We were talking about transitions at our first Catholic Newman Club meeting of the year, and it got me thinking about my own transition, or sometimes a lack thereof.
It's been a big adjustment for me coming home -- not only moving back in with my parents for a while, but being around people that know me as the girl I was in high school (I'm not sure that I'm THAT different... but still definitely changed), and who I am as a young woman as well -- a young Catholic woman, to be specific.
My faith has grown in leaps and bounds since I went to college - which for the past 6ish years I've attributed to the faith community I built up around me when I was in Erie. Deciding to go to a Catholic university was a big step - but my freshman year was a head-first dive into my faith. Within the first few weeks, I had found an awesome group of girls to go to Masses with on Sundays, started going to Ichthi, the Catholic faith-sharing group on campus, and made a TEC (To Encounter Christ) Retreat with the Diocese of Erie -- all of which were serious game changers.
That group of girls, which was also about 2/3 of the wing of our dorm, became my sisters, and I'm still best friends with many of them today. We were such that stereotypical group of college freshmen girls -- traveling in packs, sitting together, laughing along the way -- except we would do the same going to church on Sundays (even the ones that weren't Catholic). When I started going to daily Masses on campus too, they were my accountability check as well -- if I decided I needed to take a nap more than I needed to go to daily Mass, I'd get the third degree from one of them about why I was still in my dorm room instead of at the Chapel. They didn't come with me most of the time during the week (nothing against them for that), but they knew what I needed to keep my head on straight and encouraged me to stick to that.
Ichthi fed me spiritually, and made me realize that I was so hungry to learn more about my faith. Don't get me wrong -- I'm a cradle Catholic, my mom taught most of my CCD classes growing up, and they did an awesome job of raising me in the faith -- but I knew there was so much more to learn. Ichthi is where I started to learn more about things like Theology of the Body, and got hooked on researching things on my own.
And TEC -- TEC because my huge extended family in a way that's too hard to describe with words. I had my first Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament experience there, got introduced to the amazing 24-hour Adoration Chapel at St. Joe's, and met some incredible people that I've become so close with. It's been such a blessing being able to make, and work/direct, TEC weekends.
Long(er) story short, my faith transition from high school to college was easy -- going home for the summers was hard, I was living 6 hours away from my "faith family," there wasn't three Churches with daily Mass times that fit my schedule within walking distance. I continued to grow when I was in Erie, especially in my faith -- but it was stuck in Erie -- it wasn't stuck with me.
Transitioning from undergrad to graduate school was different though, and definitely an adjustment - I didn't go to all of the undergrad events anymore, and a lot of my friends moved away after graduation. Then graduate school to "big kid world" was tough again - making time for daily Mass with a crazy work schedule and remembering to pray every day was hard, and I struggled. And moving from PA to NJ was harder still - so much that had helped me grow was back in Erie, and I felt a little lost.
I can't pinpoint the moment when I put two and two together to make four -- I had had amazing experiences with my Catholic faith, and the Catholic Church is everywhere -- therefore I can have amazing experiences with my Catholic faith everywhere. Key word -- CAN.
It's not easy transitioning any time -- especially 6-7 hours away from the guys you've seen go through seminary and are now some of your big-brother-priest-best-friends, and the young women you've done everything with from talk about boys to pray together before a Tabernacle. But it CAN be a great experience.
The struggle is in the routine -- finding a new place to go to daily Mass or confession on a regular basis, your new favorite chapel to pray in, a new spiritual director, new friends to sit with in church -- all of the physical places or the people you're close to. But while it's hard to separate those things from your actual spiritual experience of God, and they are an important part of that experience, those physical things are not God. They are not the Catholic Church. They are not your faith.
The Church and God aren't things that are tied down by where you're living, where you're working, or who you go to Mass with. They are not luggage that you drag behind you when you move, or a house that you sell when you leave one town to buy a new one. God is bigger than that, and He is a part of you -- and so is your faith. One of my favorite things about the Catholic faith is that it's the same wherever you go -- so you CAN have that spiritual experience, at any time, at any place. We just have to remember where those great moments really come from - our awesome, incredible, ever-present God.
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