Photo Caption: Student and faculty representatives from Catholic high schools in the Diocese of Peoria kneel in prayer during a Mass celebrated by Bishop Jenky at the Catholic High School Leadership Conference.

By: By Jennifer Willems

When they came to the Spalding Pastoral Center in Peoria student leaders from Catholic high schools around the Diocese of Peoria may not have expected to face the fundamental questions of life, but they left with answers many people spend a lifetime seeking.

“I think we live in a terribly fearful society,” said Father Joe Freedy, director of vocations for the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the keynote speaker at the High School Leadership Conference last Tuesday. “When you’re fearful, when you don’t know who you are, you start grasping at identity.”

Most people have forgotten their deepest identity and why they exist, he told the 130 students, who were accompanied by their chaplains, teachers and administrators.

“God didn’t create us because of him. He didn’t need something to entertain him. There’s no need in God,” said the priest, who goes by Father Joe and is a former college football quarterback. “God created you because he wanted you to exist. He loved you into being.”

Quoting from Genesis, Father Joe assured them that God finds them very good and loves them no matter what.

“What happens when you know you’re loved into existence? Whew. You relax. You no longer have to prove yourself to your peers or anyone else,” he said.

WILLING TO SERVE
Later in the day, Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, encouraged them to accept that identity and be prepared to welcome God when he breaks into their life and changes everything about them.

“Stuff happens — things we hadn’t planned on,” Bishop Jenky said in his homily at Mass, which was celebrated in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel at the Spalding Renewal Center. He cited moves, sickness, a death in the family, or new opportunities “where God suddenly talks to your heart and you start seeing things differently.”

“You might be asked, as you folks have, to step up to the bat and be leaders in your schools, in your families, to do something you hadn’t thought you were able to do,” he said. “Being vigilant, being alert, being ready is a basic life skill that is absolutely necessary.”

Bishop Jenky asked them to declare their willingness to serve in a commissioning ceremony at the end of Mass.

Responding “Yes, by the help of God,” they pledged to build up “a culture of love and life” in their schools and communities, to reach out in compassion to their classmates, “especially those who are overlooked or rejected,” and to “stand as a light for Christ, and thus bring others to know and love him, that God who embraces all people may be glorified.”

He also prayed for the chaplains, principals and teachers of Central Catholic in Bloomington, The High School of Saint Thomas More in Champaign, Schlarman Academy in Danville, Marquette Academy in Ottawa, Notre Dame High School in Peoria, St. Bede Academy in Peru, and Alleman High School in Rock Island “so that the students entrusted to them may be brought to know, love and serve God in deeper and more profound ways every day.”

AVOIDING THE “TRAP”
Copies of “Made for More” by Curtis Martin, founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, were sent back with them to stimulate discussion on leadership in the schools, said Craig Dyke, director of the diocesan Office of Evangelization.

“If they’re here for a day and that’s it we haven’t done our job,” Dyke told The Catholic Post. “The book is my way of saying, ‘Here’s a way to continue.'”

The conference was cosponsored by the Office of Evangelization and the Office of Catholic Schools, and facilitated by Father Patrick Henehan, coordinator of high school chaplains and pastor of St. Jude’s Parish in Peoria.

It was one of those chaplains, Father Robert Lampitt of The High School of Saint Thomas More in Champaign, who recommended Father Joe Freedy as the keynote speaker. They were classmates at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

Father Joe was a standout high school football quarterback in western Pennsylvania and went on to play quarterback for the University of Buffalo. While he resisted his vocation to the priesthood for a time, he accepted the call after graduation and began his studies in philosophy and theology.

He was ordained in 2005 for the Diocese of Pittsburgh and was named vocation director for the diocese in 2010.

Father Joe admitted that he got caught in the trap of believing his identity was based on what he did. When his starring ways from high school didn’t transfer immediately to the college gridiron, he felt lost and started to party.

“When you base your confidence and security on what you do rather than who you are you’ve built on sand,” he said.

“All your gifts and talents will be for naught if you don’t know who you are,” Father Joe told the students. “Only one person can tell you who you are. . . . It is the God of the universe. This is what he tells you: You are very, very good. If you base your life on that love and let it be the foundation of your identity, then the natural gifts and talents you have will flourish.”