Day Four

I can't believe we have only been here for four and a half days. Hasn't it been at least 4 WEEKS?

You know the homily is going to be good when it starts with "I was in love with the most beautiful girl in the seventh grade". The literally five minute homily was one of the best I'd heard in a long time. The point was that we should be in indescribable awe that our King, God who cannot be contained, chooses to imprison himself in a thin wafer of bread in order to bring about our salvation. We should be like a seventh grade boy when the prettiest girl in the county deigns to speak to him.

In other news, we had women's rec night tonight. WOO! The women's colleges played a volleyball tournament. We lost in the first round, but it was to the Varsity Catholic team, so there's that. And we didn't even get shut out!

Last thought for the evening: it is rumored that we might hear our college placements/assignments tomorrow night. I doubt it because the regional and team directors have been working on these assignments night and day since they got here, but in the past it has been the first Thursday of training. Therefore, to anyone who wants to put in their request to the Man Upstairs, it might be time to storm the gates.

Italian Stigmatists

Magnanimity (n.) - greatness of soul. "Magnanimity is chiefly about the hope of something difficult."

Today classes focused on character development. One thing that was stressed was that gifts without character to  help them along is useless. In fact the prime example of gifts without character is Satan. Wow. Needless to say, FOCUS wants to make sure none of us fall into that category. So each day we will learn a different virtue that should be incorporated into our lives. Today's was magnanimity. It means recognizing the capacity for greatness within yourself and working diligently to achieve it. The virtue of humility goes hand in hand. Humility guards magnanimity from becoming pride and helps us see things rightly, therefore guarding against judging others. The two vices on the extremes of the virtue of magnanimity are pride and pusillanimity. (I know, I know, tons of big words...but look at how much I'm learning!) Basically pusillanimity is realizing the greatness you can achieve with God's help and chickening out. A sister vice to pusillanimity is sloth. The most interesting thing I learned today was that "sloth only comes into play when the reluctance to act involves sorrow concerning the commandments of God. More characteristic of sloth than inactivity is hyperactivity, the restlessness of mind that often results in workaholism, frenetic activity, and constant distraction". How beautiful that we have a chapel so close and easy to access to pray over everything we learn in our classes.

The best part of the day, though, came this evening. As I mentioned, we are divided into colleges and each college has a brother or sister college. One of the great things FOCUS teaches is healthy interaction between the sexes. So at the beginning of training, the brother college has to come up with a creative way to ask the sister college to be their sister college. Then over the rest of training, the colleges do service work and other projects together. Our brother college, St. Padre Pio, wrote, memorized, and recited a poem to ask us and then treated us to frozen yogurt at a place right down the street. It was so nice and a great way to get to know more of the amazing men on staff.

The Life of an Optimist

I have officially survived the first day of class! Whew. It feels like I have already been here for weeks, but in reality I arrived a little over 48 hours ago. All of the missionaries were in the same talks today which centered around FOCUS's history, its mission, and what our actual job description is. The excitement of the day came early this morning when I, innocently enough, went to go say good morning to Jesus in the Chapel. Had 20 minutes before class started, so I was good. However...when I finished praying, I looked at the time and I had 3 minutes to get to a class room by myself and I wasn't positive I knew where it was. Good. Thank goodness Mary was watching out for me! I made it only a minute late, but boy was my adrenaline up for the rest of the morning!

One of the things that was stressed in class this morning was that our life as missionaries, as Catholics striving to do God's will, will be full of struggles. Kevin Cotter spoke to us about some specific struggles missionaries face that were sort of strange, or rather not a struggle you expected. You expect that you'll get stood up at your Bible Study and mentoring, but you may be surprised to find that team life is a struggle. You assume that fundraising will bring you to your knees before the Lord, but maybe not that you'll be in the chapel because the life of a missionary can sometimes be lonely. I'm sitting in the back diligently taking notes thinking "that will never happen to me - I'm made to be a missionary! I can handle it." Sure. I hope my mom is paying attention, because she'll probably get a phone call two weeks into the school year where she'll talk me down from yet another metaphorical ledge. And yet I am optimistic.

It's been such a wonderful experience being at training, but I know tomorrow will be hard. Tomorrow morning my mentor, and one of my closest friends the past two years, will go home to Nebraska. She is leaving FOCUS just as I am joining it. And although I am happy for her, I will be sad to see her go. She has been such a blessing in my life and I know I am a better person for having known her.

St. Rita, Pray for Us

So today was the first full day at NST (New Staff Training). The day began with Mass in the beautiful chapel here at University of Illinois - Champaign. We're lucky to have Franciscan CFR's, or Friars of the Renewal, with us for a little while and they presided at Mass that was full to the brim with missionaries. One of the older priests gave an amazing homily about courage and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Since the congregation consisted of mainly missionaries, he was able to tailor his message to our call of evangalization. I was so pumped for the next two years!

After lunch, I wanted to explore a garden a good friend of mine talked about, so she, another friend, and I went on an adventure to find this garden. And let me tell you about adventure! It ended up being a 20 minute walk in the blazing Illinois heat and none of us were convinced we weren't lost. Let me tell you, after being on a campus with a grand total of around 20 buildings, UofI is gigantic! We finally managed to make it to the garden, and what a treat. There were roses and colorful flowers galore, rows of trees looking as picturesque as those that lined the road in the Sound of Music, and a handful of berry bushes (the berries weren't quite ripe yet, so we'll have to head back in a day or two). Then there was a separate larger circular garden that had just been tilled and new plants put in...and giant sprinklers watering the new plants. 3 women + heat + sprinklers = too great a temptation to resist! We spent a few blissful moments running through the sprinklers like children, and I'm sure Mother Mary was smiling at our antics. Having cooled off from the water, we headed back to the Newman center refreshed, enjoying a few stolen moments with good friends catching up on life. 

At training there are colleges which are basically small groups, usually around 8 missionaries of the same sex, that all have a saint as their patron. I was placed into St. Rita's college, which happens to be my sister's Confirmation saint. She it pretty amazing: she's the patron of impossible causes, infertility, abused wives, and difficult marriages to name a few; she received a thorn from Christ's crown in her forehead that caused her to be isolated for the last 15 years of her life; her body is incorruptible and the chapel at the convent where she died continues to smell like roses, her favorite flower. I am excited to have her and the other women in my college as my role models.

"There is nothing impossible for God." ~St. Rita.

Entertaining Angels

God is good! All the time!

I am starting this blog as a way to update friends and family on this new and exciting phase of my life. In March of this year I was hired as a FOCUS missionary! As those who know me are aware, I have been looking forward to college graduation, not for the usual reasons of being finished with classes, but rather because I couldn't wait to become a FOCUS missionary. After I attended the Orlando Conference in January of 2010, I knew that FOCUS was something that I wanted to do. The past two years of prayer and discernment have led me here to Champaign, IL for 5 weeks of intense training where I will learn about God's unconditional love for everyone and how to be His vessel on college campuses.

After a 17 hour car ride from Florida, I finally made it! It has been so wonderful to see so many familiar faces and meet countless new ones, and that is only within the first few hours of being here. I am looking forward to everything God has planned for the next few weeks and the coming two years!

It's going to be a wonderful, joyful, and blessed journey that I can't wait to share with all of you!