CAMP GREATNESS: Summertime Faith and Fellowship Opportunities for Our Young Men

Summer vacation is a great reset between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next — and it can also be an opportunity to reset your spiritual life. For middle school and high school students, the Diocese of New Ulm offers three-day summer camps to help students refresh and grow in their faith while spending time with a great community.

Camp Greatness, the camp for young men, combines prayer, sports, spiritual talks, and fellowship for its attendees. Joseph Felton, a junior in high school, and his brother Thomas, a freshman — both parishioners at St. James — went to Camp Greatness last summer.

“I’m definitely going again this summer,” Joseph says. “It was just a great experience with a lot of things we don’t normally get to do during the week, like adoration — we got to do that every day.”

Each day at camp includes morning prayer, Mass, and evening prayer as well as time for talks, discussion, and personal prayer. Tying it all together is a healthy emphasis on team sports. Joseph and Thomas were both surprised by how good-natured the competition was.

“I was surprised by how many good competitive games we played,” Thomas says. “We naturally get crazy with it, but we always prayed beforehand and ended up friends with the other team and happy for everyone, no matter who won or lost.”

“We were competitive but there were no hard feelings,” Joseph adds. “We were just having fun.” continued on back cover

Camp Greatness offers two sessions, one for middle school and another for high school. The camp is held at Schoenstatt on the Lake in Sleepy Eye, Minn. During their time at camp, the Felton brothers were able to meet and talk with many new priests and seminarians.

Joseph and Thomas found that the time spent at Camp Greatness in prayer and in fellowship with other faithful young men helped them to bring their faith into their everyday lives.

“It’s made it easier to set aside time for God, and that feels more important to me,” Thomas says. “It’s a great booster to know there are so many other young men who are striving to be better Catholics too.”

“It helped me to keep going (deeper) and sometimes we all need that little spark to keep doing it,” Joseph adds.

Both brothers plan to attend again this summer and they have no hesitation about that decision.

“I will definitely go again,” Thomas says. “It was so much fun and you get to be away from home, so it’s kind of like a vacation. If you’re ever feeling like you’re not ending up where you want to be, it helps you find that.”

In addition to Camp Greatness, the Diocese of New Ulm offers Camp Beloved for middle school and high school girls. For more information or to register for both camps, visit www.dnu.org/youth.

Camp Greatness offers two sessions, one for middle school and another for high school.

The camp is held at Schoenstatt on the Lake in Sleepy Eye, Minn.