5&2 Youth Blog

My Finnish Mass Survival Guide

3/9/2019

The first Mass that I attended in Finland was in English, on a freezing dark winter evening. After I settled, I started remembering my “good days” of going to Mass daily. So I started attending Finnish Mass without knowing any Finnish. It was not easy at the beginning, when I used to pray in my own language (Spanish) as I listened to the Finnish. As a new academic year is starting, I decided to write this guide for all the people who are new in this country, to make it easier for you to follow the Mass in Finnish. And I seriously encourage you go to weekday Mass, because even if you do not know that much Finnish, you can always learn!

The Order of Mass. In most parishes in Finland, there are red* books called Cantemus available at the back of the church. At the beginning of the book there is a complete order of the Mass and the end, you'll find a simpler one in Finnish (as in the photo above).

However, Cantemus is not your only option. The order of Mass is also available at the beginning of the blue plastic-covered song books, and in that version you have handy little figures that show if you should be standing, sitting or kneeling during that part of the Mass.

Christus Vivit Camp 2019

2/9/2019

Over the final weekend of August, from the 23rd through the 25th, around 35 young Catholics gathered for a camp on the theme of Christus Vivit in Nummela. Fr. Eze Charles and a group of youth from Turku and Helsinki organized the event. This was the second diocesan-level youth event this year. The first one was World Youth Day in Finland last January, when we gathered in Helsinki. This time, we got together in a rented cottage near Nummela.

24H Rosary for World Peace

6/5/2019

Syrian Civil War: 470,000
Iraq: 150,000
Afghanistan: 100,000
Nigeria: 11,000

The numbers above are estimated death toll of some wars.

45 Years of Terrorism. Source: Global Terrorism Database (https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/)

When I was small, I thought that one day we would achieve World Peace. 20 years later, I can see that wars are still here.

The world peace utopia has been a topic for thinkers and philosophers since ancient time. A multitude of theories for achieving world peace have been proposed and debated, for instance, peace through strength (e.g. Pax Romana, Pax Americana), Marxism, democracy, globalization, economic reforms, and religious methods. Different parts (nations) of our world have adopted different philosophies towards ensuring peace, by means of internal or cooperative measures.

A Passionate Catholic

5/3/2019

It is not easy to be a Catholic, all is about suffering: fasting, mortification, sacrifices, prayers, confessions and compulsory Mass on Sundays. I used to be a comfortable Evangelic Christian. The word “passion” always brought me to think about lovers, sweet times and soap operas (especially Latino ones). Until the first time I heard the word in church, as in “the Passion of Christ”.

I discovered the beauty behind this sufferings after understanding the communion of Saints and the Holy Church. Moreover, when I understood that we form the Body of Christ as St. Paul says in the letter to Corinthians:

A crucifix of sorts in the Diocesan Museum of Verona.

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many.

Merry Christmas!

25/12/2018

If Jesus was born here, in our present-day world, how would it be? I share with you a short film that I saw the other day: He is Near.

In the video, instead of a donkey, Mary and Joseph had a supermarket cart; instead of a stable, she sought shelter to gave birth in a multistorey car park. These are appearances, but in a deeper sense they question if we are ready to receive Him. Are we ready for His arrival?

Christmas has became commercialised. In most places we see a white-bearded man with a huge belly who is clothed in red rather than baby Jesus. Christmas songs start playing by late October and disappear off the airwaves immediately after the 25th of December, replaced by huge sales. Then some friends and acquaintances start saying: Christmas is nothing, it is just buying gifts, eating and relaxing.

It is easier to understand the meaning of Christmas when you look at other languages than in English, Finnish or Swedish. In Spanish, it is Navidad, which shares a root with the word nativity, the birth. Coincidently, in Chinese Christmas is 圣诞 (or sheng dan), which means “Holy Nativity”. That makes better sense: This day is dedicated to marking Jesus’ birthday.

Gerard van Honthorst - Adoration of the Shepherds (1622).

The Best Finnish Course

10/10/2018

After three long-distance trips during the summer, I am finally 100% here (in my heart!). Now that the winter is coming, I am also back. This time I want to write about the best Finnish course.

The Lord has blessed me to live in Finland for almost three years. I have made lots of friends here and met interesting people in my daily life. Nevertheless, like any other foreigner in Finland, I am no exception and I also struggle to learn Finnish. (Oh, I thought it was enough to learn svenska - Swedish!)

Having already taken Finnish Level One, this year I started with the jatkokurssi - continuation course. But, strangely enough, I do not feel the course is as challenging: many of the words I knew already and I also didn't find it that difficult to conjugate cases. What happened?! It's as if I had taken some extra courses already!

The prayer to St. Michael, which I have learnt by heart in Finnish.

Until yesterday, I did not know where I had learned the words I knew. But guess what?! A huge percentage of my Finnish vocabulary I have acquired in the Church! We were learning positioning words and furniture, for example oikealla puolella (which I read every Sunday in Creed: at the right [hand of the Father]). There are many more words, such as koska, siksi, jos, leipä, taivas, koti that I realized I had learned by reading the day's Gospel in Spanish while I was listening to it in Finnish, or through repeating prayers or songs.

What do we do? – Turku Youth Group

25/6/2018

This is my third year living in Turku and being part of the parish youth group. After being member for a year, I started organizing activities with other friends. So new things are coming up, and people usually ask: What do you guys usually do?

My answer is: we do a little bit of everything.

To be clearer, I would classify the activities into three groups:

Formation and spiritual activities, such as catechesis, adoration, prayers, etc.
Community Service, helping the parish for the Christmas Bazaar or the church coffee for special events.
Fun, hanging out together, sharing our experiences and sometimes being silly together.

To give you a better description, I will write down what we have been doing recently (or during this past year).

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?

God's Business Model

16/3/2018

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.

Faith 24/7 - A Lenten Reflection

11/3/2018

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?!