Ashley West, a 16-year-old junior from Our Lady of Nazareth, Roanoke, was not sure what to expect at the Fiat Days retreat, held Dec. 6-8, 2024, at the Roslyn Retreat Center, Richmond.
She had never been to Fiat Days, a weekend retreat for high school girls who are open to growing in faith and discovering their vocation. The teens are joined by religious sisters from different communities.
“I was excited that it was an all-girls weekend,” West said.
And that it was. Thirty high school girls, between 14 and 18 years old, attended this year, the largest number so far in the event’s nine-year history. There were teens from 17 parishes across all regions of the diocese.
The number of religious orders represented and sisters who stayed the entire weekend also set records this year with nine sisters from five orders. There were sisters from: Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus (Steubenville, Ohio); Daughters of Mary Immaculate (Richmond); Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia (Nashville, Tennessee); Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette (Annandale, Virginia, and Ontario, Canada); and Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Malvern, Pennsylvania).
“Boys always have chances to talk to priests, but girls often do not have that same access to religious sisters,” said another Fiat first-timer, Katie Beth Warner, a 16-year-old junior from Blessed Sacrament, Harrisonburg. She said she loved talking with the religious sisters.
At least five attendees from the past nine years have gone on to enter religious life, said Katie Yankoski, the diocesan Office for Evangelization’s associate director for youth and young adults. Some people think that the girls who attend Fiat Days are signing up to join a religious order, she added, but Fiat Days is not considered a discernment retreat.
Yankoski said Fiat Days is a chance for the teens to find a faith-filled, female community, to meet other like-minded girls, as well as religious sisters, and to freely ask questions about religious life.
West’s mother, Tara, said she felt encouraged that her daughter wanted to attend Fiat Days and was “excited for her to strengthen her relationship with Christ and meet other girls who share her faith.”
“I was open to whatever God had in store for me over the weekend,” Warner said, adding that she was not expecting to make so many friends.
“It was very fulfilling for her to have the time with other young women alive with their faith in such an intentional setting,” said Warner’s father, Kevin.
Yankoski has planned Fiat Days, along with Ginny Fleser, since 2016. This year, they were joined by Kate Heintzelman, who works at St. Joseph School in Petersburg.
“The overall hope for girls after they attend Fiat is that they have a deeper prayer life,” Yankoski said.
“Secondly, we would hope that the girls have a positive association with religious life and that they know they have support through the Fiat community of girls and religious sisters as they learn to discern and follow Jesus in all things,” she added.
“[Fiat Days] made me realize how little I pray,” said West. “I plan to increase that!”
“Fiat has definitely changed my prayer life,” said Warner. “Fiat helped develop many different forms of prayer – one of the things that stuck with me the most is the power of silence.”
High school girls who are interested in attending the next Fiat Days should talk to their youth minister or contact the Office for Evangelization.