Goal
The goal of this Edge Night is to teach the youth to be aware of spiritual darkness and how to avoid it and walk in the light of Christ’s love.
Edge Night at a Glance
Tonight’s teaching is going to give the middle school youth a very basic understanding of spiritual darkness, or evil. By introducing the topic, our goal is to teach the teens the dangers of spiritual evils — magic, superstition, fortune-telling, horoscopes, etc.— so they can turn to the light of God’s love and not delve into practices contradictory of the first commandment. Scripture constantly calls us to stand in God’s light, live in His love, and be holy. Our lives are ordered towards adoration of God, not in giving power to evil or anything that is not God. The Catechism teaches us that idolatry eliminates man’s religious sense, and Origen said an idolater is someone who “transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God.” Keeping in mind that scripture calls us to be holy, all spiritual evils are forms of idolatry. By remaining in the light, we experience the love God has for each one of us.
The Gather begins with a piñata contest to introduce the concept of our souls. During the Proclaim, the youth will learn why they should avoid spiritual evils/darkness and what some of the evils the Church specifically warns against are. For the Break, there will be a large group panel discussion led by a priest, deacon, and/or youth minister (or a combination of all). The night will end with a short biography of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, which leads to a closing prayer St. Pio wrote askingGod to “stay with me.”