Beneath Montana’s big skies and rugged mountains, one can’t help but feel close to God’s majesty. This is no truer than at Legendary Lodge, a Catholic camp located in the center of the Diocese of Helena in western Montana.
The beautiful camp, nestled at the base of a mountain along a slender, river-fed lake, brings youth together to discover and deepen their faith and form healthy friendships that last a lifetime. Against the backdrop of canoes, “capture the flag” and crackling campfires are eye-opening discussions on God’s love and mercy and how to be a voice for positive, Christ-centered values in the world.
For more than 60 years, the camp has been a sacred, transformative place for young Catholics to affirm their faith. In addition to summer camps, the Lodge hosts college retreats in the fall and seminarian retreats in the winter. It’s the birthplace of countless vocations of service.
Catholic Extension Society has supported Legendary Lodge for more than four decades, including a current renovation project of the Lodge’s dining hall. Our parish partner, St. Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge, Illinois, is supporting this expansion project, which will allow more Montana youth to attend. Currently, there is a waiting list as more and more families wish to send their children to the camp.
The camp is only one facet of the Diocese of Helena’s dedication to celebrating and fostering faith among youth. Since his arrival in 2019, Bishop Austin Anthony Vetter has prioritized faith formation among children, teens and young adults. He shares a belief with his predecessor, Bishop George Leo Thomas, that the youth are not the future of the Church but the now of the Church. He makes a point to visit young people in person. He tells them, “I don’t want to read a book about your generation. I want to hear it directly from you.”
Catholic Extension Society is working in solidarity with the diocese to help its youth know and embrace the value they bring to the Church and their God-given potential to love and serve in the world.
Encountering the Lord
Another blessing within the Diocese of Helena is Carroll College. At the Catholic college, which consistently ranks as a top regional college in the nation, a student’s calling in life is developed directly alongside their education. Like at Legendary Lodge, innumerable vocations have been discerned for generations on these sacred campus grounds.
Father Marc Lenneman, the diocese’s vocations director and the campus chaplain at Carroll College, has served students for 15 years. His mentorship and philosophy regarding vocations among the youth is bringing a renewed strength and energy to the Church as he mentors and pastors young people.
“The whole effort all across our diocese, but particularly to me at Carroll, has just been to introduce people to Christ and form disciples,” he said. “I don’t talk that much with these young people about vocation until they’re ready. It’s all discipleship.”
Father Lenneman goes on,
Meet Jesus. Learn the sound of His voice. Know how to encounter Him in sacraments, in sharing your faith with your friends and in serving, especially the poor.”
Rather than rushing young people through a discernment process to fill a quota, Father Lenneman lays a foundation of faith for them, hoping that the Holy Spirit will do the rest of the work in helping them discover what they are meant to do with their lives.
The strategy works amazingly well.
His ministry is increasing the number of young people seeking to serve God and the people of western Montana as priests.
The Diocese of Helena, which consists of about 45,000 Catholics, has an astounding 14 seminarians this year, even after ordaining two to the priesthood in June 2022. Ten of these seminarians came from Carroll College and Father Lenneman’s programs.
But the last thing this vocations director would do is pressure someone to become a priest. Rather, he simply invites all young people to encounter and listen to the Lord themselves.
You meet the Lord, and then you begin to fall in love with Him and you actually start to follow Him.”
Father Lenneman added,
“And then there’s a conversation that happens. What does it look like in your life to follow Him? Does it look like priesthood? Does it look like religious life? Does it look like holy Christian marriage?”
Easing anxiety through the Gospel
Father Lenneman says the burden of the need for priests in a diocese should not fall on a young man’s shoulders.
“It puts inordinate pressure on a guy, or unmet expectations, or we skip a stage where they don’t actually know Jesus,” he said. “They haven’t met Him personally. The young man might not know that Jesus loves him, and that He accepts him as he is but also calls him forward.”
Many young people today are plagued by anxiety. They feel as though they need to determine the course of the rest of their lives at their young age. Father Lenneman helps young women and men put their trust in God. “It means having the patience to trust that the Lord is the one who’s actually forming and calling,” he said.
Father Lenneman’s approach derives from Scripture. He often refers to Luke 5, in which Jesus boards a boat with Peter and tells him to bring up the fishing net. When Peter does, he’s overwhelmed with the number of fish and tells Jesus to leave, calling himself a sinful man. Father Lenneman shares Jesus’ reply to Peter with the young men discerning today: “Do not be afraid. I will make you a fisher of men.”
These words of the Gospel ease stress. “So, if you’re supposed to be a priest, you’ll be a priest. And if you’re not supposed to be a priest, you won’t be a priest,” said Father Lenneman. “You should only do it if Jesus wants you to.”
Father Lenneman explained,
First, Jesus calls us to be with Him. Then He gives us a vocation. And then He sends us out on a mission.”
Future priests stay grounded
Discerning one’s vocation is only the first step. Father Lenneman ensures that young men on the path to the priesthood walk a humble road, not a golden highway. This means being out with the people and living normal lives. They are not sequestered.
He encourages prospective candidates considering the priesthood to go on dates, join clubs and get jobs. Experiencing life alongside those whom they will one day serve prepares them for the priesthood just as well as classes in theology and philosophy. Job experience is an invaluable education in the real-life challenges of overseeing a parish.
Father Lenneman guides the seminarians with five simple rules: Be humble, be grateful, be generous, work hard and suffer well.
Many seminarians go to Legendary Lodge in the summer to help out. For most, it’s a trip to familiar and sacred grounds. Their service ranges from assisting in group discussions to taking out the trash. This task was assigned to Brett Rotz, a third-year seminarian studying at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He came from Idaho to attend the camp in his younger years and returned as a counselor.
He recalls late-night conversations about faith with friends under the vast Montana sky. “Through peer ministry at Carroll, through guys I met at the Lodge, there’s been this development of fraternity among young people in the diocese where I feel like I’m able to have these conversations,” he said. Several of his fellow counselors are now seminarians as well. This includes Kyle Tannehill, who was ordained a transitional deacon in June 2022. Next year, he will be ordained a priest.
Lay vocations at the Lodge
Cody and Anna Tredik know well the transformative power of the camp. After attending the camp themselves—Cody as a yearly camper, Anna through a Carroll College retreat—they have served as camp managers since 2019. The married couple lives out their vocations strengthening faith among each year’s surge of campers. They also work with communications in the diocese in the off-season.
The summer camp is open for six weeks. Each week welcomes a different age group of about 100 children. In addition to adventures such as water sports, archery, axe throwing and other summer camp staples, faith is ever-present. Mass is celebrated every day. Once a week, campers climb to the top of the mountain for Mass and confession.
“It’s a place where young people from fifth grade to high school can just get away from the distractions of the world. They’re able to learn more about prayer. They get to know each other and make solid friendships that are rooted in Christ. They get out into the beauty of Montana. All of those elements create space for the Holy Spirit to change hearts and move people,” Cody said. “When young people come up here, it’s just a time in their life where they catch fire for the Lord and bring that back to their home communities.”
The Trediks see the campers change from the beginning of the week to the end. Although many are nervous at the beginning, it doesn’t take long for barriers to break down.
The campers hold conversations—for many, the most meaningful ones of their lives—with counselors and priests. Their revelations are profound. One girl brought her friends to camp and, after returning home, they all began attending Mass every day. They said the camp made them realize that they mattered to the Church.
“One of my favorite parts of the summer is not only seeing how a group of campers changes, but also how the staff changes throughout the summer, how they grow closer together and closer to the Lord,” said Anna. “The joy by the end of the week is really beautiful.”
Counselors often discern their vocations at the camp. The Trediks know so many young men and women who have gone on to marry, enter religious life or become lay leaders.
“The graces are seeped into the ground. A lot of people have come through and blessed this land,” Cody said.
Hope for the world
Shai LaFleur grew up going to the camp and worked as a counselor. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a master’s degree in theology through Catholic Extension Society’s Young Adult Leadership Initiative. Now she serves as a youth minister in Butte, Montana, and will soon be teaching at a Catholic school. She said her education helped her “go into ministry more confidently, with a better understanding of what I could and should be doing as a catechist.”
She also returns to the Lodge to connect with the diocese’s youth.
Young people have so much to offer the Catholic Church, but I know that one thing they offer for me a lot is hope of goodness in the world.”
Shai reflected she is inspired by young people’s “continued relationship with God and a continuation of the goodness of the Church.”
She added,
“Thank you so much to Catholic Extension Society and all of its donors for supporting my education, so that I can be a good minister for the youth whom I serve.”
Committed to youth ministry
Father Lenneman said Catholic Extension Society “saved” Legendary Lodge through its years of steadfast support and is an invaluable partner in enabling the growing energy of the diocese’s youth ministry programs.
This includes Catholic campus ministry programs at state universities such as Montana State University, Montana Tech, the University of Montana, and the University of Montana Western. It also includes scholarships for students in the diocese to earn master’s degrees in theology through our Young Adult Leadership Initiative.
Catholic Extension Society’s support of parish-level religious education and youth ministry programs helps children and young adults keep faith central in their lives. Just in the past two decades Catholic Extension Society has invested in seminarian and priest education and supports priests, religious and lay ministers serving young people in the rural missions and parishes of western Montana.
“To the people who have given of their means and probably even sacrificed to make those gifts, I give our profound thanks for your generosity,” Father Lenneman said. “We know the Lord is never outdone in generosity. I’m sure there is grace upon grace to people who have been so generous.
This article appears in Extension magazine’s winter 2022 edition, where you can read more stories on how Catholic Extension Society works in solidarity with people in America’s poorest regions to build up vibrant and transformative Catholic faith communities.
