David McCormick from VIDES UK writes about an amazing weekend

Holiness is for you too. A phrase I am sure that we are all fairly familiar with this year, as the Rector Major has challenged each of us to consider how we can find holiness in the simplicity of our everyday lives. This was also what was asked of a group of young people who have recently taken part in a VIDES for Youth weekend at Barnstondale activity centre.

The group of young girls, from St. John Bosco, Croxteth arrived with lots of energy (and snacks) on Friday evening and were welcomed warmly by our team who had been preparing for the weekend for quite some time. The weekend kicked off with everybody's favourite part - the ice breakers -“ before we introduced how the weekend would run and some of the things that could be expected. In keeping with tradition, we closed and started each of our days together with a form of prayer and reflection, helping us to focus on the Salesian young people whose stories we can learn so much from. The young people were asked how they could relate different parts of these stories to their own lives, think of their hopes and dreams for the weekend and the future, and were also given space to pray for something in their lives.

After a "great nigh'ts rest", we were ready to go again, with Saturday seeing us explore our Salesian founders, who and what VIDES is as well as some team challenges that I am sure some of our group are still trying to forget! Before we took some time to prepare different elements to ensure that our Sunday mass was a memorable one for our young people, they were able to discover through a series of games what it takes to be a volunteer. Our day was finished off in the same high spirits, with a series of team challenges and quizzes that helped us to celebrate the time that we had spent together, before finding a sense of calmness around our camp fire, with hot chocolate and a sing-along.

We were fortunate enough to be able to celebrate mass on Sunday, with thanks to Fr Jakub who came along to share the occasion with us. This came after our young people were given the chance to affirm one another, highlighting all of the joy and goodness that they had seen within each other as the weekend had developed.

The team have came away reflecting on how much of a success the weekend was, and we hope that the young people who came to share the time with us have left with similar impressions, as we would be extremely lucky to see this group of young people continue to bless the Salesian Family in this province for many years to come. They were a credit to our wider Salesian Family, to their school, but above all, to themselves!

A very grace-filled, David McCormick