August 24, 2025

My dear Kirkland Catholics,  

I spent the first week of August up in Alaska for our senior high youth retreat adventure. 29 youth and 10 adult leaders (11 including me) from our parish family participated. Luckily bears were not part of the adventure, but what the Lord had in store for those kids was. The theme we prayed about and settled on was “Joy in the Lord” and so we focused on different saints each day and the way in which they showed joy in their lives. We spent time each day focusing on a unique “killjoy” that prevents the experience of joy, and our small group questions and sharing questions, as well as the leader chosen to give a witness or talk each evening connected to the same theme. A lot of the feedback we got from kids after the experience is how impactful those testimonies were in giving a real and relatable contour to experiences and challenges in faith that our leaders have worked through themselves with the Lord’s help.    

Before morning Mass and before the evening session worship music was led by our guest praise leader Jeremiah, which was also mentioned by a lot of our kids in their feedback at being really impactful. We gave “equipping workshops” which are kind of like mini-merit badge classes where the campers could sign up and deepen or learn a new faith skill. We had Adoration every night (save the first night) as part of the prayer experience; and most nights and especially on the two nights we offered prayer ministry, more than a few campers chose to spend long multi-hour vigils in Adoration after the prayer ministry rather than go down to the bonfire. Many kids experienced a much more tangible Presence of the Lord in Eucharistic Adoration than they had ever experienced before, and of the handful of parents I have heard from at this point (writing this Friday, Aug 18; not having been at HFK for a weekend since before we departed for Alaska) have been amazed at the powerful experiences and many have even already observed “conversion” in their kids in one week.    

If you want a taste of the experience of praise, testimony, Adoration, and prayer experiences altogether can impact you too, I highly encourage you to calendar and attend our Parish Family’s Parish Mission “Fully Alive in Christ” November 19-21. Our keynote Barbara Heil is a wonderful & engaging speaker, is hilarious, salt of the earth, and very Spirit-filled; and Mary Fransen who is leading Praise and Worship to “warm us up” each night for Barbara’s talk is the most gifted Praise Leader I have personally encountered. Not to be missed methinks.  

With love in Christ,  

Fr. Brad