This past week, through New Year's, myself and four other priests led the teen retreat in Minneapolis with 14 teens from our Centers of Light around the country. It was so amazing to watch each one grow and open into developing close and meaningful relationships with one another and with God, Jesus, and Mary. In some ways, the younger we are, the easier it is to clean ourselves up and get closer to God because we're not so stuck in our ways. In other ways, there's still a lot of growing up and learning a bout the world to do. It's the teenage curse: being in the in-between stage of not quite being a kid and not quite being an adult; the place of thinking they have the world figured out and not having spent enough time in it to declare it being figured out. And in other respects, there is something simple about being younger: often it's easier to feel connected to God, to see light, to move into new patterns. The blessings of simplicity! On several occasions, my heart was so overwhelmed with love for each one as they were sharing truly challenging and vulnerable parts of their heart and lives with us and their peers. Adolesence is a hard time in life for most and the pain can be so real and deep that it seems hard to think that anyone can understand. That's why these retreats are so powerful for these teens: they actually get to spend time with the priests and their peers that aren't afraid to go there and come back out again a changed person. I look forward to the next one, as I know they do, too. (Oh yeah, and we went to Mall of America and skiing!)