Day 2: Teen Girls' Reflection

Gary started off his talk by sharing about how spiritual death is like being a zombie and abundant life is like being St. Therese! He then went on to talk about when he was in High School and he was attracted to one girl - not because she was cute or cool, but because she was modest, showed purity, and had a wonderful inner beauty. Just when high school was ending she broke up with him and he started to become "like a zombie." He just went through the motions, started drinking, and got into a bad relationship.

Later on, when an anti-Christian movie was coming out, he saw a lady protesting it. Her inner-beauty was shining through! Some time after that he ended up going to confession, and realized that he knew the priest! He broke up again, and started deepening his relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist.

He begins to write letters to his high school friend. Not knowing that she was doing a novena to St. Therese asking for roses - red if marriage was her calling - on a whim he sent her a dozen red roses! In the end, they got married.

The message he gave us through this story was that their are seven reasons that the EUCHARIST is so important in our lives. He also gave us four things - confession, prayer, adoration, and the maternal protection of Mary - to help us love and come closer to the Eucharist.

Mr. Sullivan talked about the Eucharist and Mary. He explained that Mary is the co-redemptrix with Christ... the word "lady" means "bread giver," and Jesus was born in the "House of Bread" and laid in a feeding trough. The Eucharist - the Bread of Life - comes to us through Mary.  Mary is like a monstrance at Eucharistic adoration, because it contains the Eucharist as Mary did.