I first went to New Orleans in 1971 to work with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal as a campus minister at Loyola University of the South. Fr Harold Cohen, the father of CCR in the area, was a campus minister so from the start there was a strong youth component of the renewal in the region. In the “early days” we had a youth prayer meeting of 300 young people every Friday night, but as those youths grew up and got married, and Fr Cohen and I left Loyola University campus ministry, this died down. For years there was interest in starting an outreach but no real action.

Hulda Cox, a woman in her seventies and a member of the CCR pastoral team in New Orleans was always insisting, “We must do something for our young people.” She was told it was very difficult to reach out to them, that older people couldn’t do it, and how youth experts were needed for youth ministry. One evening she banged her fist on the table and said, “If I have to do it myself, we’re going to have a ministry to young people.” Shortly, afterwards, however Hulda was diagnosed with cancer and died.

Interceding from heaven

But she obviously must have begun interceding from heaven because shortly after her death another quiet little lady – Sr Mary Victor (now in her 80s) came to our team with a request. She knew a lovely young married couple, Carol and Dart Fee, with young children. She thought they were ready for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit but, with a young family, they could not get out to the seminars. She asked if she could borrow a set of tapes of the Life in the Spirit Seminars, and lead the family through the programme, acting as a shepherd/facilitator in their home. Of course we agreed. When this family were prayed with for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, there was a huge infusion of grace and charismatic gifts. I was in awe of their wisdom and knowledge and the anointing on them. There were teenagers in the family and they began to gather with a few friends who had already been meeting for prayer, and this proved the start of a new outpouring of grace among young people and the foundation of youth ministry in the New Orleans area, headed up by Carol and Dart.

In January 1988 thirty teenagers gathered for a charismatic youth retreat. The following year there were sixty kids, the next year the numbers doubled again till there were six hundred teens on retreat the first weekend of every year. God worked powerfully. From among these young people who were baptised in the Holy Spirit there were many vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Many more beautiful Catholic marriages came about through this group and young people were helped and encouraged in their walk with God. Carol and Dart headed up the youth ministry for about fifteen years, and since then there have been a multitude of other youths who have come forward for a few years at a time. Youth ministry is always in flux as young people grow and move on, but now some of these young people are full time youth ministers in parishes, theology professors and priests.

About the late 80s and early 90s, we started taking kids on the 21 hour bus trip north to the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio for the university youth conferences. One year we had as many as 5 buses. This introduced lots of the kids to the university and today we still have a strong contingent of students there from this area, who benefit from the wonderful Catholic ethos and teaching. Many parishes and groups now sponsor such “bus trips” so we only need to send one bus ourselves these days. The Franciscan University, too, has spread its conferences all over our country and there is a more widespread youth outreach in our area than there was 20 years ago.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in the September of 2005 the CCRNO office and retreat house we used were destroyed along with the homes and livelihoods of so many people. It was a time of suffering and bewilderment for us all. Within two days of the Hurricane, the CCRNO youth minister had quit and our annual January youth retreat for young people looked impossible. But amazingly we found others wanted to help. College aged young people who had been displaced far and wide phoned my husband and me to say, “Please don’t cancel the January Youth Retreat. We’ll help organise it.” One young woman, Casey Schexnaildre, even passed up a scholarship to the Franciscan University of Steubenville in order to come back to New Orleans and help organise our Holy Spirit Retreat for teens. It was a much smaller conference in the wake of the hurricane aftermath – half the usual attendance – but even so 300 kids came!

During the conference one young man stood up and asked how many of the participants had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Two thirds of the teenagers raised their hands. The young man’s response was “Think how much Jesus loves us that He let us go through this suffering with him”. And it was amazing what they had done in this time. One teen told how in his three months of displacement in Florida he started a pro-life club, a group that committed to weekly confession and a rosary group. He used his time of displacement to spread the Kingdom of God in a new environment. I am in awe when I see the holiness of young people like this. I believe that young people all over the world are hungry for intimacy with Jesus and for holiness, but where are the Huldas and little Sr Victors? Where are the people who see the need and have the heart and determination to reach out with God’s love to our young people?

There are many ways to help evangelise young people. First and foremost we can pray and intercede for them. If we are not the ones to speak the word to them, maybe we can help with music, with premises. Finance is needed to train youth ministers, to send young people to rallies, conferences and seminars where they can catch the fire of the Holy Spirit. Youths without stable home environments need role models… mother and father figures who genuinely care for them.

We all need to look into our souls and see how God might be calling us to serve the young people of our country. No one is too old. There is no retirement for the men and women of God. We all have the calling to evangelise and there are specific conversions that have been entrusted to each of us. We start all this by prayer and fasting and I believe if we do this God will answer our heartfelt prayer for our young people and He will release the power for the New Evangelisation!

This article is based on a teaching given by Patti Gallagher Mansfield in Athlone, Ireland June 2008 and written up by Dympna Sheehan.