St. Michael & St. Peter's Youth Ministry

06/09/2026

Monday Meditation

"Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You." — Jeremiah 32:17 NKJV

The expression awesome has become a catchphrase in our society. We say that this is awesome and that is awesome, but in reality, there is only one thing that truly can claim that title—God. Nowhere is God’s awesomeness reflected more intimately than in the awesome love that flows from His heart to ours. God’s ability to love is not burdened by boundaries or by limitations. The love that flows from His awesome heart is infinite and beyond our comprehension.

And while we cannot fully understand the awesome heart of God, we can praise it, worship it, and marvel at its beauty.

When we worship God with faith and assurance and place Him at the absolute center of our lives, we invite His love into our hearts. In turn, we grow to love Him more deeply as we sense His love for us. Augustine wrote, “I love You, Lord, not doubtingly, but with absolute certainty. Your Word beat upon my heart until I fell in love with You, and now the universe and everything in it tells me to love You.”

Let us pray that we, too, will turn our hearts to the Creator, knowing with certainty that His awesome heart has ample room for each of us, and that we, in turn, must make room in our hearts for Him.

He upholds the whole creation, founded the earth, and still sustains it by the word of His power. What cannot He do in the affairs of families and kingdoms, far beyond our conception and expectation, who hangs the earth upon nothing? ~ Matthew Henry

Our God is an awesome God. There is thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists. ~ Rich Mullins

Our evangelical culture tends to take the awesome reality of a transcendent God who is worthy to be feared and downsize Him so He could fit into our “buddy system.” The way we talk about Him, the way we pray, and, more strikingly, the way we live shows that we have somehow lost our sense of being appropriately awestruck in the presence of a holy and all-powerful God. ~ Joseph Stowell

An awe for the composer, God, is necessary before a pastor can fully understand His score, the Bible. ~ Fred Smith

Dear Lord, for the love You have shown me and the blessings You have given me, I stand in awe of You. I thank You, and I praise You. Your Son died so that I might receive the blessing of eternal love and eternal life. May I remain awestruck today, tomorrow, and forever, Lord, for Your love, for Your mercy, and for Your Son. Amen.

Devotionals Daily from Faith Gateway
Excerpted with permission from Heart of God by Elisabeth Elliot, copyright The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation.

06/07/2026

Sunday Scripture The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Readings: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a; Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58

Today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ honors Jesus Christ and celebrates the gift of the Eucharist. As we are bound together through bread and wine in the Eucharist, we are then sent out to be Eucharist for others.

Bread is a great connector. For humans, bread (in every culture and form) has an almost sacred, binding quality. Jesus was aware of this when he chose such a powerful symbol of life and “…said to the Jewish crowds: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.’”

Growing up as the oldest of eight, my parents, when heading out for an evening, would put me in charge of my younger siblings. To keep an eye on everyone, I would cook or bake and ask for their assistance to add ingredients and stir. They loved it. Their favorite choice was popovers. A delectable, tantalizing quick bread that when opened, exploded with a puff of steam providing a hot pocket for them to ladle in butter, jelly, apple butter, or honey. Once they had one on their plate, I would help them open it. As the steam burst out, they clapped and cheered. These many years later, they still remember the joy.

When I taught second grade, I had the privilege of preparing my students for First Eucharist. I wanted them to understand the significance of bread. Popovers were too daunting to make for 25 to 30 children, so we baked cornbread. I mixed it up under the watchful eyes of the cafeteria staff who allowed us to bake it in their oven. During the forty-minute wait, as their excitement built and the aroma wafted around us, we talked about Jesus coming to us in the form of bread during Mass. Once the cornbread was baked, everyone received a warm piece drenched in butter. It was a sacred, communal moment inviting them to begin to understand why Jesus chose bread as they prepared to someday receive him, the bread of life, in the Eucharist.

My siblings and young students experienced the connective aspect of breaking bread together. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians today beautifully defines its role in the Eucharist: The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

The next time you share bread in any form with another, reflect on the symbol and the communal moment. May we always remember that Jesus chose that form of loving connection to come to us each time we participate in the Eucharist so that we too, as members of the Body of Christ, will become life-giving bread for others.

Susan Naatz, Creighton University Online Resources; Daily Reflections

06/06/2026

Funny Friday

06/04/2026

Wednesday Wisdom

06/02/2026

Tuesday Tunes

A good reminder to lean into the Lord when things are difficult. Sharing the burden with Him, regardless of the outcome, makes it easier to carry.

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06/02/2026

Monday Meditation: Get up. Put on your cloak. Follow me.

What does Peter’s miraculous prison escape in Acts 12 have to do with parenting? Absolutely nothing. At least until the Holy Spirit got involved. When He did, I had a parenting breakthrough I’ll never forget. Five short verses corrected the way I’d been handling a hard situation with my daughter—and it all started by noticing the verbs.

I was reading Acts using a simple Bible-reading practice I learned years ago. This approach often opens space for the Holy Spirit to work personally through the text, and that day it did. I read these words:
"So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him." — Acts 12:5-11a

As I read, I made a list of basic observations—simply noting what I could clearly see in the text. The practice of good observation is often my first step in reading Scripture. Here was part of my list that day:
Peter was asleep, bound, and guarded
Light marked the angel’s presence
The angel gave short, specific instructions
The angel knew the way past the barriers
The angel walked with Peter even after he was free
The church was praying
When Peter followed, the way opened before him

As I made this list, I suddenly realized I was living with someone in a very similar situation to Peter—not in a physical prison, but a spiritual one.

Another part of my Bible-reading practice is to listen as I read. Listening is noticing the whispers of people, memories, or situations that rise to the surface of my mind as I go—and believing they could be put there from the Lord. When I listen well, I often discover the Spirit connecting Scripture to real life. That day, my daughter came to mind. I knew she was not free.

I was intrigued by the idea of substituting her name for Peter’s in the story, so I reread Acts 12:5–11 with her in mind.

I noticed striking similarities between Peter in jail and my daughter who was battling an eating disorder. At the time, we were facing moments when she froze around food decisions—unable to move, overwhelmed by anxiety. She might as well have been chained in the dark, guarded by a voice she couldn’t escape.

I didn’t yet understand how loud that voice was in her mind. So when a bright, capable young woman seemed unable to move, I was baffled. And frustrated. And wrong in my approach. Because I hadn’t experienced this myself, I assumed the best way to help was to push her toward independent decision-making. I wanted her to build skills to handle these moments.

As I listened again to the story—both Acts 12 and hers—I realized, instead, she needed someone to do exactly what the angel did. She didn’t need to be pushed to do it herself or a lecture on freedom; she needed someone to show up in the dark, speak clearly, and walk her out.

That’s when I noticed the verbs—the angel’s actions. He appeared. He brought light. He gave specific instructions. He walked with Peter. The Spirit was showing me what my daughter needed in her prison.

I’ve since learned there is a time for building flexibility and decision-making skills in eating disorder recovery. But we were not there yet. Through this story, the Lord showed me I was doing the opposite of what she needed at that time. Instead of showing up with light and leadership, I was leaving her standing in the dark, questioning her about why she couldn’t just walk forward.

As I listened beneath the text, the Holy Spirit impressed on me that I was the one He had sent into her cell. It was my job to say, “Get up. Put on your cloak. Follow me.” Without the angel’s clear guidance, Peter could not have walked into freedom. We were in a phase of recovery where my daughter didn’t need coaching to see better—she needed me to lead her step by step out of the dark.

At the end of the story, the angel stayed with Peter even after he was free, walking with him for a block until the danger had fully passed. Only then did Peter understand his freedom was real. The text says it was after walking in freedom that Peter finally “came to himself.”

Again, I saw the parallel. Research confirms that eating disorders significantly impact the brain and decision-making. The disorder’s voice dominates, leaving a person essentially disconnected from themselves. In that sense, part of recovery is to “come back to themselves.”

Only as recovery progresses—and freedom is practiced with steady support—can trust return. I had to keep walking with my daughter, just as the angel did. And now she has come to herself again. She understands and trusts that she is free.

If you’ve experienced an eating disorder, you might know a skilled counselor could have explained all this psychologically. And you’d be right! At the time, however, we didn’t yet know what we didn’t know. The Holy Spirit found His own way to teach me. Through careful observation and listening, the Lord reached into a place of deep need and frustration and gave me timely, personal instruction through Peter’s story.

This is how Spirit-led Bible study works. As we practice solid Scripture-reading skills, we give the Spirit greater access to shape and guide us. I observed. I listened. I trusted He was present through the Word.

Too few Christ-followers experience this kind of personal leadership as they read Scripture. We settle for checking a box on a reading plan and forget that when our eyes and ears are open inside the text, the Spirit longs to lead us in fresh, deeply personal ways.

I don’t experience moments like this every time I read the Bible—but I have them more often as I practice both attentiveness to the Spirit and good Bible study habits like observation and listening. You can learn six foundational practices for engaging Scripture through Spirit-Led Bible Study—a fresh approach that combines solid study skills with an open heart to the Spirit. Your relationship with the Word of God can be transformed.

Devotionals Daily from Faith Gateway
Written for Devotionals Daily by Alli Patterson, author of Spirit-Led Bible Study

05/31/2026

Sunday Scriptures The Most Holy Trinity
Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; Daniel 3:52-55; 2 Corinthians 12:11-13; John 6:16-18

When we read all that Jesus is quoted as saying, we conclude that God is surely one -- as the Jews believe. But God is also, somehow, three. All Christian faiths accept this truth. It is absolutely the deepest mystery, for it concerns the very nature of God. For us to discuss it is like a colony of ants trying to put a human person under a microscope and then determine what human nature really is. As ants are to us, we are to God . . . With an even greater, an infinite gap between God and us.

Our God is 3 persons so in love with one another that they are one and so in love with us that they do everything possible to share the joy of our life and love and make us one with themselves -- closing the gap to some degree.

That said, let us turn our attention to today’s Gospel. No verse of the Bible is better known than the first verse of today’s Gospel, designated as Jn 3:16. We see “Jn 3:16” on TV. --- Hanging on banners on stadium walls at sports events. It has become a sort of Magna Carta of the Christian faith. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Everything that the church at its best believes and teaches and does --grows out of that. It is a summary statement of Christian theology, the inspiration of Christian service, the basis of Christian ethics.

To understand Jn 3:16, the context of the verse needs to be understood. The context is the relationship between Jesus and a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus. Nicodemus appears only in John’s Gospel; he appears three times.

Nicodemus first came to see Jesus at night. In John’s Gospel, the author uses darkness to indicate unbelief. Night indicates that he was “still in the dark” about who Jesus really was. Perhaps it also indicates that he did not want to be seen by his fellow Pharisees. Perhaps, both.

We see him a second time after he saw the worth of Jesus’ words. He steps up to defend Jesus among his fellow Pharisees. He comes closer to the light.

Finally, when Nicodemus witnessed the death Jesus bravely died without recanting his words of love, Nicodemus steps boldly into the light as a Jesus-man. He brings the myrrh and aloes for Jesus’ burial. Nicodemus comes to belief slowly, but he comes. He comes out of the darkness into the light, just as you and I come in stages into deepening our belief in Jesus.

Jesus spoke today’s words to Nicodemus about God’s love the first time they met. I’d like to briefly talk about 3 words in this Magna Carta of Christianity. The material universe, in terms of magnitude, is measured in a phrase that had to be invented: light years. The spiritual magnitude of God’s love for you and me is even greater, but it is expressed here in one, puny word: “so.”

God so loved the world, not God the father was so . . . angry . . .with the world that Jesus obediently had to come, to come and suffer and die to appease the father - as an older theology tries to teach us. We need to remind ourselves of the depth of God’s love from time to time because we see so much of the lack of love in our world.

The second and third words are eternal life. Eternal life in the New Testament does not simply mean perpetual existence. Eternal life is not about quantity of existence, but a new and better quality of life.

To try, albeit poorly, to illustrate, imagine that you invited three extremely talented athletic worshipers to perform a demonstration of the trinity. With arms tightly linked around each other’s waists, they begin to whirl around so fast that they become an indistinguishable blur. They appear as one though they remain three distinct persons. That is the dance into which we are swept at our death. Something like that is “eternal life.”

This is not about a statement of creedal faith, which we recite. This is about biblical faith, by which we are saved. Eternal life does not come from believing that “things” are true, but from being “born from above,” believing in Jesus, throwing in our lot with Jesus, entering a sphere of existence where Jesus is number one in our lives.

We recall the holy picture of the gentle Jesus, standing outside a door with no doorknob on his side and recall those words described in the Book of Revelation [3:20]: “Here I stand, knocking at the door. If anyone hears me calling and opens the door, I will enter his house and have supper with him, and he with me.” A dinner dance!

When we open the door to our hearts to the Lord, things are never the same. It is as though we are given new eyes. We have a new perception of reality, a new awareness of how things really are. We hear an echo of Jn 3:16.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Oblates of St. Francis de Sales North American Provinces; Salesian Resources, Homily Helps
Image Credit: Mounira Francis, Robin Imaging Services

05/31/2026

Sunday Schedule

9:30 Mass - Confirmation Retreat kick off

05/29/2026

Attn: Parents & Grandparents