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Nicole Ducharme, Director of Religous Education & Youth Ministry
Good Morning/Afternoon
My name is Nicole Ducharme, the Director of religious education and youth ministry, here at Saint Pius X.
Today, I come before you as a servant to share how prayer has truly changed my life.
Abraham Lincoln said "We can complain that rose bushes have thorns or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses". I believe that it all depends on how we look at it in prayer.
My journey begins when I was adopted, even though I didn't always see it that way. You see, I always had a smile on my face, but growing up, there were things that I was hiding in my heart - like resentment, anger, unforgiveness, and the need to always be in control of my life. All of these were the ways I protected myself. I didn't realize they were holding me back from truly being able to open up and receive the Father’s love in prayer.
Growing up a typical Cradle Catholic, I attended mass with my family every Sunday, served as an alter server, and was active in our parish youth group. I also attended a Catholic high school. I thought that was all I needed to do, so I continued to just check off the boxes as I went through college and in my early adult life. I thought prayer meant a busy lifestyle doing all the right things - like volunteering at my church in every ministry possible or getting a Masters in Catechetics and Evangelization. These things did help to straighten my prayer life but these things are not prayer. I was living out of a performance mentality rather than “a beloved daughter of God” mentality.
It wasn't until 10 years ago through the Sacrament of Reconciliation that I truly was faced with what prayer was, and I knew I had to change my life. I had been away from the Sacrament of Confession for a while, skipping Mass on some Sundays.
Stepping into the confessional one day, I was received - not with judgment, but with compassion. You see in that specific Confession I was invited to let go of all that resentment, unforgiving nature, anger, and need to be in control. I was invited to do that through prayer, and learned that prayer was the invitation to do so. I began to receive the father's love and give myself wholeheartedly back to God the Father, including those areas which I showed no one, those darkest places of my heart that I invited God to heal.
I began to authentically live out my faith, first and foremost through frequent receptivity of the sacraments - specifically Mass and Reconciliation, and also Eucharistic Adoration.
I completed my year of forgiveness and gratitude in 2019. I had a great job, a great prayer life, I just finished my masters. Things were going great and then COVID hit, and I lost my job while the world shut down. It’s then when I realized how much of a control freak I was, so I gave up. There was literally nothing I could do but pray. In that season of confusion and the unknown, I just didn’t feel like praying.
Even though I didn’t feel like it, I began going to daily Adoration at 3am and Mass at 6am throughout the pandemic One year later, I was hired at St. Pius X. I learned that in times of great suffering and distress, I should persevere with trustful surrender. Trials and tribulations will come, so I can either run towards them with complete confidence in God, or run away from them in fear. God gave me abundant strength to bear my suffering when I asked Him. I learned this is a lifelong process, and the best remedy I have to help me along the way is prayer.
By surrendering in prayer and taking up my own cross daily, I know I will best serve all of you here today, if I pray.
“We can complain that rose bushes have thorns or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses". Today, I invite you to receive God’s love through prayer.
Matt Authement, Junior High Youth Minister & Edge Coordinator
Good morning everyone, my name is Matthew Authement. I have been the junior high youth minister in charge of the EDGE program here at St. Pius for the last 3 years. I am currently in my last semester of college, studying biology, pre-medicine. I have always been involved in my faith and have always volunteered with helping at retreats, with various youth groups, and by leading small groups and Bible studies, all the while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and being involved in school life. I was doing everything right – and yet, I constantly felt tired and pressured and that I never had enough time.
Around this time, I heard that St. Teresa of Calcutta, aka Mother Teresa, prayed a holy hour every single day. A few questions popped into my head: Why? How was that efficient? How was she able to waste that much time when she could have been helping the poor? It baffled me, but at the same time, I was at a point where I longed for something more than this life I was living. So, after doing some research, I decided to pray every day for 30 minutes. Silent prayer.
The first few months were rough. I struggled to carve out time and a place to pray, and then on the days that I didn’t plan ahead, I had to decide if I would stay up late to get my time in. I failed often. The next few months became easier, and now I find that 30 minutes isn’t enough. What changed?
I encountered the living person of Jesus Christ in an intimate way. Even on the days that I was distracted or rushing through prayer, Jesus was present so fully to me. I spent each day in the Bible, most days in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and I just started to know the heart the God through His word, and He continues to beckon me deeper, to meet Him in prayer once more, to continue to get to know His heart.
This hasn’t been an easy journey – many of my wounds and sufferings have risen to the surface. I have felt the Lord ask me to give more of myself to Him. My entire life I have wanted to be a doctor, I have worked extremely hard to become one, and I have achieved what I needed to achieve in order to accomplish that goal. But the Lord asked me to become a missionary for college students next year, and that is what I will be doing.
Despite the challenges and uncomfortable parts, I have never been more joyful because I know that God has met me in prayer and little by little has been transforming me to become the person He created me to be. My friends, doing all the right things, coming to mass on Sundays and stopping there is not enough. We are all called to be saints – and this isn’t just a nice, unattainable sentiment.
What Mother Teresa knew, what I have slowly been learning, is that it is only through an intimate, personal relationship with our Father in heaven that we will be fulfilled, that our lives will be rightly ordered, and that we will be who we are meant to be. Prayer is a necessity – our parish, our communities, our families, and especially those closest to us need us to be people of prayer who live in relationship with our God.
I am 22 years old. There is no minimum age requirement and there is no age where it is too late – the Heart of our Savior patiently longs to meet us in prayer. So please, as a young person who really doesn’t know that much, I am asking you to make a commitment to actually pray. Prayer has changed my life, exteriorly and interiorly, and I know that it will change yours.
