2025 YAG Recap

Click here to see all the photos from the event.

Below is the recording of Fr. McKenna’s talk from Saturday:

Well, well, well… it’s hard to believe another YAG is in the bag (heh). This is my second year on the job, and this time around, I shifted the schedule around to try to give us all a little more sleep than last year. The schedule changes were great, but did I sleep any more? Absolutely not. Oh well. We don’t travel to Cincinnati for the weekend to sleep. Most of us have beds where we live. Dozens of Catholic friends? Not so much.

I have personally attended six YAGs, and each has had its own unique character. I’ve loved them all, but I am not alone in saying that I may have loved 2025 the best. This year’s vibe was tight. Cozy. Close. Attendance was notably smaller than in years past—-77 vs about 100)—which did, I think, help make it all feel more like a big family reunion than a national conference. Not that this extrovert ever had a problem with a conference-sized event. There’s a place for small and a place for big, after all. Also differently than in the past, many, many attendees from last year had kept in constant contact through a giant Telegram group throughout the year. That brought us all a lot closer together than we otherwise would have been. We are lucky, because not all online discourse has that effect these days! But even the newbies—about 30% of the total—were effortlessly social and open. The whole combination of people jelled remarkably easily. The most easily I can remember. THANK YOU to all the fantastic attendees who made that magical dynamic possible.

This year’s changes started from the beginning. In 2024, I famously could not get off the mic to save my life, and detained everyone at church until very late, delaying the start of the bonfire at the retreat center until almost 10pm. So this year, I got us together for introductions before Mass and dinner, giving myself a hard deadline to stop talking. We made our own nametags en masse this year, “name tags”, that is, with no names, only attributes. And then we randomly distributed them and told people to find their correct owners sometime during the weekend. It was a great way to start conversations all weekend long. “Do you speak five languages?” “Were you born legally blind?” All kinds of excuses to pry.

I eschewed glass table decorations this year because the next phase of introductions involved throwing a big pink foam die around the room and I knew there was no way it was going to avoid hitting the flowers or candle vases or what have you. The rules of this game seemed to confuse pretty much everybody, until we were a couple people down the line, but mass confusion can be a bonding experience, and in any case people caught on eventually and we all had some good laughs, so I count it as a success. I won’t bother explaining it here other than to mention that it involved my vibecoding an HTML program with ChatGPT.

We also got a new pizza provider this year. We replaced the old standby of Jets with the local (and locally renowned) Cassano’s, a big upgrade for a very small price premium. They forgot to give us our salad, but honestly I didn’t notice any tears. I wasn’t shedding any, that’s for sure.

Even with introductions out of the way before dinner, we didn’t get out the door alll that early. We only got to saying the rosary (a new activity!) at the retreat center at about 9:40, which put the bonfire… at about 10. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

After Mass on Saturday morning, we had the privilege of being able to watch the first oblation of one of the new Oblates of the Holy Face at St. Gertrude’s. Sister Regina became Sister Magdalen of the Holy Relics. Congratulations!

Fr. McKenna gave a talk during breakfast about what we can do now to progress in our vocations, whatever they may be, and whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. Then we headed back to the retreat center for lunch.

Then the fun began! For years, the space between lunch and dinner was always scheduled free time. This year, we had more “programmed” activities Saturday afternoon to help ease even the introverts into the swing of things before giving everyone the chance to do whatever they wanted. Catering to (hopefully) all types, the first block of time presented attendees with the option of participating in either a “Sip’n Paint” or, on the other end of the energy spectrum, a Nerf war. It was a pity to many, including me, that we couldn’t do both, as they were both reported to be a lot of fun by their respective participants. I and dozens of others painted under the talented and charismatic guidance of artist-in-residence Hannah Taber, who led us step-by-step through the process of recreating a bucolic tropical island scene. Kayla Long mixed us up some delicious and beautiful-looking fake cocktails to enjoy along the way.

Across the parking lot, all-out war was underway.

Afterwards, a bunch of us gathered around the projector screen to sing (or try to sing) whatever requests people shouted out that the musicians present also happened to know, which, thanks to the skills of Jeffery Buggy, Thomas Zver, and Lucas Larsen, was a lot! Meanwhile, others explored the hiking trails or amused themselves in a myriad of other ways. My impression of the group was that it was impossible to bore them.

People were tied up enough with painting, nerfing, singing, and talking, that I don’t believe anyone ever got around to playing soccer, a first for a YAG since we started hosting it at the retreat center. People did play badminton (did you know that word had an “n” in the middle? I didn’t) in the dance hall though, a genius use of resources.

After dinner, we convened for a group rosary again, which set a nice tone for the square dance and waltz that followed.

Michael Simpson did an amazing job not only playing music with the Hop River Band, whose presence we were graced with again this year, but also teaching the square dances and MCing the whole night. Charles Simpson gave us a very helpful waltz demonstration to bring all the newbies (and, honestly, a lot of the not-so-newbies) up to speed.

I and the ice cream brigade were a little late out the door, but people found plenty to do to kill the time while waiting for the ice cream to arrive.

Historically, Sunday morning was a bit of a mad rush to clean up and pack everything at the retreat center before leaving for 9am Mass. Having presided over this one year, I knew I couldn’t do it again, and arranged for us to come back after Mass this year for lunch and relaxed cleanup time. And thank goodness, because with how intensely we used the facilities this year, I would have had an aneurysm trying to get everything put back in order before 8am.

I asked for an “early” lunch at the retreat center, around 11:45, thinking we’d all be starving and rushing to eat as soon as possible after Mass, but really, with how wonderfully social everyone was, no one was in a rush to leave, the church donuts took the edge off our hunger, and it was a bit of an effort to get everyone back on the road towards food.

Having had our fill of lunch, we trudged out to the soccer field (I guess we did wind up using it for something!), stared up squinting into the sky, and said “Cheese!” as Victoria Cerise of Mystical Rose Photography took our group photo from a tower looming nearby (the true purpose of which I did not and do not know).

We also took this picture:

to the delight of some and discomfort of others.

Then we settled in for another new feature, Q+A with Father, which is what it sounds like. It was nice to be able to get some clerical advice and feedback on the questions we had, though one attendee did tell me that “the things I would want to ask Father about aren’t things I would ask in front of seventy people”. Fair enough, but we had great participation nonetheless.

Late the previous night, in the course of a conversation that I can’t be blamed for not remembering entirely, Paddy Omlor had exclaimed “I should do Three Little Pigs Shakespeare!” I had no idea what that was, and I didn’t ask, but immediately agreed that yes, he should definitely do it. So right before letting everyone go, Paddy treated us all to this:

And with that, and an unexpectedly teary-eyed goodbye from me, the 2025 YAG came to a close, much too early for anyone’s liking. I am so grateful for everyone who made it into the fantastic event that it was. I will be organizing from a-very-far off over the next year, in great anticipation of seeing everyone again. Judging from experience, 2026 will be here before we know it. I can’t wait. God bless and thank you,

Nathaniel