By Ana Sofía Lopez Lara, Youth Ambassador for Ottawa
On May 3, 2026, a score of young adults attended Faith in Action, a half-day workshop organized at Sagrada Familia, a Hispanophone parish in Ottawa, Ont., by the local diocesan council of Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada (DPCC).
Slated to talk about DPCC and Catholic Social Teaching, I was a little afraid. How would participants receive my message? Would they feel uncomfortable? Would they find it “too political”? Would they misunderstand the mission of the Church?
My fears were misplaced. The youths were attentive, open and reflective. They were keen to understand what it means to serve, to step out of comfort zones and to use their gifts to help others. They proved that young people are hungry for authenticity and for a faith that is alive.
Faith in action: starting with the Word
A few months earlier, I had been on a Presentation Sisters mission to El Chocó, near the Darién jungle in Colombia. There, with Sr. Lisneys Banquet, in communities forgotten by the world but not the Church, I saw what it means to love the vulnerable. I shared with her my desire to help young Catholics discover social justice as an ideal rooted in the Gospel. Her advice was simple: “Start with the Word of God.”
And that is exactly what we did.
We designed Faith in Action around a reflection and testimony from Sr. Lisneys that focussed on the Gospel injunction, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34).
Faith in action: a call to love
The reflection invited us to rediscover the love that Jesus calls us to, a love that is both vertical and horizontal. It spoke of faith as being about not only looking to heaven for personal salvation but also looking outward toward others; and of the Cross itself becoming our path of love, with our hearts fixed on heaven and our feet rooted in the earth.
The sister reminded us that we are called to become the feet of Jesus, walking with others and guiding the lost; His hands, uplifting and embracing the poor; His ears, listening to those who suffer; His voice, proclaiming hope and justice; and His heart, loving one and all.
Faith in action: a web of connections
The workshop continued with a simple, deeply meaningful activity. Standing in a circle, participants passed a ball of yarn around. Upon receiving it, each person shared their name, a takeaway from the Gospel reflection and an action they felt God was inviting them to. Slowly, the yarn formed a web connecting us all.
We understood something beautiful: that none of us is alone, that we are responsible for one another, that every person is a gift and that mission comprises small gestures of love lived together.
This message connected deeply with my own story.
Faith in action: a personal awakening
I had moved to Canada from Bogotá, Colombia, aged 12 in 2017. Back then, my faith was immature, practiced more as routine than conviction. Like many adolescents, I wanted to fit in, to be accepted. Little by little, I began losing my sense of identity and what my faith meant.
Everything changed in Grade 12, when I attended a DPCC workshop on mining in Honduras that touched something very deep within me. It reminded me of the nanny in Colombia whom I consider a second mother, whose family was displaced by an emerald mine.
Suddenly, injustice was no longer distant; it had a face, a story. I felt the Holy Spirit inviting me out of my comfort zone. I realized my faith could not remain confined to private spirituality in a church. It had to be a faith in action.
So, I started a high school social justice club that organized workshops, campaigns and videos about Laudato Si’, solidarity and faith in action. One such video surpassed 50,000 views online. I discovered evangelization through creativity, storytelling and community.
My faith stopped being inherited. It became truly mine.
Faith in action: journeys of encounter
Last year, I went on a DPCC solidarity tour to Peru, where I encountered young Catholics living their faith through justice and service. That experience moved me to seek out the volunteering mission in Colombia that inspired the Faith in Action workshop.
There, I met those I call “anonymous superheroes,” nuns who serve in places many would not even dare visit. One worked with Médecins Sans Frontières, accompanying families in isolated communities with little to no access to medical services.
Another had begun by providing shelter, work and hope to individual widows and orphans and gone on to cofound the Fundación Diocesana Compartir (see Facebook page in Spanish), which now runs over 80 centres across Urabá, Antioquia, a region devastated by the violence of the 1990s. She was probably the most stubborn person I had ever met, but her stubbornness was love and a faith in action that refused to give up.
I began to see that while it is often confused with material progress, development is really about dignity, community, life and caring for people. My uncomfortable and lifechanging realization was that our comforts in countries like Canada come at a cost that others bear. It was there, among the poor, the displaced, the sick and the forgotten, that I encountered Jesus, not as an abstract idea but as a living presence.
Faith in action: let’s simply begin
Today, as a youth ambassador, I mobilize young people because I believe they possess gifts capable of transforming the world. I believe that we need not wait until we have degrees, experience or perfectly organized lives to begin serving.
If you have design skills, you can support a campaign. If you speak another language, you can accompany migrants. If you know how to organize, you can lead activities. If you know how to use social media, you can amplify unheard voices.
God does not wait until we have everything figured out. He simply asks us to begin.
Faith in action is refusing indifference
The Cookie Mining game, which prompts reflection on consumerism, environmental harm and human dignity brought the workshop’s conversation back to the Gospel of John.
We asked what love truly required and whether we could remain indifferent after encountering suffering? We concluded that faith in action mean refusing to live indifferently and allowing the Gospel to transform our hearts to see others not as strangers, but as our sisters and brothers.
Perhaps this is where mission truly begins: not in doing extraordinary things, but in learning to love extraordinarily through ordinary acts.