Prayer: The Cornerstone of NCYC

Prayer is an essential component of the NCYC. Through prayer the Catholic Christian community is grounded in the Lord. The days are interwoven with various Catholic prayer forms, to give youth and adults alike, an experience of the breadth of prayer within the church.

Participants have the opportunity to experience and share in many forms of liturgy and prayer during the NCYC—not to mention celebrating the closing Mass with 25,000 others!

Meditation areas and a prayer center allow youth and adults the chance to pray and reflect either alone or in small groups. Mass is offered each day of the conference, as well as opportunities for the sacrament of reconciliation, Eucharistic adoration, recitation of the rosary, prayer through music, a labyrinth experience, and numerous other devotions.

'Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.' Prayer, formed by the liturgical life, draws everything into the love by which we are loved in Christ and which enables us to respond to him by loving as he has loved us. Love is the source of prayer; whoever draws from it reaches the summit of prayer.

CCC 2658