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Ned Rossi '24: A FACE of Saint Joe's

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Ned Rossi '24: A FACE of Saint Joe's
  • Campus Ministry
  • FACE of Saint Joe's
  • Student Life
William Kwiatkowski '24

As a young Ned Rossi grew as a filmmaker, his God-given talents illuminated his creativity. Through the process of making his award winning short film Strumming Alone, Ned, with the guidance of our Lord, overcame obstacles that helped push him and his talents to the forefront.

As his talents rapidly flourished so did his faith and his desire to spread a positive message. 

Following the Steubenville Youth Conference, a spiritual retreat for Catholic youth, Rossi felt a deeper connection and responsibility in being a Catholic. He took up his cross and set off on his journey in faith. 

“After my first Stuebenville retreat, my faith finally clicked,” Rossi said. “The religion or knowledge of being Catholic finally made sense to me and I finally understood what it meant. Faith was now something that I wanted to take seriously and pursue.” 

Reignited in his love for Christ, Rossi met with his pastor Fr. Timothy Christy and asked how he can help serve the Church through the medium of video and film, a facet that Fr. Christy expressed as being quite relevant in today's culture.

“Since the time of the apostles, the Church has always used the means of whatever the culture is using to share the message of Jesus to share the Gospel,” Fr. Christy said.  “This is the age we are in.” 

Rossi and Fr. Christy collaborated on several videos with the intention to reach the parishioners of the Cathedral of Saint Francis, and share with them certain impactful, and important messages.

“That's where the idea sparked for Strumming Alone,” Rossi said. “I thought to myself why not make a video for people my age, something that evangelizes to the youth, to friends and my school, to other kids my age”.

While creating the film, he leaned on his faith, placing his trust in the hands of God, letting him guide through the process.

“Every time I took time to work on Strumming Alone, I would pray to God asking Him to inspire and guide me through the process, which He absolutely did,” Rossi said. “He was the inspiration, He was the director of my film, not me.”

The message of loneliness was what Rossi chose to share with the world. As Fr. Christy mentioned, loneliness and acceptance is something that almost everyone deals with at times.

“He (Rossi) felt his own loneliness and isolation at times in his walk with Jesus because not all of his friends and people around him saw the same things he saw,” Fr. Christy said.

Rossi portrayed the challenges many teens face in today’s society through the main character, Andrew. His faith continued to grow as he truly saw God in his everyday life.

“Honestly, I put a lot of myself into the main character, Andrew,” Rossi said. “At that time I was also lost and I was starting to find my path in life, which I found through faith and trusting in God.” 

Strumming Alone, a truly creative and inspiring short film serves to help guide the youth in their path in faith, and coincidentally helped Rossi to find Christ in his life, reinstating a deeper purpose behind the short film.

“Over the time of making this film, I realized these feelings, and I realized, ‘I think God wants this film to be made for a specific reason’, and it was just this year I found out what the reason was,” Rossi said. “It was not for any awards, it wasn’t for popularity or fame. It was being able to go out to people my age and spread this film and talk about the message and ultimately bring the truth and the good news to people my age.” 

Rossi and friend John Risley ‘24, went out and did just as mentioned. They spread the Word to the youth at Saint Joseph High School, starting with their own classmates.

“God calls everyone to evangelize and spread His good news in some way. This is just my way of doing so,” Rossi added.

Rossi also spreads the good news through his various leadership roles in both school and in his parish. These include, but are not limited to the Gospel of John Club, Campus Ministry Council, BOLD Youth Ministry, and Ignite for middle school boys.

As a featured student of our FACE of Saint Joe’s series, Ned Rossi is a true example of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. 
 

  • FACE