Youth Speak News

This summer, God asked me to trust and I am pleased to announce that this trust has not been spurned.

I have, in a reckless fury of hopeful confidence, spent the last four months, with no funding or experience, putting together a full-length, acoustic, folk-style album of my original music. And I am amazed I can say it is now, in co-operation with an excellent producer and manager, in the final phases and near completion.

Throughout every stage of our lives we feel the need to be accepted by our peers. We first realize this during our school years. And by the time we reach high school, we often find this need supersedes all else.

As a Catholic youth, I am no different. That said, the question comes to mind: can I be Catholic and still be cool?

Allow me to take you back to the early Roman Empire in the first few hundred years after the death of Christ. Although fully aware of the persecution that would result if they are caught practising their religion, the early Christians still made the effort to gather on Sundays.

TORONTO - From Oct. 1 to 3, pro-life students from across the country will gather for the National Campus Life Network’s annual national symposium at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto.

“For a lot of students, it’s a pivotal moment where they come to a new level of commitment when it comes to pro-life work,” said Rebecca Richmond, executive director of the National Campus Life Network, an organization that exists to educate, network and support pro-life students at post-secondary institutions across Canada.

“Then they’re inspired and motivated to go back to their campus and share what they learned with members of their club or to get a club started and impact their campus.”

TORONTO - While university and college students heading back to school often join campus groups and organizations to alleviate the pressures of academic life, there is one area that is often overlooked: campus chaplaincy centres.

“A lot of Catholic students may know we’re here but they have a job, they live in Markham, they’re busy with school and may be involved with something else at school — and that’s enough for them,” said Kim Gottfried Piché, director of chaplaincy services at the Ryerson Catholic Chaplaincy Centre.

Growing old is inevitable — so it’s important to view aging with the right perspective and not undervalue its importance. Aging should be seen as a privilege, a new chapter in life, that must be accepted with open hearts.

Sadly, and too frequently in our modern world, it is not always seen that way. Ageism is rampant. Ageism is a form of discrimination that does not show moral Christian conduct but denies the freedom and responsibility of older adults. Ageism is all around us, and I am sure each of us can identify an incident in which ageism has occurred.

TORONTO - Justin Lam entered the work force after graduating from graphic communications management at Toronto’s Ryerson University a couple of years ago.

But despite his current job as a customer label estimator, Lam finds something is missing in his life.

“There’s this feeling of emptiness from time to time where you go to work, get off work, go home, take a shower, go to bed and do it all again the next day,” said Lam, a member of Chinese Martyrs parish in Markham, Ont.

TORONTO - This fall, charities in Toronto have a message for Catholic youth: volunteer, your community needs you.

But youth also need their community. And whether they’re in high school fulfilling their required 40 hours of community service, in college or university looking for co-op placements or just looking to volunteer in their community, there are plenty of interesting organizations to choose from.

One such organization is the Daily Bread Food Bank.

I recently took my Grade 9 piano exam at the Royal Conservatory of Music. And while I love playing piano, an exam is a very nerve-wracking experience.

The weeks leading up to the exam seemed interminably long and at the same time frighteningly short. It all reached its pinnacle on the day before my exam.

I was extremely stressed because I wanted my practising to be perfect. But it wasn’t perfect and I was nervous because I didn’t want the exam to come so soon.