Hello everyone! My name is Noah Kungel and I’m currently in my seventh year at St. Joseph Seminary for the Archdiocese of Edmonton.
One of the great things that this means is that this past year I have been placed on an internship at St. Thomas More Parish. This has been an incredible opportunity to take a break from the rigour of seminary studies to begin to integrate what I have learned into real hands-on pastoral experience.
It has allowed me to recognize all the more clearly how the priesthood that I feel God is calling me towards is not a ministry of writing papers, but a ministry to be present to and to love the people of God.
One such experience this year was being able to help out with St. Thomas More’s annual Fast then Feast Retreat. The concept is simple: in Lent we focus on the three pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and so we designed this retreat for junior and senior high students around these three pillars.
We had around 70 kids enter the retreat in the morning knowing that they are going to have to fast all day until a potluck to come after evening Mass. The youth learned what it means not only to fast, but to fast well.
To stay in good spirits while fasting throughout the day so that their hunger would be known “but by your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:18). If at any point in the day someone were to complain about fasting or how hungry they were, their friends would call them out and they would have to drop to their knees and say a Hail Mary.
The second pillar is prayer. Throughout the day the kids had several opportunities to pray and to learn about prayer in the life of the Church, with the central culmination being able to spend thirty minutes in adoration of the blessed sacrament followed by participating in Mass.
The final pillar is almsgiving, which for us meant that after our first talk, just as the kids were starting to feel the stomach grumbling effects of fasting, we all gathered together in the hall to start making sandwiches to give out to the poor and homeless in downtown Edmonton. Altogether we made just over 300 sandwiches and I was impressed by the love and care that all the kids put into making the sandwiches.
The retreat ended with a huge potluck feast, but the work was not yet done. The following day, our young adults group – Friends of Frassati – got together, toasted the sandwiches, grabbed other snacks and drinks, and headed off downtown to feed the poor.
We set up a few tables across the street from Hope Mission, and a line began to form. The food which the youth had prepared the day before helped nourish the bodies of the poor downtown, while the presence of zealous young adults helped to nourish their souls.
I remember one conversation I had where I began speaking with a woman, and when I asked her name she responded, “nobody.” I asked again and she said “nobody, my name is nobody.” We continued on and had a great conversation, but it emphasized for me the real poverty that is downtown.
The real poverty is not material poverty but the poverty of not knowing one’s own dignity, the poverty of feeling like a nobody. There is a lot that goes into our name, and it’s by our name that we are known by God.
However, for many downtown, they have been pushed away and looked down upon such that they begin to feel unworthy of the dignity of being known by name. For me, the real joy of being able to go downtown was to be able to show our brothers and sisters who are living there that they do matter, that they have dignity, and ultimately, that they are loved.
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