Young men driven by prayer, service

Group for college-age men gathers for spiritual support, fellowship

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BRISTOL — It is Sunday afternoon on Columbus Day weekend and young, college-age men on a long weekend are likely either watching the Patriots play the Saints, getting ready for the Red Sox-Tigers playoff game, or heading out to dinner or the movies with friends.

So, why is it that as kick-off nears and friends head out to sports bars - for what will become a historic day for professional athletics in New England - that 14 men in their late teens and early 20s choose instead to listen to a talk about the presence of the Holy Spirit empowering them to do good in their lives before kneeling to pray the rosary and then driving in a three-car convoy to volunteer at the diocese’s Emmanuel House night shelter for homeless men in Providence?

“There is strength in numbers; there are plenty of good people out there. This is an example of that,” said Andrew White, a 31-year-old firefighter who with the support of Father Henry Zinno, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, revived the Oratory for College Men of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church one year ago.

White said he was in high school when his brother was involved in the oratory and Father Zinno was kind enough to let him join in, even though he was younger than everyone else.

“It is a good opportunity to be with guys your age and who are involved in their faith,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, White gathered with the group at Mount Carmel Church, where the young men sat in the front pews beneath the stained glass windows to listen while he offered his talk at the beginning of the meeting. He asked the young men how they listened to God.

“We need to take time in prayer; pray to God to hear God...by staying in open touch with God we can hear his voice,” he said.

Father Zinno said the group is modeled on the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.

“I did this when I was the assistant pastor here back in the mid-1990s,” Father Zinno said. “The methodology for the group follows that of St. Philip Neri in the 1500s, who was able to regenerate faith in Rome by gathering around himself young people for a talk on the virtues, a devotion of some sort, food and fun, and then some sort of activity. Neri was famous for his walks to the seven basilicas in Rome.”

White approached Father Zinno two years ago to suggest reviving the parish oratory. The pastor advised him to go ahead and organize the program. White and the young members who joined are all parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, most from the time of their baptism. On this day, each of the 14 gathered confirmed they were once altar servers at the church.

The group usually meets in the summer on random Sunday nights, and then during the school year they attempt to get together when they are home on vacation or long weekends. They first gather in the church for a talk on virtuous living, concentrating on specific topics, like relationships, Catholic morality, speaking the truth, humility, hearing the cries of the poor, and prayer — the rosary, benediction, Stations of the Cross or novenas. The oratory group concludes its evening by going out together for a meal, and then play basketball or volleyball.

In summer, the group has undertaken two mission trips to the Mustard Seed Orphanage in Nicaragua, where they cared for disabled children at an orphanage, built a chapel and performed maintenance tasks.

Brandon Paulino, a student at Rhode Island College, comes regularly to the oratory and made the mission trip to Nicaragua because he feels a need to share his blessings from God. He wears his faith, literally.

“I have tattoos of the crucifix on the back of my calves of both legs,” he said. It is way to evangelize and other students on campus often talk to him about his Catholic faith, he said.

Aaron Towers, a college student, said he joined the oratory to strengthen his faith in a secular world where his beliefs are countercultural.

“It is important to have strong faith, so you don’t fall into evil. Faith is important because even when everything doesn’t go according to plan, you can stay positive and steady through the challenges.”

During his talk to the young men, White prepared them for their trip to Emmanuel House, where they would serve dinner and visit with the homeless men who live on the streets for a variety of circumstances, according to the shelter’s executive director Dottie Perreault.

The group arrived in time to fill plastic bowls with either the beef stew or the chipped beef concoction delivered hot in large pans by The Providence Rescue Mission. Father Zinno, whose cooking skills are legendary, at the request of Perreault, searched through the cabinets at Emmanuel House mission to find canned vegetables that could be added to supplement the chipped beef on the evening’s menu.

With the oratory members opening cans and draining the liquid, setting up bowls to be filled, Father Zinno stirred in corn, carrots, collard greens and green beans. When everyone else in the kitchen backed off his offered taste test, he sampled it. “Not bad,” he said.

The group hustled out the steaming bowls to the waiting guests seated at tables in a room that doubles as a dining room and sleeping quarters. Mats were arranged in rows at one end of the room with sleeping spots staked out with the backpacks containing as many necessities and worldly possessions as a homeless man can stuff inside.

When their work ended, the 14 young men sat down to visit with the shelter’s guests for the night.

In his talk earlier at the church, White reminded the men that “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.”

Member Jacob Steadman was asked whether in the words of Matthew 25:35 — “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in” — he saw Christ present in the men he and the others his group had just fed.

“He is here,” said Steadman, who is looking forward to helping the less fortunate in other ways through the oratory in the future. “I think if he wasn’t here, we wouldn’t be here.”