Mirror 07 is a growth retreat organized by "Jesus Youth Hyderabad " exclusively for you (members of JY family Hyd/AP) to identify our call in Christ and to reflect Jesus through our lives.

Venue : St.Francis Womens CollegeBegumpet,Secunderabad,AP.

Date : 19th April (thursday )6:30 Pm to22nd April(Sunday) 6:30 Pm

You are who you are for a reason
You are part of an intricate plan
You are a precious and perfect unique design
Called God’s special woman or man

You look like you for a reason
Our God made no mistake
He knit you together within the womb
You are just what He wanted to make

The parents you had were the ones He chose
And no matter how you may feel
They were costume designed with God’s plan in mind
And they bear the Master’s seal

No, that trauma you faced was not easy
And God wept that it hurt you so
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into His likeness you’d grow

You are who you are for a reason
You’ve been formed by the Master’s rod
You are who you are beloved
Because there is a God
- Russel Kefler

From 19th-22nd April, St. Francis Degree College, Begumpet, Hyderabad (the venue) witnessed 75 souls come together to “Reflect his and her call” as a son of God and daughter of God – the platform being Mirror’2007.

Through the Father, with the son, and lead by the Holy Spirit, Br. Fritz Mascarenhas and Br. Mathew Thomas Mohan, resources from Bangalore, guided the participants of this retreat who gathered from Hyderabad(47), Vijaywada(8) and Warangal(20).

19th April 2007

At about 7:00 pm, after the rosary, Dr. Sr. Christine Rebello (Principal of St. Francis Degree College) along with Dr. Sr. Alphonso Vattoly (Vice-Principal) along with the resource team lit the lamp, a gesture to mark the beginning of Mirror’07.

Having invoked the blessings of God upon us through the celebration of Holy Mass by Fr. Vincent, Br. Fritz, led us into a session in which we learnt the need to pray.
He taught us a short yet powerful prayer,

“Lord Jesus, I adore Your precious blood. Lord Jesus, I beg of You to pour out Your blood on me that I may be touched, forgiven and purified.”

During this session we realized that we are living a life of ‘Just a Christian – being devotional, fulfilling our religious duties and performing charitable acts’ but are failing to surrender ourselves to the will of the Father.

But ONLY by surrendering our mind, body and spirit to the will of the Father, can Jesus work in our lives.

These revelations of the truth began to unfold on us and after having a good dinner, we retired to bed.

20th April 2007

The dawn of 20th April saw everyone assemble in the hall at 7:00 am. Br. Mathew led us into a time of song and praise followed by personal prayer. After a quick breakfast at 8:30 am, everybody re-assembled at the hall.

Br. Fritz and Br. Mathew then spoke on the theme “God is Love”.
The true joy of being a Christian is to know and believe that we are loved by God. We learnt that we draw a picture of God from the persons around us, our parents, elders, the religious, and it is these who determine our closeness with and reluctance to, God. Therefore each one has to look at himself / herself and realize God’s love for them and pray for the will of the Father, so that by looking at us, others will see God.

We learnt that just because our hearts our closed, it does not mean that God does not love us. A room with closed windows does not mean that there’s no sun, as we open up the windows, there will be light. Similarly, we should open up our hearts and experience God’s steadfast, merciful, giving, providing and sacrificial love.

We must believe that we’re loved, but, doubt, our enemy has taken over us and therefore we need to continuously rehearse this truth and discover the divine purpose in our lives by spending time in prayer and surrendering ourselves to the will of the Father.

“GOD’S WILL
NOTHING MORE
NOTHING LESS
NOTHING ELSE”

After this, we had lunch and resumed to the hall. Br. Fritz continued the teaching on God’s Love.
What is preventing GOD’s love to flow in our hearts?

SIN

Sin is rejecting the WILL of God, i.e. rejecting the Father.
God’s abundant love does not reach us since
it is trapped by our sin, which refuses it to seep into us and we are left weary.

Sin is living a self-centered life and saying, “I, Me, Mine”, living life according to our own will, own plan, own understanding.

But the antidote to all this is “Submitting ones self to the will of the Father”

“Father, Let Your kingdom come, Your will be done”

After this at about 5:30 pm Fr. Arun (Asst. Parish priest of Ramnagar parish) celebrated holy mass.

Next, Br. Fritz taught us about the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the source of our lives and it is through the Eucharist that we get a revelation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We need to go to the Eucharist because we are all sick and wounded people and through the Eucharist, Jesus will open our eyes and restore our spiritual sight.

“We become what we eat and we eat the living bread our Lord Jesus Christ”
-St. Augustine

After having our dinner we were led into adoration by Br. Mathew for over an hour, after which we went to bed.


21st April ‘2007

21st April, at 7:00 am, everyone was back in the hall and after personal prayer and breakfast, Br. Fritz invoked the presence of the Holy Spirit. During this session, he taught us about the obedience to the word of God and to be routed in the scriptures.

He reminded us, truly, how we resort to God only when we are in trouble or when we need a favor, but that we should stop being like this and set our hearts on the Lord.
At the end of our lives we will have just one of two ways, either be saved and go to heaven or lose and go to hell. We must ensure that we’re heading in the right direction.

Come to the Lord + Word of God + Obey = By doing this we will be like the wise man who built his house on the rock.

After lunch we went back to the hall and Br. Mathew showed us a power point presentation on sacrament and confession.

The Sacrament of Penance also called confession is not a human achievement but a divine gift. Confession is a sacrament through which a priest through his prayers by the authority given to him by Christ Himself forgives sins.

We learnt through the presentation that during confession, we must examine our feelings, thoughts, words, deeds, behaviour, habits, priorities, targets, direction and type of life we lead.

The 6 benefits received through the sacrament of confession are:
1) Reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers his state of grace
2) Reconciliation with the church
3) The remission of the eternal punishment incurred through mortal sins
4) The remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin
5) Peace and serenity of conscience and spiritual consolation
6) An increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle.

After this everyone made confessions, followed by Holy Mass served by Fr. Vijay and during the sermon we were once again reminded of the need to surrender ourselves to the will of the Father.

Br. Fritz then took the session over and spoke to us on “Belief in God”

The whole vision of salvation will be understood only when we “BELIEVE” in God.

“Through faith in Jesus, I am saved”

“The wages of sin is death, but the merit of God is eternal life”

We then went for dinner, after which Br. Fritz continued the teaching, about our enemies:

World – Lust of flesh, of eyes and pride of life
“He who believes overcomes this world”

Flesh – Our sinful nature, our weakness and the power of sin.
“Overcome weakness by clinging to Jesus – by believing in Jesus”

Devil – Father of lies
“My strength is the strength of Jesus”

“I believe Jesus is my Saviour, only He can save me”

“As I cling onto God – He pours out on me faith, hope and love”

22nd April 2007

On the last day of the retreat 22nd April, after personal prayer and breakfast Br. Mathew taught us about the Holy Spirit – the third person of the most holy trinity.

The Father’s spirit is revealed through His son. Through the power action of the Holy Spirit we are led to Jesus. Jesus shows us the Father.

Without the Holy Spirit we are formless, void and filled with darkness. The Holy Spirit guides us and helps us discern the right and wrong. He reveals to us the gifts of God and the Father’s will.

“Our enemy is a spiritual power and we have to fight it in the spirit and not in the flesh. Therefore, we must pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit”

Br.Fritz then shared with us on the gift of tongues which is Praise and Worship in words we do not understand. It is our spirit that praises and worships God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every baptized Christian can get the gift of tongues, if he/she yields to it.

After lunch Br. Fritz led us into prayer to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and he asked us to surrender our vocal cords to the Spirit and allow our spirit to praise God in tongues that were unknown to us.

As it was 3:00 by now, the Divine Hour, we recited the Mercy Chaplet and then prepared ourselves for Mass served by Fr. Pakiaraj, during which once again we were reminded that God loves us and we must love Him too.

We then bid Goodbye to Br.Fritz and Br.Mathew

After this we settled down to a power point of the visions of JY presented by Prakash George and Vijay Sunder with the assistance of Vignan. This was followed by the vote of thanks delivered by Ashwin and a photograph marked the closing of Mirror’07 yet the beginning of a walk to:

M - Meditate
I - Introspect
R - Reflect
R - Respond
O - Obey
R - Rise,
-HIS CALL


Mirror ‘2007 was organized as part of a yearly growth retreat. This was a time for all the JY members to come together to take time, think and reflect their call and walk with GOD. Truly, as it turned out, MIRROR 2007 was a retreat rooted in making our foundations in faith stronger, grounded on the basic principle of “Surrender to the Father”, be wary of “SIN” and to incessantly seek the guidance of our helper the “HOLY SPIRIT” to lead us to Jesus.

MIRROR 2007–Reflect HIS call …….. The 75 are out there …… !!!!!

“God was thinking of you long before you ever thought about Him
His purpose for you life predates your conception
He planned it before you existed, without your input
You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies and many other parts of your life but you don’t get to choose your purpose
The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic purpose that God designed for eternity.”

-Rick Warren

View Mirror Photos

View & Download Mirror Video Presentation

JY Prayer Sessions in Warangal Diocese Youth Conventions in Karimnagar.

Phase 3 : On 25th Apr 2007

Vignan from Hyderabad and Laxman & Sudheer came from Warangal to conduct JY Prayer session In Karimnagar.

We started the JY Prayer session with "Every Single Cell" Action song followed by Praise and Worship. After that Vignan shared about JESUS YOUTH briefly and we disturbed the JY Telugu Handouts to all most all the Participants (300).

After Breakfast Fr. Thomas Kiran invited JY to take some more time.

So we taught some songs and laxman shared his CEP Kerala Experince and Vignan shared added some more information about Jesus Youth.

JY Prayer Sessions in
Warangal Diocese Youth Conventions

Phase 2 : On 16th Apr 2007

Around 1 PM Prashanth & Vignan started to Warangal from Hyderabad to conduct 2 hours JY Prayer Session for Warangal Diocese youth convention for Girls and Chakry along with Praveen, Aruna, Prasanna joined us for the same program from Vijayawada. Stephen and Arun from CJITS college and St. Peter's Colony Parish Jesus Youth Prayer group members also joined us.

By 5.30 everything is set right and every one came came and practiced some action songs and after that prayed some time before the program.

We started JY Prayer session with some action songs and it went one more than 40 Mins and almost 1200 Youth(Girls) really participated very nice and Sunil (Keyboardist) & Robert(pads) supported us very nicely with good music.

After that Rupesh, Dileep & Stephen lead us in to nice time of Praise & Worsip and prasanna, chakry were supporting with songs.

Hightlight of the program is Power went off for sometime during Praise & Worship session.

That time everyone really praised god shouting very loudly untill the power came.

It's really Miracle Power came with in 5 Minutes....

After that we showed some Jesus Youth Video clips and explained about JY and Stephen shared some experices of Campus Ministry and Prashant explained about Fulltimership and Dileep shared about the Cultural Exchange Program.

By the end of the program we distributed Jesus Youth Handouts to most of the participants.

One more highlight of the program " Songs which we sung were recorded live"


JY Prayer in Warangal Photos

Download JY AP Action Songs which was sung live in Warangal Program

Fr. Thomas Kiran, Youth Director of Warangal Diocese Invited Jesus Youth to conduct 2 hours Prayer session for Warangal Diocese Youth Conventions .

These Conventions are divided in 3 Phases.

1st Phase : For Boys from 12th Apr to 14th Apr 2007 In karunapuram (1500 Participated)

2nd Phase : For Girls from 16th Apr to 18th Apr 2007 In karunapuram (More than 1500 Participated)

3rd Phase : For Boys & Girls from 23rd Apr to 25th Apr 2007 In Karimnagar District (More than 300 Participated)


On 12th April 2007

From 6.30 PM to 8.30 PM we conducted Jesus Youth Prayer session for Youth (Boys) for this program Vignan went from Hyderabad and Chakravarthi came from Vijayawada and Stephen, Uday joined from CJITS College and Dileep, Laxman, Sudheer & Rupeesh also accompanied from St. Peter's colony Parish Jesus Youth prayer group.

Around 7 PM We started the JY Prayer session with Action songs and Chakry lead us and Vignan accompanied with Guitar.Dileep and Rupeesh lead us in to nice time of Praise and worship and after the Stephen from CJITS college shared the word of God with good examples. Around 8.30 we have a Jesus youth Presentation session. We showed some JY Videos and after that shared some information with the Youth more than 800 Youth were there who attended the JY Prayer session.

After the general meeting at Emmaus for “Mirror 2007”–a growth retreat to be conducted by JY-HST from 19-22 April, Besto and Ashvin set out for Vijayawada boarding the 10:40 pm train from Sec-bad.

Chaitanya(JY-Vwada) received the hyderabadis, at around 5:30 am and immediately they set off for Gunadala. They were then introduced to Fr. Bosco who had a brief discussion and welcomed them.

After getting refreshed Besto and Ashvin then, accompanied with Vignan, set out to the church, where joined by Br. Adolf, Lucy chechi and Karen all joined in the procession with everyone carrying palm leaves, it being palm Sunday.

The procession culminated with Holy mass celebrated by His grace Prakash Mallvarapu (bishop of V’wada) at around 10:30 am

Following this, Bishop then inaugurated a training center, opened up to train people get jobs in different BPOs. The hyderabadis had a little tête-à-tête with him during this interim. Later, bishop inaugurated a prayer hall gifted to the JY of Vijaywada, for their regular JY activities and after a short time of prayer in the hall by Stephen, bishop encouraged all the people present to join JY and make use of the facilities provided and have a closer encounter with GOD.

A small photo shoot session followed and then the humble, any time approachable, non-assuming, ever encouraging JY activities bishop bid his farewells. Everyone were just mesmerized with his humility, simplicity and down to earth nature.

Breakfast time and Fr. Bosco got to speak more with all the hyderabadis. Fr. Bosco too came across as a very simple, “wanting to do something for youth” kinda person. He was very open in his conversations and seldom spoke much.

Everyone(about 12-15 jy members) then gathered in the auditorium where Br. Adolf lead the Praise and Worship. After this, everyone introduced themselves to the group. Particularly long introduction was of Martin chetta(elder for JY-Vwada), Sr. Jacintha(warden of Stella Maris college and extremely supportive of JY) and Sunita(hindu girl with immense faith in Jesus)

At about 1:45 pm, the group went for lunch and were back at about 2:15 pm for a meeting with JY-Vijayawada. By this time Martin Chetta and Sr. Jacintha had moved on.

There were about 65-80 youth present in the auditorium by about 2:30 pm. Action songs started and then after a short prayer by Fr. Bosco and a brief intro by Vignan, Br. Adolf spoke a few words and addressed the JY crowd.

Lucy Chechi also spoke of her JY experiences and mentioned the importance of prayer in the life of a JY.

After a prayer by Fr. Bosco for the JY animators of AP, Br. Adolf and his family bid their farewells.

More action songs followed and then after a prayer and WOG sharing by Fr. Bosco, Besto was invited by Vignan to share his testimony. Sunita also then shared her testimony with the group. Finally, Ashvin spoke a few words about JY and his experience.

Fr. Bosco then concluded with a final prayer and then requested everyone to get to the new prayer hall that was inaugurated earlier in the day to be there for sometime and then disperse. All of us assembled at the hall and after a short prayer, all the JY members left.

Besto, Stephen, Vignan, Sundar and Ashvin then went to visit one of Sundar’s relative staying just adjacent to the church to pray for some personal needs. After that Vignan and the others moved on while Besto, Sundar and Ashvin climbed the hill to the Gundala mata grotto.

At about 7:45 pm, one final word of thanks to Fr. Bosco for his support and hospitality, Besto, Sundar and Ashvin proceeded to Sundar’s place for supper.Besto & Ashvin enjoyed a good time of fellowship at Sundar’s place as they got introduced to Sundar’s mom, 2 sisters and a priest Fr. Antony who was present. After a long discussion with the family members and a short time of prayer, a fantastic dinner was served and then Besto and Ashvin left for the station to board the secbad train at 9:35 pm

At the station they were joined by Chakry, Chaitanya and Shashi(all JY-Vwada), who came to bid them farewell. Some notes exchanged, and the train started to move by 10:30 pm.

In all, the trip was arranged and its objective duly met with the sole intention of the animators along with some JY members meeting the bishop and being a part of the inaugural ceremony, to meet the elders and supporters of JY in Vijaywada, to address the JY members and to be a part of the JY-Vwada community and speak to as many people as possible to simply try and encourage, motivate and guide them to a closer bonding and fellowship with Jesus.

JY-Hyd was invited by Fr. Thomas to spend one night in prayer at “Birds of the Air” Nagaram. This place is home for all the uncared, sick, destitute people from the streets. After nursing them, the priests then send them out on their journey.

A team of about 20 JY reached Nagaram in different batches. On reaching the place they had a discussion with Fr. Thomas and he inturn introduced the team to all the inmates. There are about 25-30 inmates presently staying with Fr. Thomas. Some of these inmates are sick, some mentally challenged, some physically disabled etc It was really heart rendering to see these people who had no one in this world and were completely living at the mercy of Fr. Thomas and his team.

After having dinner at about 9:30 pm, all the inmates retired to bed. The JY team along with about 10 others proceeded to the hall for the night in prayer.

We started with an action song following which Abhi lead everyone into a good time of Praise and Worship. This lasted for an hour.

Fr. Thomas then came up and shared with all of us how “Birds of the Air” came into existence. Where the inspiration came from, his background and how GOD lead him to the present place. He also showed some of the pics. of all the sick patients and how they nursed them back to health.

By this it was already 12:00 am and Fr. Benny, a close friend of Fr. Thomas then lead us into Holy Eucharist.

Fr. Benny is also considered a very holy priest, a man full of the Spirit of GOD. He celebrated a very beautiful mass, the homily of which was based on the lifestyle of Mary Magdela, how she a sinner came into GODs presence and never left his side even at the cross, and so GOD blessed her with being the first person to realize Jesus’ resurrection.

A short tea break of 15 mins and then after another action song. Br. Regan shared his testimony. Br. Regan is a young man who at the prime of his life has sacrificed himself for the service of GOD. To begin with, his attire consists of only sack cloth and he wears them round the year with no footwear to go with it.

Br. Regan shared, despite being a successful software professional left everything behind and motivated by St. Francis, came to live with Fr. Thomas and help out poor people in need. This was an enriching and motivating testimony.

Another 5 mins quick short break and then adoration followed. The Blessed sacrament was exposed and then everyone started just praising, singing, glorifying and worshiping GOD.

After almost about one and half hr. the adoration concluded and then after bidding farewell and thanks to Fr. Thomas we left that place.

We ask for GODs grace and abundant blessings on “Birds of the Air” since it is a difficult place to live, so that GODs love may ever remain in the midst of the inmates and GODs strength may always empower Fr. Thomas and Br. Regan in their missionary work.