Recent high school graduates, Katy Divino and Luke Phillips, received the St. Timothy Award at the state’s Catholic Youth Ministry Convention May 9 for acting as positive examples to their peers, exhibiting Catholic morals, illustrating Gospel values in their service to others and demonstrating exemplary leadership in their community.
This award is based on 1 Timothy 4:12 (“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity”) and is given by the diocese each year to two graduating seniors that have been active leaders in their faith.
For both Divino, a member of Christ the King Parish in Little Rock, and Phillips, a member of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Booneville, this verse is shown in their life through their leadership.
Luke Phillips
Divino, a co-valedictorian at Mount St. Mary Academy, was involved at MSM’s campus ministry. She was also active in her parish through participating in Catholic Youth Ministry and playing the keyboard for Team Jesus, a youth band that plays at parish Masses and various diocesan events.
Divino said 1 Timothy 4:12 “encourages me to set an example for my peers. Though I am young, I can still live out a life that positively influences others, and they, in turn, can live lives that positively influence even more people.”
Both were involved and held leadership roles on the diocesan level. They each served on the diocesan Youth Advisory Council, attended Search, a peer-led retreat for high school juniors and seniors, and were on the Search team.
Phillips, son of Katherine and John Phillips, was homeschooled and said his mother began taking him to retreats when he was around 12 years old. It was then that he knew he wanted to be proactive in his faith, he said.
“It was at my first youth rally when I looked at the Youth Advisory Council and thought, ‘I want to do that when I’m older’,” Phillips said.
For Phillips, serving on the Youth Advisory Council for two years has taught him to be a humble leader.
“With the Youth Advisory Council I had the opportunity to meet a lot of different kinds of people,” Phillips said, “It taught me how to not see their faces but to see into their hearts so to not judge others.”
Being a leader in faith has given Phillips a love for serving, something that he will put to use while studying nursing at St. Gregory University in Oklahoma.
“What I’m doing right now in life doesn’t matter unless I’m doing it for God,” Phillips said, “So if I go into nursing, great. If I make a lot of money, who cares? But if I do it for the people that I’m helping to show God’s love to them then that’s what matters.”
Divino, who served on the Youth Advisory Council for one year, said the leadership experience “showed me that I could actually influence people. I had my own relationship with God but then also I would be able to help others develop their own relationships with God by using my own talents.”
Divino, daughter of Jacqueline and Dr. Caesar Divino, also plans to stay involved in campus ministry when she attends Hendrix College in the fall to study biology on a pre-med track.
“I’ll carry with me in the future the hope that I’ll be able to continue my involvement in ministry and the knowledge that it has been spiritually beneficial to both others and me in the past,” Divino said.
