MIT TCC Magazine Spring 2022

MIT CATHOLIC LIVING FAITH

A PUBLICATION OF THE TECH CATHOLIC COMMUNITY

SPRING 2022

CONTENTS | SPRING 2022 2

Chaplain's Message

4

One Family

6

A Life of Meaning

8

Faith and Reason

10 Nietzsche, “The Power of the Dog," and Psalm 22 16

Nurse Evangelist

18

Meet the Pastoral Team

20

Support the TCC

FOLLOW US ONLINE! tcc.mit.edu @mittcc MIT Tech Catholic Community @MITPadre

A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAPLAIN Friends, Spring has quickly come to the MIT campus, and with it signs of new life as trees begin to bud and students, completing degrees, see the next stage of their lives open before them. In this issue of MIT Catholic I’m excited to introduce to you new members of the Tech Catholic Community, and remembrances from an alumnus who continues to cherish his TCC experience. Enjoy!

During this academic year we experienced significant growth in attendance at Masses, social events, lectures, and bible study groups. The photos you will enjoy in this edition of MIT Catholic give a glimpse of our growth. Greater involvement is a beautiful witness to the passion of the MIT community in seeking knowledge and to following the breadcrumbs of the intelligibility of creation to the Creator; following the breadcrumbs to a personal encounter with God. Of course this encounter isn’t meant to be fleeting, but the door that opens to a relationship of kinship, of family. Through creation, and the gift of Faith, we are presented with the truth that God is intimately connected with each of us and all of creation. Every person is intentionally a unique and beloved creation of God endowed with equal dignity and value. This is the truth our Catholic Faith proclaims, and the life giving message we seek to live as members of the wider MIT community.

We do this recognizing the heritage of a dynamic Tech Catholic Community we have received from you, those who have lived their faith on campus so well.

We are ever grateful for this heritage and all you do to make Catholic life and ministry a continuing presence at MIT!

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ONE FAMILY Tomasz Ślusarczyk, MIT Freshman

O blessed friendship! Saint is he on earth, Whom friendship with the holy ones unites.

I grew up in Cracow, Poland (the Archdiocese of Karol Wojtyła). I became passionate about mathematics thanks to the Polish Mathematical Olympiad, a wonderful event uniting young people passionate about solving crazy problems just as me. Apart from having a great time with math, it was also a great opportunity to forge friendships

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with other students and professors, which eventually led to my first research project on graph theory. I immediately fell in love with the subject and now I’m pursuing similar, but more advanced research here at MIT. My interests, however, are much wider than math, I plan to double major in 18 and 8 (I’m still a freshman and I have about a week to finally choose my major), did a UROP project in material science of batteries and electrolytes and I’m planning to complete at least one graduate class in organic chemistry before I graduate. It will probably be impossible to combine these interests in grad school, so I’m trying to enjoy everything I like while I still have a lot of freedom in class selection. Even though I never considered myself a sporty person, I joined the ultimate frisbee team. I expected it to be more of a physical exercise than anything else, but the team spirit is fantastic and I will stay there for longer.

I heard about TCC somewhat coincidentally during CP* in 2020 (I took a gap year so I participated in CP* twice). I was connected via the Orientation Office with Kyle James, who was a senior then and invited me to virtual Coffee and Donuts. I was

amazed by the kindness of all members, especially when I realized this wasn’t an official CP* event, but Kyle wanted to introduce me to the Catholic family of MIT in a more personal way. During the next CP* when I already knew I would be coming to campus, John Shackleton invited me to the Bible study, which I’ve been coming to regularly for about a year now. Before coming to MIT I hadn’t been involved in any major Catholic groups and I was a little hesitant, but now I can’t imagine my life here without Sunday and daily Mass in the MIT Chapel, Bible study, and Catholic friends I made here. I believe these seemingly random encounters, through which I became involved in TCC, were a part of a larger plan God has for my life. I was afraid that away from home it may be difficult to live my faith, especially since I didn’t know if I would find many Catholics in the US, but it turned out that now I’m growing spiritually more than ever before.

I have a particular devotion to saints, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, my baptism saint. Following an established Polish tradition I celebrate my name day (Feast of St. Thomas) equally to my birthday. I admire how St. Thomas advanced the scientific understanding of theology, but still knew that his work is “like a straw” compared to the true nature of God, and despite his deep knowledge was still relying on faith more than on anything he discovered with his senses. He is an example for me of how to balance reason and faith.

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A LIFE OF MEANING Ryan Lemone, MIT Sophomore program. I chose aerospace engineering because I was good at math and physics, and thought it would be cool to work on missiles or rockets. I’ll probably end up working for an aerospace or defense company like SpaceX or Lockheed Martin.

I grew up in the relatively small town of Bethel, Connecticut. I have two older sisters and two stepsisters. In high school I was very involved in the different school bands, including symphonic band, marching band, jazz band, and pit orchestra. I played the alto saxophone, flute, and was a drum major for the marching band. I chose MIT simply because I wanted to major in aerospace engineering, and MIT has the best aerospace engineering

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Outside of academics, I am involved in a few clubs, with those being the Tech Catholic Community (TCC), MIT Rocket Team, and Sporting Clays Association (SCA). On Rocket Team I help make our liquid rocket engines, and I am currently getting ready for a test firing by the end of the semester. In SCA we compete against other schools in the shotgun games of trap, skeet, and sporting clays. I hadn’t shot any of them before joining the club, but it’s been really fun so far. I also skateboard in my free time at a skatepark near MIT, and I particularly like riding the bowls.

It takes a lot of hard work and discipline but it’s also a lot of fun.

The Catholic Faith is important to me because I think it’s the truth and it gives meaning to life. Without God you would die and that would just be the end of everything, but with God there is an afterlife and your actions on earth will have eternally lasting consequences. I

was never really involved in my Faith before college. I went to Sunday Mass, but that was about it. Now that I’m at MIT I am much more involved. I go to Mass multiple times a week, altar serve, help lead group Rosary, go to a Bible study, and go to the different TCCrelated events. Bible study in particular gives me a tight group of guys to grow in my faith with, that I wouldn't have anywhere else.

Catholic ministry and the Catholic community at MIT are important to me because they help me grow in my Faith and it is a close-knit community to be a part of. I definitely wouldn’t be this devout without it, and it’s the most tightly bonded group at campus I’m in.

Everything from the Masses, to the group prayers, to the weekly spaghetti dinners fosters a strong sense of community that’s hard to find anywhere else.

My favorite saint is Saint Christopher, and that’s because he has the same name as my father. My favorite devotion is the Rosary. I lead group Rosary in the TCC and I find some sense of satisfaction from that.

Photo Credits: Caleb Whelan (@blurred.hues)

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FAITH AND REASON Joseph George, Class of 2000 interest in computers and technology.

When I was accepted to MIT, my parents were even more excited about it than I was—it was an answer to their prayers as well as mine.

I was born in Oklahoma to firstgeneration immigrants from India. My parents truly valued their Catholic faith - both had uncles back home who were priests. They made sure my younger brother and I received the sacraments and grew up with an appreciation for our faith. My dad taught computer science, and from a young age I wanted to know how computers worked and what you could do with them. MIT felt like the perfect place to explore my

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When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I had many friends from different Christian denominations. As we each talked about our faiths, I began to understand my Catholic faith more deeply and I chose to be Catholic at an intellectual level. During my first weekend at MIT, I felt very alone and far from home until I went to Sunday Mass. The Catholic community at MIT was a great place to continue that exploration in more ways than I expected. In a world where faith and science are often portrayed as adversaries, it was refreshing to see so many intelligent scientists who were also faithful Catholics. I became involved as a lector and Eucharistic Minister. My best friend from TCC is my daughter’s godmother - just one of the many lifelong friendships that started there. TCC was where God showed me how having faithful friends and being part of a community of believers can bring me closer to Him. I continued studying computer science while at MIT. While I was an undergrad,

I started a company with some friends and still managed to graduate. I worked at that company for 13 years before finally deciding to move on. Now, I lead the software engineering team at nTopology, where we build nextgeneration engineering software based on implicit modeling, field driven design, and low-code reusable workflows. We enable designers and engineers to make parts that take full advantage of advanced manufacturing, like 3D printing. Before that, I led the Global Software R&D team at Stratasys, where my team built GrabCAD and the software that powered Stratasys 3D printers. Every day, I pray that I do God’s will and share Christ’s love in my work. I try to see everyone I interact with as a child of God, and I strive to create an environment where everyone in my team does the same. It’s a gift from God to be able to lead talented teams in the creation of amazing products.

After I left TCC, God gave me many opportunities to continue growing in faith by encountering new communities. I found a community of young adults at St. Clement in Boston (where I met my wife). The priests there introduced me to Eucharistic Adoration and Ignatian spirituality. Later, I had to spend time in Krakow for work. That led me to a devotion to Divine Mercy through learning the stories of St.

Faustina and St. John Paul II. I’m currently involved in my parish as a lector and Eucharistic minister, and my wife is on the parish council. In His wisdom, God gave the Catholic Church a rich history filled with many spiritualities and spiritual practices. If you haven't found one that enriches your life and draws you to Jesus, keep looking.

"Every day, I pray that I do God’s will and share Christ’s love in my work."

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NIETZSCHE, “THE POWER OF THE DOG," AND PSALM 22

by Bishop Robert Barron, Archdiocese of Los Angeles The Power of the Dog is one of the most talked-about and decorated films of the past year, garnering twelve Oscar nominations, including best picture, best actor, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, and best director. It is indeed a fine film to look at, the acting is uniformly marvelous, and the story is brooding and tautly rendered.

At the same time, it’s a movie that leaves the viewer (or at least this particular viewer) a bit confused, and more than a little uneasy. Many have in fact debated what exactly was going on as the picture came to its conclusion.

The Power of the Dog is a meditation on family, friendship, repressed sexuality, and, above all, the way that powerful people come to manipulate and abuse one another. It is precisely the manner in which Jane Campion, the crafty director, presents this last theme that I would like to analyze.

The film is set in Montana in the early part of the last century, and its focus is initially on two brothers, Phil and George Burbank, who are wealthy ranch owners. While on a cattle drive, they meet Rose, the proprietor of a

boarding house. The kindly George is smitten, and he and Rose marry. She moves into the brothers’ rambling house, along with her son from a previous marriage, an exaggeratedly effeminate young man named Peter.

Though we learn that he had studied classics at Yale, Phil is now a hardened cowboy, an earthy, grim man, deeply suspicious of others, and he positively detests both Rose and Peter. Seeing his brother’s wife as an opportunist, he mercilessly belittles her, causing her to resort, increasingly, to alcohol. And the delicate boy becomes the object of his ferocious verbal assaults and mockery.

But Peter is no shrinking violet, and we soon learn that, despite his weak appearance, he has impressive reserves of intelligence and cunning. Sensing correctly that the ostensibly macho Phil in fact is suppressing powerful homosexual desires, the young man commences first to seduce, then to manipulate, and finally to destroy the one antagonizing both him and his mother. At the close of the film, we see Peter reading the Psalm verse that provides the movie’s title: “Deliver my

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soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.” Many of the interpreters of the film appreciate it as an expose of “toxic masculinity” and exult in the way in which a nontraditional form of masculinity manages to trump it. A conventional type of power is bested by an unexpected and underestimated type of power.

"If the blunt, gruff, straightforward violence of Phil is undermined by the subtle, insinuating violence of Peter, how are we any better? "

But if that is the message of the film, I’m tempted to quote the who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again: “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.” Under the baleful influence of Nietzsche and especially Michel Foucault, our postmodern culture is obsessed with power and its exercise. We investigate, over and again, who has power, who is

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victimized by it, and how the tables can be turned. It is no accident that the revenge fantasy (think all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies) is such a popular genre today. But if “toxic” masculinity is undone by a masculinity that is different but just as toxic, how have we made any progress? If the blunt, gruff, straightforward violence of Phil is undermined by the subtle, insinuating violence of Peter, how are we any better? We might feel a certain rush of satisfaction at the ending of The Power of the Dog, since our sympathies are naturally drawn to the put-upon young man, but if he proves to be just as heartless as his persecutor, then so what?

The reason that Nietzsche and, after him, Foucault put such a stress on the plays of power is that they both denied the objectivity of moral value. If there is no real good or evil, then all that finally matters is, as Nietzsche put it, the “will to power.” But this is dangerous nonsense. The classical tradition appreciated power as the capacity to effect change and hence as something, in itself, morally neutral. What mattered far more to authors from Aristotle to Aquinas is the virtue with which power is wielded and the moral purpose which it serves. I imagine that if Thomas Aquinas were assessing the characters in The Power of the Dog, he would critique, not so much Phil’s power, as his cruelty. And therefore, he would certainly not exult in Peter’s exercise of power in service of an

answering cruelty.

And this brings me back to the enigmatic title of the film. The line, drawn from Psalm 22, does indeed beseech the all-powerful Lord to deliver the Psalmist from the wickedness of an oppressor. But how wonderful that this very Psalm was on the lips of Jesus as he was dying on the cross. The deliverance of the Lord would come, not through the violent exercise of power, but through tapping into the forgiving love of God. At the end of the day, it is not the possession of power that matters, but rather the love with which that power is wielded.

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TCC IN ACTION

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NURSE EVANGELIST Heidi Zamzow, first-year FOCUS Missionary catholic community on campus that I realized there was something important in my faith life that was missing. I had in fact been practicing my faith for many years, but I had yet to fall in love with Jesus Christ and maintain a deep, personal relationship with Him. Over the next three years I dove headfirst into an incredible catholic community that built me up in my faith by helping me build a consistent prayer life, frequenting the sacraments, and building friendships with other people who were also pursuing Christ.

Hello! My name is Heidi Zamzow and I grew up in Byron, MN with my wonderful parents and three older siblings.

Growing up, my family never missed a Sunday mass and we helped out at our home parish constantly. I showed up to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for my freshman year of college knowing that I wanted to continue living out my faith but thinking that I already had it all figured out. It was through being invited into the student

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By the end of my senior year, I had indeed fallen in love with Christ and desired to help others know Him as well. I was excited to do so by living out my faith and being a “missionary” in the hospital setting to my co-workers and patients, with my new nursing degree!

However, a few months into my job I was feeling very unfilled and wasn’t sure why. Through prayer, I realized my heart hurt to see my co-workers and patients’ lack of relationship with Christ, and I was pained that they hadn’t had the same college experiences I had to help me grow in my faith. The

Lord began to grow an evangelistic zeal in my heart and I knew that the Lord was calling me to join FOCUS. I am currently serving my first year as a missionary here at MIT and am loving it! As a missionary I have the privilege of accompanying students in getting to know Jesus Christ and walking with them in how to live a life for Him. My day-to-day schedule consists of going to mass, praying a holy hour, leading bible studies and discipleship groups, sharing life with students, and equipping students to share their faith with their peers on campus and after college. I also am present at the TCC masses and special events the council puts on, where I meet new students and invite them into the community. I became a FOCUS missionary to help spread the gospel and invite people into a relationship with Christ and it has been so beautiful to participate in that here at MIT. One of my favorite saints is St. Gianna Molla who was a wife, mother, and doctor. I admire her because she is an incredible witness of how to become a saint in our everyday life. I am so excited to continue walking with these students as we strive to become the saints we are meant to be!

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MEET THE PASTORAL TEAM

FR. MICHAEL MEDAS

DEACON AUGUSTINE HWANG

Chaplain

LONI BUTERA

Deacon

Secretary

MIT'S FOCUS MISSIONARIES

MADELEINE PEREIRA

JOHN BARTEE

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CAITLYN IRVING

JOHN ORTEGA

HEIDI ZAMZOW

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SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY! $20/MONTH

$50/MONTH

Covers the cost of one student to attend Bible study for a semester

Covers the cost of food for one sunday mass social

$100/MONTH

$150/MONTH

Covers the cost of one student to attend TCC Retreats

Supports the cost of TCC speakers for the semester

HONORING FAMILY OR FRIEND Would you like to offer a gift to the TCC honoring someone you cherish? The person can be living or deceased. Items on our Wish List are: Book of the Gospels: $350.00 | Alb Vestment for Mass: $329.00 Altar Cloth: $835.00 | Student Rosary & How to Pray book: $55.00 If you would like to donate any of these items, please email Father Michael at Catholic@mit.edu

Become a Sustaining Ministry Partner!

Please visit: tcc.mit.edu/donate

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EASY WAYS TO GIVE CREDIT CARD

EFT

Give a recurring or one-time gift by visiting https://giving.mit.edu/tcc and clicking "Give Now"!

Give a recurring gift that is taken directly from your checking or brokerage account by visiting https://giving.mit.edu/eft

CHECK

MATCHING GIFTS

Send a check to MIT Annual Fund Office of Records at 600 Memorial Dr, W98-2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139 and credit check to MIT Account #2558700 - TCC's Annual Fund.

Your employer may have the option to match your gifts to the TCC. You can choose to match for either educational or religious activities. To do so, please visit https://giving.mit.edu/matching-gifts

If the gift is over $5,000, consider giving to the Christopher K. Lindburg and Ben Johnson Reynolds Fund to contribute to our endowment . Credit check to MIT Account #3657300.

CONTACT INFORMATION

MIT Tech Catholic Community 40 Massachusetts Ave, Building W11 Cambridge, MA 02139

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MIT Building W11-012 40 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139

"WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTER OF YOUR LIFE YOU WILL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED." POPE FRANCIS

Photo Credits: John Ortega Photography (@jortegaphoto)