5&2 Youth Blog

To My Dear Prends – a Sunday Reflection

6/5/2018

No, no, that is not a typo in the heading. Prend means friend and is a word that we invented during World Youth Day in Poland in 2016. To put it simply, it is an invention that began with our imperfect English. I remember that at that time I could not even properly recite prayers in Finnish and hardly follow people’s conversation. However, out of love, my friends - prends - helped me understand everything. We danced together, got lost together, roamed around in beautiful Krakow together. Those are nice memories.

World Youth Day in 2016.

In today’s gospel, Jesus called me again to be his friend. This is the second time in 3 days.

What is a Friend?

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Truthful Grace

10/4/2018

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“Lord Jesus, I trust in You.”

During this Pascal Octave, I have started praying the Novena of Divine Mercy. God’s Mercy is infinite, the only condition we need to discover it is that we trust in Him.

Thanks be to God, I participated the Easter Vigil this year with Stella Maris People. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and had sharing moments in group and in family.

By the time of the Vesper, we had decided to do the readings in different languages and shared them among ourselves. This meant that the readings and psalms were in Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, English and Tagalog. It gave us an amazing feeling of being the Universal Church and experiencing a new Pentecost!

After the Vigil, we shared some experiences, songs and pastries.

Christus Resurrexit! Christ is risen!

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God's Business Model

16/3/2018

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Ora et labora, God can always be found in the little details in our lives. This time, He is with me as I am writing my thesis. These are stressful days, I've been working for more than 12 hours straight when inspiration comes.

I was working on a business model canvas for analyzing a company, something that is commonly used for start-up companies. (Here's a link to the one I used.) Suddenly I thought, if God was a company, what would His business model be?

And that gave me the inspiration for this blog post.

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Faith 24/7 - A Lenten Reflection

11/3/2018

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One day I was having lunch with my colleagues and we were talking about our weekend activities. The conversation went something like this:

I said: I went to Lohja for a church gathering.
My colleague: Was it in Vivamo? I used to go there when I was little.
I: No, it was at Stella Maris, we often go there for youth gatherings.
My colleague: That’s nice, but religion is not my kind of activity.

Religion, activity? Is religion an activity?!

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Who Cleans Your Church?

17/2/2018

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All the churches that I have been to are spotlessly clean. I used to think that people take care of all sacred places, so they don’t litter. And I never thought about this question until a Monday afternoon in 2016. That summer, I discovered that the sisters in my parish were having community prayers with the Most Blessed Sacrament daily at 4 p.m. So, I started visiting Jesus every time that I could.

Adoration in Turku.

On a Monday, although I was late for adoration due to work, I still went to the church to pray. It was around 5 o’clock in the afternoon and the main door was closed. So, I asked a sister to open the door for me. We had the following conversation:

Sister: "We are cleaning, do you still want to come? It is a bit noisy, you won’t be able to pray."

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The New Stella Maris

29/1/2018

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After more than two months of silence we went back to the "home" of Our Mother, Stella Maris. This time, we are not part of any Youth Weekends anymore. Andi is abroad for a month of exams, Father Gianni has been here alone, with Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. That might seem sad: a place with empty rooms, cold and abandoned. The reality, however, is totally different. We had a such joyful weekend, without any arrangement and stress, young and energetic people gathered together in good will. Hey! Welcome to the New Stella Maris!

We arrived at around 10 on Satudray morning, for spontaneous prayers in front of the most blessed sacrament. All kinds of petitions were offered, we know that God knows better what we need.

After having lunch together, we had a short sharing moment. After the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, we “chewed over” Sunday’s reading together in Lectio Divina. What a delicious spiritual food that Jesus prepared for us through St. Paul. The Body of Christ and us, all we should do is to listen our Father.

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2017 - A Year with Mary

31/12/2017

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Finally, it is the time to look back upon this year. We have received uncountable favors from Our Lady, so we thank our Mom for helping us. A multitude of events happened this year and I list some of those that really helped me and my friends to grow in faith.

1. The Youth Weekends.

The One Body in Christ Youth Weekends continued with a wonderful group time at Stella Maris. We learned about vocation in the Spring and we continued about family and social challenges in the Autumn.

People from various places shared their testimonies, lots of providences were given (every weekend we received more than enough food, for free!), as well as blessings and healings from adorations, worship and prayers.

Unfortunately, it could not continue after October, since the use of the buildings was banned by the authorities. Nevertheless, we always stand united as “One Body in Christ”.

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My ABC for Advent

20/12/2017

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It's the third Sunday of Advent already, so in this post I will try to summarise my Advent reflections in the order of the alphabet.

A: Annunciation. Our Lady's period of Advent is actually longer than ours, since she knew that Jesus was coming since the Annunciation.
B: But. "Everything before the 'but' does not count." It happens to me all the time. (ノ_＜) I want to pray more, but I don't have time." "I want to participate in the morning Mass, but it's too early." Maybe it could be a New Year's Resolution, to stop all the buts?
C: Child. Many times we should be like children, waiting for the Child Jesus with our hearts full of purity.

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Family and Faith

8/11/2017

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Recently we had the October Youth Weekend at Stella Maris, which was attended by around 20 people. In some ways it is "the last weekend", as the Bishop has announced that all activities should stop at Stella Maris by November. This post is a summary of my reflections at this time.

Sunday Mass at Stella Maris during the Youth Weekend.

1. Love and Serve

Family means a unity of servants, and it is a place to serve. In a family, we serve each other through love and we offer ourselves to another person. Love is never temporary, contrary to what society promotes nowadays.

Jesus serves us by giving his Life. Love in His terms stands for sacrifice. If we want imitate Him, then we should learn to give and to "sacrifice" ourselves. And learn to be faithful like Him!

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Norcdic Youth Meeting in Vadstena - Alejandro's Experience

30/10/2017

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I do not know how many of you heard about the Nordic Youth Meeting that took place in the city of Vadstena in Sweden (the town where our dear St Bridget founded her order's first convent) in September. This meeting was related with the World Youth Day, and it aimed to gather the youth from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

Sadly, I was the only one from Finland there, but it was evident that the presence of Finland was extremely desired in that meeting, since everyone there (seminarians, priest, laics, and even the Cardinal himself) were not only asking “What happens with the group from Finland?” but also said strongly that they really hope next time we will take part. (This means we need to shape up with our communication!)