Camp Veritas- Part 3

I woke up the next morning nice n' early (7:00) and had an hour before morning prayer to get showered and prepped for the day. After that, it was onto morning prayer. Morning Prayer was really a great way to start off every day. It consisted of Br. Joachim, one of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (explanaition coming in a sec) reading a part of Matthew Chapter 11. After that, he would kind of give a meditation/explaination on what he had just read. To explain the friars, I could easily leave it at the phrase "amazingly spiritual and fun" all in caps and leave it at that. But I'll go a little further :) The Friars are a group that was started about 25 years ago based on the way our Beloved (and iconic) St. Francis ran his friaries. At this point, they're touching/evangelizing/living in almost every area of the world, and they have to be one of the most fun group of Religous men I've ever met. Here's a pic of Br. Joachim one morning:

Probably one of the greatest conversions ever to happen, so holy, and so humerous. He's been there since '08 as I have, and I respect him very deeply.

From there, all of us had a quick breakfast and a Rosary to pray before heading on to the day's activities, with continuing beautiful weather (NOT!)

Yep, my group had pool first period. on a foggy, 70 degree day, we got to go in a 70 degree pool who's heaters were taking a while to turn on. And, oh yeah, we're in the mountains, remember? LOTS of fun :D

Next, I had lake.

 

Alright, I don't care what weather it is, I could spend my life on the lake. Make a little house and chapel on shore, keep that yellow kyak (you can se it in the bottom right corner), get some books, endless food and a guitar and I'd be set for life. It's always peaceful. Always beautiful. A little shard of heaven's beauty.

After that, we had some lunch and two sports. Then, we had the tug-of-war we normally have on Sunday as a kind-of ice-breaker activity for campers. ALWAYS so fun.

For those of you who think you're seeing what you're seeing, yes, that is a Priest and a Friar in their full length, black and gray habits, participating in the Camp Veritas 2010 tug-of-war. I think we get some of the most fun-loving, religous, friars, nuns, and priests that exist.

After that, we had an egg toss. In the past, my partner's always been the one that got egged. This year, it exploded on me. I brought my hands out to fast to get an egg me and my partner had already dropped twice and it gave me to yellow elbow-length gloves. After spraying my arms with a hose, I watched the other people finish off the toss. As soon as we got back to our cabin, I washed, soaped, and deoderized (i.e. slathered my arms in soap and deoderant. Hey,I was desperate, people) my arms until the scent of eggs was finally zapped. After that, our day got pretty interesting. Daily Mass went off without a hitch, but at dinner, things got, well, interesting. We were all in our cafeteria, mostly waiting on the dinner line. I was catching up with my counselor from last year as we waited in line when all the sudden, it began deluging in the extreme sense of the term. A rumble of thunder comes, and then all of the sudden, BLAM! and a flash of light. Needless to say, a couple of teenage girls out of the 200+ people in the cafeteria screamed bloody murder, but something else had happened that I didn't find out about until a couple minutes later. To say the least, we realized our building had just gotten struck by lightning and that we were all fine. Well, all except one of us, that is. Mike, my counselor from '08, who may as well be the big brother I never had, had been running pel-mel and barefoot from his cabin when it started pouring. The good news was he had slipped into the cafeteria half a second before the lightning struck. However that was the bad news as well. He literally slipped straight into the cafeteria. He ended up being OK though, so it was all fine in the end.

That night, we had adoration in front of the Holy Eucharist that involved singing praise and worship songs and having plenty of time to pray with our Lord physically before you. It's just such a mystical beauty, to be there. Once you've been there, prayed there, stood there, cried there, you have no doubt that there is a God and the he really does exist in his full majesty.

After that, we got to hear brother P.T. (short for Pierre Touissant) give the story of his conversion and vocation story (this pic was taken at another time).

  I love those nights. They happen out on the lake. You're sitting there with some of the best people in the world around you, a warm bonfire blazing at the center of the group, listening to the most pure form of a love story that ever existed; that of falling in love with Jesus and experiencing joy beyond compare.

After that, you get some time to hang out on the volleyball court/cafeteria area. I got out my guitar and me and a buddy just jammed for two hours. A great ending to a great day. Tomorrow would have its fare share of joy too though....