UST president shares his work, faith journey with CEND’s young professionals

By Barb Umberger

The Catholic Spirit

Rob Vischer, president of St. Paul-based University of St. Thomas since Jan. 1, told about 70 young professionals May 2 that he tries to worry less about what his faith means for his professional life and more about whether he is becoming “the person I was created to be.”

“Which, to be clear, has implications for my professional life, but they’re different,” he said. “So, who’s the person I was created to be? Well, I was created for a relationship with God. And what does that mean? It’s going to be seen through our work.”

Conversation about what faith means for the professional life is “super important,” Vischer said, but it’s also important to remember “God cares a lot less about what I do than about who I am. What God wants is relationship. And sometimes, especially if we’re highachieving, driven Christians, we start mistaking our own, what I call addiction to productivity, for a spiritual life,” he said.

Vischer spoke to people in their 20s and 30s participating in a Center for Evangelization and Discipleship event at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. CEND is a Twin Cities nonprofit formed in June 2020. It encourages Catholic young adults to get to know one another and be active in their faith. The group also helps local parishes foster young adult involvement. Its young Catholic professionals’ gatherings focus on educating, mentoring and inspiring young adults to advance their careers and do so from a Catholic frame of reference. Events include meeting the first Tuesday of each month for Mass, fellowship and networking, and remarks from a local Catholic business leader.

Dominican Father Brian John Zuelke, parochial vicar of St. Odilia in Shoreview and a member of the Dominican Province of St. Albert the Great, celebrated Mass May 2 in the Basilica’s lower-level chapel. Hospitality, networking and Vischer’s comments took place in the nearby parish hall.

Referencing a book titled “The Second Mountain,” Vischer said its thesis is that in most lives that are well lived, young adults work hard to climb the first mountain — achievement — by stretching and pushing themselves. “You’re working hard to climb the mountain of achievement, to show that you matter, to show that you belong in whatever field you’re trying to conquer,” Vischer said. “At some point, you realize that that first mountain is not a sustainable source of joy.”

And then the second mountain, which is about connection and contribution, Vischer said, “that’s where you discover the joy.”

Vischer also emphasized community in his opening remarks, saying that the CEND group’s “most impactful legacy is not something you hear from the podium,” but “the relationships you form at the table.”

“So, lean into those,” he said. “That’s really important in the faith journey” and in professional life.

Vischer said his own journey has taught him cultivating joy as a leadership virtue can involve three traits. First, empathy as a leader, on the job and with friends and family.

Second, confidence, but not confidence premised on never failing or making a mistake, but confidence that comes through an accurate understanding of who we were created to be, Vischer said. “On my good days, I’m able to root my confidence in my relationship with God, my relationship with neighbor,” he said. Third, self-awareness. Many people view leadership as “I’m going to be a leader; I need to be this person,” Vischer said. “I’ve got to figure out how to be different than I actually am … as opposed to understanding yourself enough to know how leadership emerges from who you were created to be and what your life experience has shaped you to be.”

Many Christians under-use self-awareness as a tool because they think they can “just focus on God,” Vischer said. “Do focus on God, but God also reveals himself through the life journey.”

A Catholic today, Vischer said he was raised in the Evangelical Christian Church. During his remarks, he described how, at age 8, his journey included the day his father left their family’s home. The same day, a Sunday, Vischer’s mother called to inform their church’s pastor who, later that evening at a service, announced it from the pulpit and asked attendees to pray for his family. “About half the congregation got up in the middle of the service and drove over to our house just to be there,” Vischer said.

No crisis intervention team was there, he said. Instead, “these were just regular people in a small church in a small town in Iowa who said, ‘Oh, we’re people of faith. We need to be where the pain is.’”

Vischer recalled it as a terrible memory, but also one that gave him a memory “of what it looks like to be the hands and feet and voice and tears of Jesus,” he said. And “if you want to know who you are as a leader and you’re not trying to fake it and you’re not trying to be somebody else, you better know where your pain is because it’s going to come out,” Vischer said. “It’s going to come out in healthy ways or it’s going to come out in unhealthy ways.”

It’s important to know ourselves, our history, sources of joy and of pain, and what will energize us, Vischer said. “If we really believe that God created us with a unique set of gifts and a purpose and things that energize us, and things that don’t, we have to be able to depend on self-awareness as a guide to what our leadership will look like,” he said.

An individual’s journey, the good and the pain, shapes how people “are as a leader,” he said. “The confidence, the empathy, the self-awareness … will facilitate the contribution and the connection, and that’s the path.”