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FA LL 2018 – k uc at hol ic .org
c a t h o l i c s on the h i l l
The mission of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center is to form the students, faculty and staff of the University of Kansas, and others who wish to join in this mission, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Catholic intellectual, moral, liturgical and spiritual traditions.
letter from the
di r ector
Dear C atholic Jayhawks, I’ve already scheduled my trip to the Final Four in Minneapolis the first weekend of April 2019. Have you? The Final Four is not during Holy Week this year, so I’m planning on being there to root the Jayhawks on to the national championship! I’m counting on this year’s team to be epic. It scares me a bit that as much faith as I put in our national championship caliber basketball team, Jesus puts that same faith in me. He’s also counting on you. He trusts us. To win a crown that never fades. And to do it right here at KU. If anyone causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better if a millstone were thrown around his neck, and he was cast into the sea! (Mk 9:42) It’s almost too much to take . . . how much Jesus believes in us, and in our responsibility to lead his ‘little ones’ to the fullness of life! It would be easy to get scared. To say it’s too hard to win a championship at KU given today’s obstacles to faith. To give into discouragement.
FR. MITCHEL ZIMMERM A N
But that’s not what Catholic Jayhawks do. This is no time to leave the battlefield. Thanks for sharing in this great responsibility to put the goodness, truth and beauty of our Catholic faith in relationship to all that happens at KU. Let’s fight the good fight together! Rock Chalk Catholic Jayhawk!
Director of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
SIST ER
STAFF ADDITIONS MARK
W ERT IN
M ICH EL A
Meet Mark Wertin, the new facilities manager at the SLC. He is husband to a beautiful wife Anne Marie, and dad to four children!
BRUGNOLI
Who is your favorite saint and why? St Louis Martin because his vocation and state of life was the most close to mine. What is the best part of working at St. Lawrence? The mission and team for sure! Give us a fun hobby/interest/fact about you: I have been labeled, “not really a hippie but more like a mountain man....you know....without the mountains” What is your favorite way to pray? Silent adoration. Anything else you want to add? I want to make St Lawrence an amazing place to come to!
Introducing Nick Hardesty, the new director of advancement at the SLC. He is a husband to an amazing wife who just happens to be a great KU alum, a father to six amazing children and an amazing Karaoke artist. He kids about that last one, though he does enjoy playing guitar, singing a good karaoke tune and spending time with family and friends. Why St. Lawrence? I am extremely excited to work at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center because the mission and vision align perfectly with my life’s passion and mission, which is to help young people discover their purpose in life. Who is your favorite saint and why? St. Pope John Paul II. He is my favorite Saint because I grew up with Pope John Paul II. What are you most excited about in your new position? At St. Lawrence Center, we guide great stories and we also get to continue to share in those great stories through our alumni, supporters and benefactors. I love hearing people’s stories, their connection to this mission and I genuinely care about the lives of all those I have the honor of inviting into this great mission.
new KU FOCUS missionaries
2018-2019
Kelvin Gothman
Texas A&M University
Anna Taylor
Fort Hays State University
MaryCason DeWitt
Georgia Tech
Jessica Little
University of Florida
John Michael Lucido
Texas A&M University
Sr. Michela joins Sr. Elena Morcelli and Sr. Ruth Kuefler this year at the University of Kansas, providing spiritual direction and supporting student efforts at the Center. It’s a sort of homecoming for Sr. Michela as she was part of the original team of the Apostles of the Interior Life sent to KU in 2003!
N ICK
H A R DEST Y
RELAX. YOU’RE IN GOOD COMPANY. Good Co Campus Ministry by ANDREW BENNE
GoodCo has hit the ground running in its second year of ministry. Comprised of a diverse group of students, the GoodCo core team is committed to creating a welcoming environment at the St. Lawrence Center. The core team meets once a week to plan exciting events and more importantly, pray and build community with each other. Through their shared love for God they make sure that every person that comes to St. Lawrence is known and loved. New to GoodCo this year is DoGood ministries. DoGood highlights a new social justice issue each month focusing on the inherent dignity of every person. GoodCo has also started hosting weekly Rise nights year-round. Each Rise night seeks to introduce college students to Christ and build community through worship. Supper Chill and Slow Drip continue to offer weekly opportunities for community and free food to students across campus. The core team also shares their joy through weekly sports nights and frisbee friday. Every member of the team does their part to welcome new students by serving their peers, doing everything from organizing events to just washing the dishes in the center. The GoodCo core team brings a spirit of radical hospitality to the St. Lawrence Center.
Andrew Benne, Class of 2019
St. Lawrence Choirs
update by Rachel Heitman
Welcoming God’s people into our Church through music is one of my favorite parts about being a Catholic, and it’s a real blessing that this is happening in the music ministry at St. Lawrence. This semester, we have had the joy of welcoming lots of new voices into the choirs. Through reaching out to both new students and familiar faces from around the center, we have opened the doors for lots of people to entering into prayer more deeply at Mass through song. Singing in the choir each week is a wonderful experience, and it’s made even more special through the support provided by our group formation sessions each month. When the choral scholars and student leaders meet, we’re able to be inspired by each other as we discuss topics like how music has impacted our Faith lives, answer pivotal questions that have been posed to the St. Lawrence community, and explore new ways to live into a culture of home through our ministry. Rachel Heitman, Class of 2020
IFC/Humanitas
update by Ellie Augustine
The Institute for Faith and Culture and the Humanitas Program at KU marches on, bringing together faith and reason, both in the classroom and beyond. Over 40 students attended a 4 day pilgrimage to hike mountains, engage in discussions on the human person, white water raft, read poetry, and grow in faith and fellowship. This semester back at St. Lawrence, stargazing, trips to museums, and organ concerts continue to provide students at KU opportunities to experience the good, true, and beautiful. Read a testimony from one of our students who has completed the Humanitas Program: Nascantur in admiratione. Let them be born in wonder. Never had I been so in awe than when I stood 14,265 feet up, at the top of Mount Quandary in the Rocky Mountains my freshman year of college. It was my first week, and the Humanitas program Colorado trip was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was so fully alive.I realized, as I descended the mountain, that this program was what my heart had longed for ever since I was a child. It renewed my sense of wonder and immersed me into reality, into the past, present and future, showed me a glimpse of the narrative that God was writing with my life. Our day and age is in desperate need of an authentically Catholic culture, a culture that has its base in truth, beauty and goodness. In taking Humanitas courses, I have entered into reality more profoundly than ever before. I have learned to see God working in all things, even those which do not seem explicitly Catholic or Christian. As a junior here at KU, I am currently studying Classical Languages with minor in both Philosophy and Spanish. I plan to continue graduate studies in Classical Education, so that I may share with others what has been such a gift to me, that I may one day say to my students, “Here is this world that I have come to love – I want you to step into it with me.” Ellie Augustine, Class of 2020
ALUMNI UPDATE John and Bobbi Cuffe What year did you graduate, and what was your major? I received my Bachelors of Science in Education: Community Health from KU in 2007. I went on to get my Master’s in Occupational Therapy from Rockhurst University in 2012. Tell us your story. After attending the University of Kansas, I started work at Kansas City KS community college working on a substance abuse prevention grant. After finding the work unfulfilling as it worked on such a ‘macro level’ in the community, I wanted to make an impact everyday and work with people one on one and was drawn to healthcare. While studying to become and Occupational Therapist, I met my wife, Bobbi, and we were married in 2011. I serve as an Occupational Therapist at Clara Barton Hospital in Hoisington, Kansas, and we live in Claflin, Kansas, where my wife is originally from. We are blessed with four children, ages 6, 4, 2, and a newborn who was born in July of this year. How did St. Lawrence impact your faith in college? I spent a lot of time at the St. Lawrence Center — it helped me by feeding me physically (BBQ and Sunday Suppers), spiritually (Pilgrimage to Rome, Mass, Spiritual Direction, Samuel Group, Koinonia, March for Life, Adoration) and educationally (evening classes to learn more about the faith.) The SLC gave me a place to sit, reflect, pray, and study — the chapel is the best place on campus, with the baptismal font running and the light on the tabernacle or Eucharist in Adoration. The St. Lawrence Center gave me a community of friendships that I still have to this day. These friends kept me honest during college and we remain friends as we are all taking the same faith walk. The Center helped to form the man that I am today. It was my home away from home.
Sr. Mater Dei (formerly Tara Fritz) WHAT IS YOU R NAME ? My name is Sr. Maria Mater Dei. Translated it means, Mary of the Mother of God. I have a great love for Our Lady, fostered by Mike Scherlicht. When I was a freshman at KU, Mike helped a group of students, including me, make their Consecration to Jesus through Mary. It was there my journey truly began. Our Lady took that consecration seriously and has led me, step by step, into religious life and perpetual vows in the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. WHE N DID YOU G R ADUATE FROM THE U NIVE RSIT Y OF K ANSAS? I graduated from KU in 2005 with a major in Elementary Education. However, I was still around campus 2005-2006 completing my student teaching and other requirements for a teaching license. IN WHAT WAYS WERE YOU INVOLVED AT THE ST. L AWRENCE CENTER? I attended classes and social events, I helped with third grade Catechesis on Sundays. I also participated in four pilgrimages to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. By the end of my senior year, I attended daily mass, daily adoration, had completed Samuel Group, numerous retreats, and a mission trip to Mexico. HOW DID YOU HE AR GOD’ S CALL TO THE RE LIGIOUS LIFE ? After finishing at KU, I wanted to do missionary work somewhere abroad. Fr. James Sanchez connected me with the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity and our mission in Belize, Central America. I spent a year teaching geography and history at Mount Carmel High School. It was in giving of myself that I began to see that God had an amazing plan for my life and that I wanted to say “yes!” He began to unravel my own desires in front of me. It was a year later, after paying off some student loans, that I joined the Sisters of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. WHAT HAS YOUR JOURNE Y BEEN LIKE AS A SISTER FOR SOLT ? Joyful and peaceful, full of love and kindness from my sisters.
SACRAMENTS CELEBR ATED
Congratulations!
BAP TISMS + Thomas Gregory Law, son of Kaitlyn and Nate Law, December 17, 2017 + Eleonora Marie Skoch, daughter of JohnMarc and Kelsey (Bob) Skoch, June 10, 2018 + Miriam Corbella Dennihan, daughter of Mike and Kristi Dennihan, July 28, 2018 + Augustine Benedict Krause, son of Mary Kate (Danaher) and Austin Krause, September 2, 2018
Dennihan Baptism
MARRIAG ES +L auren (Schulte) and Sam Walton, December 30, 2017 +M arisabel (Herrera Guzman) and Sean Tomko, January 13, 2018 + Erin (Collar) and Isaac Thibault, April 7, 2018 + Aly (Lange) and William Englander, May 19, 2018 +E lizabeth (Schraeger) and Kyle Hirt, June 8, 2018 +J ocelyn (Lane) and Tom Mailloux, July 14, 2018 + Haley (VonFeldt) and Sam Cunningham, July 27, 2018 + Erin (Hastings) and Dan Schiedermeyer, August 4, 2018 + Meredith (Lehmann) and Dave Samms, August 4, 2018 + Mary (Fortino) and Matthew Bierbaum, August 11, 2018 + Sarah (Davis) and Jason Gast, September 1, 2018
Englander Wedding
STUDENT STORY
Skoch Baptism
Samms Wedding
Faith Biermann
As a junior originally from Goodland, Kansas, I am majoring in human biology and minoring in Spanish. The past three years at St. Lawrence have provided me with many opportunities to grow in my faith, to be a leader, and to create lasting friendships. Last year, I served as the pro-life coordinator and organized our biannual trip to March for Life in Washington, D.C. This year, I have the privilege of leading and developing something new at the Center called the St. Gianna Society. This group provides pre-health students with resources and connections that bridge their devotion to Catholicism to their passion for healthcare. One of the main components of this is our partnership with the Catholic Medical Association of Kansas City which is allowing our students to attend First Saturdays formation with the School of Faith and the annual bioethics dinner as well as facilitating shadowing opportunities. One of the things I am most passionate about is learning; whether that be about our faith and theology, medicine, the healthcare system, a second language, or art (yes, that's my stress reliever). I am always looking for new challenges and ways in which I can use what I've learned to help others. I guess you could say that's why I will be attending KU School of Medicine as a Scholar in Rural Health in the fall of 2020. Thanks be to God for that. The St. Lawrence Center will always have a place in my heart. It is community, comfort, wholesome, enriching, and ultimately, home.
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NON PROF IT ORG . U. S . P OSTAGE PA I D L AWRENCE , KS PERMIT NO. 19 1
STAFF Fr. Mitchel Zimmerman Fr. Dan Morris Sr. Elena Morcelli, AVI Sr. Ruth Kuefler, AVI Sr. Michela, AVI Stacy Cretors Nick Hardesty Linda Hornik Kyle Kuckelman Emily Liuzza Jen Meitl-Conrad Luke Murray Brian Nelson Steve Puthoff Mark Wertin MaryCason DeWitt, FOCUS Kelvin Gothman, FOCUS Jessica Little, FOCUS John Michael Lucido, FOCUS Anna Taylor, FOCUS
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