Steubenville Atlantic was hosted at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, NS, July 5-7th. This year, a total of 21 high school students, nine chaperones, and one priest from our diocese attended. It was a powerful weekend, focused on the theme ‘Illuminate’, taken from John 1:5
The weekend included talks about the different ways God illuminates the dark and hard parts of our lives, opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration and to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and a scavenger hunt around the campus on Saturday afternoon.
For the youth, some of the highlights of the weekend were:
“I like the music, because the community was all singing together”
“I came because I wanted to be part of the Catholic community, and be around people like me. It had beautiful moments, like when we got together to pray.”
“[Before going] I hoped people wouldn’t judge others, and I was surprised they didn’t judge you. I’d definitely go again.”
“I keep coming back because it’s amazing! It’s a recharge of my faith before my summer takes off.”
“My favorite part is Adoration because it’s so powerful.”
“My favorite part was praise and worship because people were getting emotional and experiencing God. It felt so connected.”
“I was just told go, you’ll have fun. And I had fun, I liked it.”
“It was cool. The music and food are always good.”
On Saturday evening, Bishop Joseph joined the group to participate in Adoration. He stayed and concelebrated Mass on Sunday morning with Bishop Christian Riesbeck from the Diocese of Saint John.
