Lumen Gentium Forum update: 2024 Fellows complete inaugural year with concluding retreat

Our 2024 Lumen Gentium Fellows conclude their cohort year with a retreat at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto. May 2025.

Picture this: a beautiful Saturday morning, with sunlight streaming through the windows of St. Augustine's Seminary, a place where generations of Catholic leaders have been formed and prepared for lives of service in the Church. Gathered together are nineteen young Catholic professionals, the 2024 Fellows of CAPP-Canada's signature program, the Lumen Gentium Forum. They too have come together because they have been called to step into leadership, as they conclude their nine-month journey of formation and preparation through the Lumen Gentium Forum. After an intensive exploration of Catholic social teaching and virtuous leadership principles through their eight-month journey as Lumen Gentium Fellows, these young leaders have gathered to ask the Lord a simple question: What do you want us to do?

This marked the beginning of our concluding retreat for our inaugural cohort of Lumen Gentium Fellows. It ended up being a transformative moment of encounter with the Lord, a moment made possible by the generous hearts of the many patrons and partners of the Lumen Gentium Forum.

The Lumen Gentium Forum is a CAPP-Canada program in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Toronto. Each year, Lumen Gentium Fellows are selected through a rigorous application process, and together undergo deep spiritual and intellectual in Catholic social teaching and virtuous leadership. The goal is to form a new generation of young Catholic lay leaders equipped to transform society and build the Church through impactful lay apostolates.

Our Fellows embraced the gift of masterful guides through this critical, final moment of their fellowship. Jeff Lockert (President of Catholic Christian Outreach, CAPP Foundation Member, and our Fellows' Virtuous Leadership Coach for the past year) and Father John O'Brien (Director and Jesuit Superior of the Canadian Martyrs' Shrine) led our Fellows through four profound retreat movements: reflecting on their journey, how they were made by God for greatness, offering themselves in service, and being lumen gentium ("a light to the nations"). Each session began with reflections by Jeff and Father John. They shared beautiful stories that inspired our Fellows, like Jeff's experience of World Youth Day in Toronto in 2001, or how Father John spent a month as a seminarian travelling across Canada with nothing but the clothes on his back and the charity of those he met along the way. These powerful stories became a backdrop against which Fellows began to see their own callings and life experiences with greater clarity.

As the day went on, beautiful things happened. God went to work. As Fellows bowed their heads in prayer before the Eucharist and scribbled notes in their journals, we saw and heard about moments of delightful discovery throughout the day. Some Fellows felt knots untying in their lives, as they discerned a way through great personal challenges. Some Fellows even heard a clear word from the Lord, testimonies of calling which brought us incredible joy. The day concluded beautifully with a letter written to the Fellows by His Eminence Frank Cardinal Leo, Archbishop of Toronto, summoning them to use what they have learned to live out the Great Commission in their careers. The Fellows, in turn, wrote letters to His Eminence articulating to him how they plan on being leaders within the Church going forward.

The retreat also featured a brief Zoom session with CAPP Foundation President Professor Paulo Garonna and CAPP-Canada Coordinators Professor Danielle Morin and Dr. Cecil Chabot. Two Lumen Fellows, Jordan Patterson and Silvia Gurchon, also shared highlights from their recent participation at the Foundation’s Annual Conference in Rome—marking CAPP-Canada’s largest presence at the event to date.

To watch these young professionals grow in their love for Christ over these past months—to see them discover that their careers aren't separate from their faith but the very place where they're called to be saints—this is the fruit of the faithfulness of all those whose work, financial generosity, and prayers have brought the Lumen Gentium Forum to life. Thank you to all our collaborators for building the next generation of leaders for our Church by being part of the mission of the Lumen Gentium Forum.

Applications are open now for our next cohort of Fellows. If you know any young Catholic professionals who need and crave intensive formation for lay apostolate, please share this opportunity with them.