Ordinandi, nun share their paths to religious life with youth

Seven-hundred and forty-six kids, Grades 9 to 12, shouted, laughed, sang, prayed. Some of them even cried. They came to the Ordinandi Youth Event for one reason — to hear a story.

“It’s fun to listen to everybody’s stories,” said Grade 10 St. Marcellinus Secondary School student Noah Trenton from Mississauga. “You learn more about people.”

“It’s good to have actual stories,” said Grade 9 student Perlina Vaz from St. Patrick’s in Toronto. “Some people don’t think God really calls people.”

The six Serra clubs in the Toronto area have made the Ordinandi Youth Event an annual occasion, believing that direct contact is the best way to encourage vocations, said Serra International board member Mario Biscardi.

“We need more priests. We need more vocations,” Biscardi told The Catholic Register. “How better to do this than with the testimony of the ordinandi and a nun?”

The March 5 morning gathering of  high school students, complete with inspired music from the Catholic praise and worship band IV24, was followed that evening by the annual Ordinandi Dinner. A sold-out crowd of 1,700 replaced the students in the same banquet hall, getting a chance to meet nine men who expect to be ordained in Toronto May 11.

But for the kids, the testimony of Sr. Teresa Joseph of the Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate and the vocation story of Deacon Renan Roberto Costa was the main event.

Joseph gave the students homework, encouraging them to say three Hail Mary’s every evening before going to bed.

“I don’t care how tired you are. It takes two minutes,” she said.

A growing and deepening relationship with the Mother of God isn’t a technique for becoming a religious enthusiast or even a nun. It’s a way of centering yourself and finding your way back to Jesus, Joseph said.

That people would be reluctant to commit themselves to lifelong poverty, chastity and obedience is perfectly understandable, as far as Joseph is concerned. From the age of 13 until after she had graduated from York University with a business degree, Joseph resisted the call to religious life. But resistance was futile.

“They call Him the ‘Hound of Heaven’ for a reason,” she told a wrapt and silent audience.

The child of an immigrant family from Trinidad, Joseph arrived in Canada at the age of eight. She attended Catholic schools, participated in Catholic youth groups, went to Mass on Sundays. But Joseph just couldn’t imagine herself committed for life to a religious community, religious vows and an apostolate.

“I couldn’t say yes because I couldn’t trust Him,” she said. 

Looking at the students, she guessed many of them also have trust issues. Young people who have grown up in a transient culture, who have survived their own parents’ divorces, who know there’s no such thing as a job for life, are often unable to commit — whether it be to marriage, a career or to married life.

“You’re scared of marrying because you don’t trust anybody,” she said.

Joseph stopped worrying about committing to religious life when she stopped imagining that everything depended on her.

“I stopped looking at my weaknesses,” she said. “He was strong enough and perfect enough to live this life for both of us.”

She encouraged students to reflect, contemplate and pray — particularly recommending adoration before the blessed sacrament.

“If we don’t spend time with the one who loves us the most, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, we’re not going to trust God,” she said.

Neocatechumenal Way seminarian Costa assured students that there is a way out of anger, isolation, selfishness and suffering.

“I grew up with this lie that my parents never loved me,” said the Brazilian missionary studying at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Toronto. 

Nursing a pathological jealousy of his younger sister, Costa went through childhood resentful and angry. Despite this, at 21 Costa had a good job in Brazil working for a French bank.

“I had money. I had a girlfriend. I had everything,” he said.

Appearances aside, he was suffering. He was living solely for himself.

“When I was rock bottom, I had no friends. I went home. I knelt down in front of my mother and asked for forgiveness. In that way, God started working with me,” he said.

After connecting with the Neocatechumenal Way and deciding on the life of a missionary priest, Costa exited his tropical country in mid-summer and ended up in Toronto on a day the temperature hit minus 18. He studied philosophy at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, spent a year as a missionary in Winnipeg and studied theology at St. Augustine’s Seminary. He anticipates priestly life in Toronto.

“It’s been a wonderful journey,” he said.

“God has a plan for each one of you,” he told the students. “Don’t be afraid.”

Cardinal Thomas Collins took the stage to reinforce the message students were hearing from Joseph and the nine men waiting for ordination. Whether it’s to married life, religious life or the priesthood, Collins encouraged the students to look for a way to live a committed life, whatever the risks.

“The ship is safest when it’s in port,” he told them. “But that’s not what ships are for. We’ve got to go out into the storm.”

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