Google Community: (Great Romance Story)

I was 17 and in my last year of school when some friends of mine were trying to convince me to join the local church youth group.
I knew *Father Chris* who ran the youth group, he was the new priest in our parish.
Many of the girls I knew from church would say that he was cute, but he really didnt grab my attention all that much at first. That was, until I was preparing to make my confirmation and had to see him weekly for confirmation preparation meetings, it was then that I got to know him a whole lot better..

Father Chris

He wasn't what you would call hot in his Priestyly attire, but out of it, I could see what the fuss was about, but he certainly did have this charisma about him that seemed to draw people to him, thats what I noticed more. People seemed to love to be in his presense. He had a great sense of humour too and made you feel so comfortable when you were around him.
He really didnt seem like a Priest. He had this real Aussie Bloke character about him. But then he had this nuturinging sensitive side.
He was the type of person that you wanted to share your most inner thoughts with. He seemed to bring things out of you you never knew existed.

During the time I was preparing to make my confirmation I was dealing with some problems with a relative in my family. She was causing me a few headaches, so I ended up discussing all of it with Fr. Chris. It was then that I shared so much of my life experiences and thoughts with him. I ended up revealing so much of myself to him I dont think I had ever opened up so much to anyone ever before.

Fr. Chris gave me so much advice about life, everything he told me seemed to make so much sense, the whole world seemed to come together after I had been with him. He made me see life through different eyes. I began to see beauty is so many simple things.
I wasnt sure what he had opened up in me, but it was wonderful.
I became a different person because of his effect on me.

The weekly confirmation meetings I had with him ended up being more than just that. He told me to come around and see him when ever I felt like talking about anything, he said he would always make time for me. He handled me with such nuturing care. So many of our meetings for confirmation ended up being long conversations about life in general. The hours seemed to just melt away.

As time went by, I found myself often turning to Fr.Chris when I needed reasuring and advice. We became quite close.

It was around this time that I took my firends advice and decided to join the church youth group. Fr. Chris was delighted when I told him that I would go along on the next outing.

The week before the outing I was having problems with a boy at school. His name was Mathew.

Mathew

Mathew and I were good friends and often got paired off in our group of friends at school. I liked him alot but wasnt too keen on committing to him. Mathew was always trying to get us to go that step further, to be a steady couple. But I didnt feel ready for that kind of committment.
One lunch time at school I was mucking around with another guy from my year named Ben. Ben was really cute but he was already linked up with another girl. We were mucking around and Ben was leaning over me trying to get my drink bottle off of me when Matt saw the whole thing. Matt thought that Ben kissed me, which was ridiculous, but Matt made this big deal out of it and began to fight with Ben and I about it.
Matt was quite popular with so many other people in my year, so alot of them took his side and begn saying that I was trying to get him jealous. The whole incident cause me alot of grief at school. It was very upsetting to have some of my friends turn against me.

The following weekend was when I had my first outing with the Youth Group. I had to meet up with the other kids and Fr.Chris outside the front of the church grounds.
I was still feeling rather down because of all the fuss made at school the past week, so I didnt feel up to mingling much with the other youth Group gang.
I was waiting on the brick fence outside the church grounds with the others until Fr.Chris finished the mass and got ready.
Mass nearly always finnished late. Some of the boys from the group came over to say hello. I was talking to them when Fr.Chris appeared saying, "Righty, you guys ready to hit the train?"
I looked around and saw his friendly warm face smiling down at me.
That was truely a heart warming sight for me to see after the past week at school. I sprang up off my seat and over to Fr.Chris and clung onto his arm. It felt great to be with him again.
He then gave me a squeeze and made a joke to the other kids, saying, this is my new girlfriend everyone. He laughed and the other kids laughed back, your not allowed to have a girlfriend Father.
Quite an obvious fact to all of us Catholic dudes and dudettes.

We all made our way down to the train station to get the train into the city. Our outing was to take a ferry ride on the Sydney Harbour and then back to visit Centerpoint Tower.

We all waited at the train station chatting until our train arrived. Once on the train we all found a set of seats together, there was about 8 of us in the group. We chattted merrily all the way into town. We were surprised at how soon we were already in the city.
Looking out of the window as we came close to our station I peered out at the beauty of our Sydney Harbour, just like a huge picture, there was the huge Bridge with the boats cruizing by, it just looked like one huge beautiful picture.
Then I felt someone leaning close to me and his voice said, "beautiful isnt it?" Fr.Chris took my hand and said, come on, this is our stop. So I allowed him to lead me up out of my seat and playfully we made our way off the train...