Author Archives: Kaitlin Byrne

LifeTeen.com Blog

Become Who You Are

By | June 15, 2012

In May, Sara, Sean, and I were on mission in Europe.  We started in Germany, then Holland, Paris, back to Holland, Spain, back to Holland, to Lyon, France, and then back to Holland.  It was a lot of travel over three weeks but were able to share the mission of Life Teen, visit many of the Life Teen parishes in Europe, meet so many new people we now call family, and witness all the ways the Holy Spirit is moving in Europe! Please pray for our Brothers and Sisters in Europe who are standing firm

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LifeTeen.com Blog

Joy in Believing

By | March 28, 2012

A couple weeks ago, we, the Atlanta missionaries, were helping out on a retreat called “Cardboard Box City” with a local Atlanta parish. The concept is simple: you sleep in a cardboard box to be in solidarity with the poor, and then at each Mass, you collect money and canned goods for St. Vincent de Paul. The weekend was absolutely amazing, and I actually really enjoyed sleeping outside. We were also asked to give some talks for the teens while on retreat. On Sunday afternoon, after only getting

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LifeTeen.com Blog

The mission-Leading Teens Closer to Christ

By | November 4, 2011

Eight years ago I encountered the living Christ in adoration for the first time.  I was kneeling in front of Him, face to face, holding on to a piece of the altar cloth in front of me, crying hysterically. I was so confused.  I had no idea what was going on.  Why was I crying? What was HE doing to me? Little did I know then that that moment was just the beginning.  That was the weekend of my first LifeTeen retreat with my parish.  I will never forget that moment but today I’m not focusing on

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Being like the Leper

By | October 4, 2011

I would not consider myself an ungrateful person.  I am truly thankful for all God has provided for me in the ways of physical needs, spiritual needs, communal needs, etc.  I do not go around complaining (very often) BUT I also do not necessarily take a lot of time to let Him know how thankful I am.  The other day I was reading in the gospel of Luke chapter 17, the story of the Ten Lepers.  Ten lepers came to Jesus and asked for mercy. So Jesus directed them to go and show themselves to the

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LifeTeen.com Blog

The Living Word

By | September 15, 2011

We are adding something new to our prayer this year as missionaries that we learned from Fr. Roland at the missionary base in Germany. We refer to it as “Living the Word”. Every morning whoever is leading morning prayer that day will read the Gospel.  They will choose a word or phrase that spoke to the them and share that with the community and encourage the community to see how they can live out that word or phrase throughout their day.  At night prayer, we will then discuss how we “Lived the

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My Shepherd

By | March 9, 2011

“The Lord is God; we are his people, the flock he shepherds” God desires to shepherd me!  It is Lent and He wants to lead me and all of you on a journey.  I can’t even express how excited I was to read this antiphon this morning in Liturgy of the Hours.  I am prepared for Him to take me where He wants me to go over these next forty days. I want to truly listen and surrender to His guidance. Are you?  What will your journey look like? Maybe you have sacrificed sweets or sodas, Starbucks or facebook

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I Can Only Smile

By | February 20, 2011

Yesterday morning I was in the chapel reading I Believe In Love and I can’t help but smile at what I read and share it with you.  (If you have not read my previous blog Saving The World or Eternal Salvation you might want to read that first and then come back to this).  I Believe in Love is a book based off of the teachings of St. Therese (patroness of missionaries). This book has been read by many of my missionary brothers and sisters so I decided to pick it up.  I wasn’t too crazy about it until

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Saving the World or Eternal Salvation?

By | February 18, 2011

I read something this morning in the Magnificat that has really struck a cord with me, “Saving the world does not mean making it happy; it means showing the world the meaning of its suffering and giving it a joy that “nothing can take away”…we must keep in mind that what is at stake is ultimately not solving these problems and constructing a second earthly paradise; rather, what is at stake is eternal life.” I am not even sure where to begin writing about this but I have been thinking about it

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Heading Home

By | January 5, 2011

I am amazed when God continually reveals Himself to me in beautiful simple truths.   On Sunday, I went to mass for the Epiphany and heard an incredibly simple but impactful homily. As a cradle Catholic I have obviously heard this Gospel 22 times ,if not more, over my life but my eyes were opened to a new ending of the Magi’s journey.  The last line in Matthew’s telling of the story says, “They left for their home by another road.” (Matt 2:12)  Right before that we hear that they were told in

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Preaching the Gospel!

By | January 5, 2011

Before we, the missionaries, left for our break our community welcomed over 100 people to Covecrest for our annual Family Mission.  Family Mission is a time for local families (mostly from the Atlanta area but anyone is welcome) to come and experience mission.  It is so beautiful to see FAMILIES on mission TOGETHER!  All children and parents from any age, all shapes, and sizes come to give back to the much in need community of Tiger, GA.  Their willingness to serve and give of their time, finances,

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