This year’s Confirmation class of 7 went out to Camp St. Christopher for my favorite retreat we do as a Diocese – Jesus Weekend. This is an intense couple of days where we go through the life, death , and resurrection of Jesus. This year was a bit different as we specifically looked through Mark’s Gospel with two major questions in mind – Who is Jesus? What was His mission?

Don’t think for a second that just because we were all bookworms for the weekend! With 140 8-9th graders from all across the Diocese, we had our share of silliness. From field games, to a fun sport we made up called “Follyball”, to star-tipping, to our first (annual?!?) St. Michael’s weight lifting competition, to even attempting Camp’s famous “Mud Pie” without the use of utensils, I think we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

But in the end, it was all about Jesus. The main message was this: if we miss someone’s identity, who one really is and what the mission is, then we therefore do not know how to relate to him. What became even clearer to all of us is that Jesus indeed is God, who came to save helpless humanity from their sin, and to bring us from our futile former attempts of saving ourselves through “broken cisterns” and bring us into His beauty and rest. His death and resurrection were all we needed and our response is to simply lay our burdens down and follow Him.
~ Justin Hare