ROCKFORD—“I thought it’d be a good opportunity,” said Danny Cella, about his first Jeremiah Days Vocation Camp.
The seventh grader from Holy Cross School in Batavia said that he thought the camp would be a time “to be with God and my friends.”
The after-dark capture-the-flag game on Sunday night had been a winning idea for him.
That first game of the retreat also was a favorite of first time camper Kevin Espinoza, who came from St. Peter Parish in Beloit, Wisconsin. His older brother had recommended the camp, so Espinoza came with the hopes to “learn about prayer and more about God (and) having a relationship” with God.
Learn More about Vocations
For more information about vocation activities, or about the priesthood or religious life and the process of discerning a vocation, contact the diocesan vocations office at 815/399-4300 |
The first full day of camp, July 13, began with Mass followed by a talk on prayer.
The 40 campers — divided into five groups named for popes — sat with seminarians and shared their thoughts.
By groups, they then headed outside to challenge each other with an obstacle course and relay race where they ran forwards and backwards, “bear-walked” on hands and feet, spun around, threw balls and Frisbees and occasionally slid on the wet grass on the way back to tag the next group member.
After a water break, there was daytime prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours before they headed for lunch.
The rest of the Sunday-through-Wednesday retreat was similarly packed with prayer, reflection, games and physical fun — all led by vocations director, Father Keith Romke, and several seminarians.
Seminarian Robert Gonnella coordinated the obstacle course. His favorite parts of the vocation retreats, he said, were the “sports with the kids, especially Frisbee” and the small groups where the leaders “get to know (campers) at a deeper level.”
“They’re all good kids,” Gonnella added. “That makes it more fun.”
Father Romke’s vocation talk at St. Mary School in Dixon and pamphlets about the Jeremiah Days camp brought eighth-grader Jaxson Schabacker to Rockford for his first camp.
“It’s a little bit more than I thought it would be,” he said. “I thought it would be just a bunch of meditation and praying.
“But it’s a bunch of games and fun,” he added.
The Jeremiah Days Camp was preceded by the vocation office’s St. Therese Camp for young women.
This summer’s First Call Camp for young men in 10th-grade through college begins July 19.