“My Son lend your heart to me, let my ways be delightful to you.

Youth Retreat

Kondadaba: St John’s Regional Seminary conducted youth retreat on 05.11.2017 at 10:00 am to 5:00 pm for the young people. This event is been pre-planned by the Suvartha Sunadam Group leader Br. Tarun along with their group members. Fr Mallavarapu Rayanna (the Rector) is group in charge of the Group was the man who is behind the curtain to pre-plan and implement.  Father Rector called the resource person for the day. He is Fr Mohan Prasad, in charge of Divyavani Channel from the Pastoral Centre of Archdiocese of Visakhapatnam. Number of the participant are 103 from different villages and Parishes. They are namely, Chodavaram, L.Kota, Mangalapalem and S.Kota. The theme for this youth retreat was; “My Son lend your heart to me, let my ways be delightful to you”. At the start of the retreat Fr Jose. K introduced the retreat preacher to the youth and wished all the best for the day with the Lord.

This day is been dedicated for the youth to turn back to God from their daily life and moreover from the sinful life. This day called them to become holy from the retched life. St John’s Regional Seminary provided a day and time to grow one’s relationship with God. A time for conversion from deep within is been the motto behind this plan of this day. Fr Mohan with his spiritual talks drilled (infused) the Word of God along with parables into their heart and minds.

Father Mohan shed the light on the bad habits that youth are addicted in the present world. Secondly, he invited them to turn away from vulnerable addictions which are unwanted like smoking, tobacco, drugs, consumption of alcohol, mistrust, unfaithfulness, going away from the Church’s Teachings, etc… They shall be mindful of chasing their goals using their talents, if only they say no to all other bad habits that one come across in life.  Fr Mohan invited the youth to share their spiritual journey with God and many participants spontaneously shared their spiritual journey.   Some of the other issues that are been touched upon are respecting parents and disciplining themselves and developing personality are been the social issues.

 Secondly, the retreat preacher compared Jesus and Alexander the Great to bring out the message. He said that both of this persons worked hard and struggled life. One sought for the eternal and the other sought for the earthly things. One for the perishable and the other for imperishable. Now, the choice is our to choose eternity or perishable? Posed the question for the youth to think about it.

                Youth retreat was concluded after the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. During the homily time,  he preached on the thought provoking thing theme is that; “ Love”. Preacher mainly emphasized on love yourself that you are precious jewel in the hand of God. Be concerned towards your neighbour as Mary showed through her life.  Lastly, the remarkable statement he made it was, to be the change that we wanted to see the world. We called it a day by 5:00pm with tea.