-from (is that word or is 3am taking its toll?) will post in this space.

In Christ (right there with you!) Mary Lou

Hello, my name is Peter and you are going to like me!

To start of, today was the best experience of my life. To kick start our day we listened bagpipes and Andy Adino which transitioned into our first keynote speakers Cardinal Daniel Dinardo and Brian Johnson. After they showed us how to live a life for god, we witnessed a spectacular Adoration service. Afterwards all the Saint Mary guys and I all went down to the all male workshop "Bending not Breaking" which was given by Bob Perron. In this work shop we recieved a whole new perspective on the roles of bullying and being bullied. Later in the day, after lunch, most of Saint Mary's went to Father Tony's workshop "Don't Be Stupid". With some five or six thousand people Father Tony taught what being ignorant and being stupid is. Ignorant is not know what is wrong and do it. While stupid is knowing what is wrong and doing it anyway. In the "oldschool" style he said "I don't care how you feel, but I love you enough to tell you the truth". I was just floored with his whole speech from laughs to the most eye opening truths. Afterwards The Saint Mary's gang went to eat dinner together before going to the Evening General Session. Opening with Matt Maher Band, and they gave a simply stunning performance to get us ready for our next two speakers, Jason and Crystalina Evert. The Evert's brought us their Chasisty seminar, which was very perspective altering. Both Jason and Crystalina had very different things to bring to both sexes respectively. What struck home with was Jason's idea of your future spouse, and how you should respect wemon while dating them because you don't want someone else not respecting your future spouse. We ended the night with the youth animators and one of MCs Steve Angrisano, with a very strong prayer.

God Bless,

Peter McDevitt

Mary Lou here...it's Friday night @ NCYC

...and tonight session is about to close and our youth will board their bus to come back to our hotel. We had a nice dinner at Genghis Grill, kinda like a Mongolian BBQ. Even as we enjoyed our dinners, I watched Joe Haroney go through his study cards, continuing to memorized authors, date and cities of publication, "Thomas Paine, 1794...

About half our group got freat seat tonight for the keynote session. If you were watching on www.mycatholicvoice.com you may have seen Grace, TJ, Joe or Alex or any other of our young people. I know they had a blessed day and that is due to our great chaperones, Gary Galvin, Nick Haroney and Dawn Williams.

When our kids arrive at the hotel, I am hoping a few will update our blog and maybe FB as well. Its just the beginning of the day for me...ttfn, In Christ (right there with you!)Mary Lou

NCYC: new experiences

Here are a few things I learned today:
1. Sometimes people don't understand that a YOUTH conference is supposed to have more youth than adults atttending...
2. A King-sized bed is really big and can fill up a whole hotel room by itself when there's supposed to still be a pullout couch and a rollaway...
3. Youth Conferences= TRAFFIC...
4. People like to yell and scream when they're excited, but some people don't understand that and ask you to be quiet...
5. Catholic people know good music... :)
6. In Missouri they don't recycle cans... (and I spent ten minutes trying to find a place to recylce my can.)
7. 21,000 people is A LOT!!!