{"id":6932,"date":"2014-07-14T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T22:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/catholicfest-mixes-camping-encounter-with-truth-beauty-31134\/"},"modified":"2014-07-14T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T22:56:00","slug":"catholicfest-mixes-camping-encounter-with-truth-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2014\/07\/catholicfest-mixes-camping-encounter-with-truth-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"CatholicFest mixes camping, encounter with truth, beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/images\/size340\/Fr_Quinn_Mann_founder_of_CYE_and_CatholicFest_invited_all_the_kids_to_join_him_on_stage_and_sing_a_song_during_the_last_Mass_July_6_2014_Credit_Jen_Lowery_CNA_7_14_14.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Green Bay, Wis., Jul 14, 2014 \/ 04:56 pm (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- For the past three years now, Catholic families in the Diocese of Green Bay and beyond have been marking their calendars for July 4th, and not just because it\u2019s Independence Day.<\/p>\n<p>\tSince 2012, families have camped out by Kangaroo Lake near Bailey\u2019s Harbor, Wisc., for CatholicFest, an event over the holiday weekend that offers a chance to pray, meet other Catholic families, and experience truth, beauty and goodness in the arts.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cOur society is attacking the family, it\u2019s under attack,\u201d CatholicFest director Jen Lowery told CNA.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cBut I think CatholicFest seeks to really minister to families\u2026.it\u2019s just to come up and experience the good, the true and the beautiful through those mediums and to be together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tFamilies register online for a camping spot on the grounds of the St. Joseph formation center. Once they arrive, their schedule includes prayer and Mass, as well as presentations by Catholic artists on film, art or literature. In the evening, up-and-coming Catholic artists give concerts on the back lawn.<\/p>\n<p>\tLowery, 31, helped direct the first CatholicFest as well as the most recent one. The event is an outreach of Catholic Youth Expeditions (CYE), founded in 2002 as a part-summer camp, part-retreat ministry that brings young adult staff members together to live in community and host various high school and young adult expeditions of prayer, community life, camping and outdoor activities.<\/p>\n<p>\tSimplicity and prayer are the bread and butter of CYE and all its apostolates, including CatholicFest.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cYou\u2019re up here, you\u2019re away from the world, and the three constants are morning and evening prayer, Eucharistic adoration and Mass,\u201d Lowery said. \u201cEverything else is icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tCatholicFest was started as a way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the CYE ministry. Instead of high schoolers or young adults, Fr. Quinn wanted to serve the families of the Green Bay Diocese while promoting Catholic culture through the arts.<\/p>\n<p>\tBecause the call to simplicity is so foundational to CYE, there is a minimum of advertisement and publicity for their events. Lowery made a few amateur YouTube videos on her laptop for CatholicFest. Beyond that, it\u2019s mostly person invitation.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cBasically CYE has been around for 12 years because of personal invitation,\u201d Lowery said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the invitation and the encounter. The first two words of our mission statement are \u2018to encounter\u2019 so there\u2019s already an invitation there for action.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tPersonal invitation is why Carlene and Christopher Martens have been bringing their still-growing family of five up to CatholicFest since its beginning.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cFather Quinn said Mass at the Cathedral and afterwards my husband decided to take our son up to meet him,\u201d Carlene said, \u201cAnd as David was shaking Fr. Quinn's hand, Father was like, \u2018Do you like fishing? Do you like camping? Then you gotta come to CatholicFest!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tWhen Carlene sat down to talk with CNA at the event, the kids were nowhere in sight.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cI have five kids running around right now, I don't see a single one of them and I am totally at peace with that, and not in a bad way,\u201d Martens said. \u201cThere are so many families here, I know that the moms are always looking out for kids no matter what. Everybody\u2019s looking out for everybody else. It's just such a family community here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tCarlene\u2019s oldest son David, almost 9, likes the freedom he has at CatholicFest to roam around with his friends and play soccer. Her daughters love the concerts.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cThey are looking forward to the band tonight, being able to get up and dance, that's their favorite part,\u201d Martens said.<\/p>\n<p>\tMartens said she and her husband enjoy the family atmosphere and being around other Catholic parents with similar experiences to theirs.<\/p>\n<p>\tSteve and Lily Simmons are converts to the Catholic faith who brought their family up to CatholicFest for the second time this year. The fellowship and community at CatholicFest is what keeps them coming back.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cWith us being converts, we have felt alone a lot in that because some people have been part of the Church for so long that it\u2019s just what they do,\u201d Lily said. \u201cSo coming from the Protestant background, so much of our experience was community and fellowship, and that\u2019s been something that we\u2019ve been so hungry for so this is something that\u2019s been an awesome blessing for that reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tThe ability to get to know people on a deeper level is something that CatholicFest offers that parish life often does not, Steve said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cWe like coming up here, camping for a few days, having it surround around the Mass, coupled with a social environment where we just spend time with each other and get to know each other more on a more profound level than just coffee and a donut and fundraising and banquets at church,\u201d Steve said.<\/p>\n<p>\tThe perpetual adoration available in the chapel all weekend also blesses the families present and creates a palpable presence of grace, Steve said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cIt definitely lays a spiritual cover,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just when you\u2019re in the chapel, it\u2019s on the whole grounds, along with Mass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tHannah Rathsack, a CYE summer staff member for the past two years, said she would encourage Catholics and non-Catholics alike to come to CatholicFest.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cThis event looks entertaining to others because of the events that take place but it is so much more than that,\u201d Rathsack said. \u201cGod is working through the entire event and can change hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tThis year\u2019s speakers and entertainers included authors Dr. Mark and Dr. Adrianne Adderly, Catholic comedian Tony Bonse, keynote speaker Jimmy Mitchell and several musicians from the Love Good Music tour.<\/p>\n<p>\tLowery said she finds most of the speakers and musicians through recommendations from friends, or because they have somehow heard about CYE.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cI think the thing we want to promote is a retreat for Catholic artists up here,\u201d Lowery said. \u201cIts really like a grassroots movement, we don\u2019t want to get really big bands or famous names, we want to get people who are an unknown and help them grow in their ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tThe musicians and artists are invited to stay for the whole weekend, and often stay even longer at the formation center as a kind of retreat.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cWe are able to minister to them, and they are able to minister to us, it\u2019s cyclical, it\u2019s relational ministry,\u201d Lowery said. \u201cWe don\u2019t just hire someone to come sing to us and then they leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tLowery also emphasized that CatholicFest provides so much more than just entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cIt\u2019s formative,\u201d Lowery said. \u201cWe\u2019re not entertaining, we\u2019re encountering. An entertainer can entertain you, but you\u2019re not really going to be changed too much\u2026but when you have an encounter with something, you\u2019re changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tThe encounter that CYE most hopes to foster is one with Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cTo encounter Jesus Christ \u2013 Jesus Christ is alive and well and He\u2019s a person, and CYE seeks to foster that personal relationship with Jesus Christ for whoever walks through their doors on this campus,\u201d Lowery said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?a=BgrtODdiL40:zuJMdykpTDw:yIl2AUoC8zA\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews\/~4\/BgrtODdiL40\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green Bay, Wis., Jul 14, 2014 \/ 04:56 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- For the past three years now, Catholic families in the Diocese of Green Bay and beyond have been marking their calendars for July 4th, and not just because it&rsquo;s Independence Day.<\/p>\n<p>\tSince&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CatholicFest mixes camping, encounter with truth, beauty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Green Bay, Wis., Jul 14, 2014 \/ 04:56 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- For the past three years now, Catholic families in the Diocese of Green Bay and beyond have been marking their calendars for July 4th, and not just because it&rsquo;s Independence Day.  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