Avera Maria Santo - LifeTeen.com for Catholic Youth Archive

When You Can’t Escape Loneliness

From elementary school all the way through high school, I was pretty popular. I wouldn’t really say that I was one of the “cool kids” or anything, everyone just knew who I was. I was a social butterfly! I really wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone; I wasn’t the shy […]

Another Year, Another Advent

by Avera Maria Santo

I have learned that the experience is made all the more special if I really begin preparing for Christmas during the season of Advent. After all, that’s what Advent is all about!

Learning I Was Made for Love

by Avera Maria Santo

In high school, my desire for “love” was driven by a desire to feel whole, to feel a completeness that I believed stemmed from being in a romantic relationship. Since then, I’ve learned that the desire for wholeness is a desire for God, a desire that only He can satisfy.

Take Prayer Personally

by Avera Maria Santo

The remarkable thing about this type of personal prayer is that it doesn’t just apply to Mary — we can enter into this type of prayer with God Himself in the person of Jesus.

5 Benefits to Praying the (W)holy Rosary

by Avera Maria Santo

And as soon as I put my inhibitions aside and prayed the entire rosary in one day, my entire life changed. And now I want to share with you five benefits that I’ve discovered from praying the entire rosary every day.

Don’t Wait to Join the Fight

by Avera Maria Santo

The fight between heaven and hell, angels and demons, God and Satan, on the battleground of our souls is happening right this second and it isn’t going to end until the day we die.

Dear Society, You Don’t Define Me

by Avera Maria Santo

In order for society to be able to define us, it had to create us. Newsflash: society did not create us.

Too Catholic to be Gay

by Avera Maria Santo

I don’t think anyone with any faith, any background, any race, or anything like that is somehow exempt from the possibility of struggling with SSA. Just because I’m a proud Catholic doesn’t mean that this experience and this trial will go away anytime soon. It doesn’t mean that I somehow shouldn’t have had to struggle with this. In the same way, no member of the Catholic faith will ever be free from the experience of temptation to of sin on this side of heaven.

Prayer 101: How to Start Talking to God

by Avera Maria Santo

If we don’t give God the opportunity to enter into us and change us in prayer, our lives will remain the same. He’s ready to work in our lives, but He gave us free will to choose whether we allow Him to or not. It is our choice whether we receive or reject Him.

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