Left to right, Victor Fenik, J.P. Ledermann, Jocelyn Reiter, and Anna Picasso distribute bottles of holy water to new and returning students during the involvement fair on Aug. 26, 2024, at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Members of… […]
Father David Reamsnyder receives Anna West and other students into the Church at St. Anthony Parish in Hillsdale, Michigan, on Easter. / Credit: Rosemary Surdyke
CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2024 / 13:16 pm (CNA).
St. Anthony’s Catholic Parish in rural Mi… […]
Young men at Ave Maria University take part in an event hosted by the St. Joseph’s Men’s Group, which strives to form selfless husbands, loving fathers, and emulate the group’s namesake. / Credit: Ave Maria University
CNA Staff, Jun 16, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A men’s group on the campus of Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, is equipping young men with the tools necessary to become selfless husbands and loving fathers. The St. Joseph’s Men’s Group is made up of roughly 190 men striving to emulate the group’s namesake.
Through fellowship, presentations, and small-group discussions, these young men help one another grow and support one another in their vocations. The group is made up of two kinds of members — regular members who actively participate in the group’s community life and “fraternity” members who lead smaller, more intentional gatherings on specific topics. There are currently 12 fraternity members.
Joseph Cox, a recent Ave Maria graduate, founded the group in 2022. He spoke with CNA about his inspiration for creating the group and how it helped him find his own vocation — the priesthood.
Cox shared that he knew he wanted to create a group on campus the summer before his sophomore year; however, he initially wanted the group to help young men struggling with pornography. After thinking more about it, he decided to make the group more broad so that even those who may not be Catholic could join.
“I thought of the idea of just simply starting a men’s group on campus — the St. Joseph’s Men’s Group — really with the idea of creating an environment where guys can come together with no sort of commitment but could come together and just grow in fraternity, grow in masculinity, a greater set of holiness,” Cox said.
He added: “The idea was also to bring together, to create a common ground, those at Ave that are bought into the mission and bought into the spiritual life, and those that are not bought into the mission and those that may not be Catholic or who may not practice the faith anymore.”
The 21-year-old explained that the group’s events begin with food and socializing, followed by a speaker who talks about a topic tailored to men. The attendees then break out into small groups for the last part of the event, which are led by the 12 fraternity members. Cox pointed out that most of the fraternity members are actually athletes on campus.
“These athletes are guys that are very respected by their teammates because they’re athletically gifted — they may be a captain on a team for whatever sport they play — but as well as them being athletically gifted, they also have a relationship with Christ,” he shared.
In addition to hosting events on the campus of Ave Maria, Cox partnered with the University of Miami’s men’s group that is a part of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) to have combined events a couple of times each semester on their campus.
This past Lent, the members of the St. Joseph Men’s Group took part in the “Consecration to St. Joseph” by Father Donald Calloway, MIC, which is a 33-day consecration to the beloved saint.
“We had a little over 200 guys that went through with the consecration,” Cox recalled. “So in addition to all the guys doing the 33-day consecration on their own, we would have a weekly meeting [with] smaller groups … and then on the 33rd day, when they would actually make their consecration to St. Joseph, we had a big event. It was a big Mass, with adoration and confession, and all the guys who had done the consecration consecrated themselves collectively as a group of guys together.”
He encourages both men and women alike to “look to the virtues of St. Joseph — his purity, his silence, his obedience.”
Now Cox will be heading to the seminary in three weeks and credits, in part, his involvement with the men’s group in finding his vocation.
“I would say that what inspired me more for the priesthood was seeing guys with options,” he shared. “Meaning that guys that could be the best fathers, the best husbands, in the best jobs, and they were willing to sacrifice all of that for something that they believe is greater.”
He added that being a part of the group has given him the “desire to live out mission especially on the college campus.”
Cox explained that he originally wanted to become a FOCUS missionary after college, but when he came across the Legionaries of Christ he noticed that they were now focusing more on serving as campus chaplains for different colleges around the country.
“So when I came to kind of this crossroad it was really could I see myself doing college ministry as an occupation with something like FOCUS or potentially as a vocation for the rest of my life with the priesthood,” Cox explained. “If anything, this group, what it’s done is given me that desire to continue the college route.”
“At the end of the day, I’ve always said if the Lord calls me out of the seminary and I don’t become a priest I go right in FOCUS. College ministry is where I want to spend my life — whether that’s with FOCUS or the priesthood, the Lord will make it known but it will be through that mission.”
An artist’s rendering of the planned renovation of the University of Maine’s Newman Center chapel. / Courtesy of Pepperchrome
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 28, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Situated among fraternity houses along College Avenue, the University of Maine’s Newman Center in Orono, Maine could easily be mistaken for another Greek house.
Save for the sign out front displaying Mass times, and a “RUSH JESUS” banner on the side of the building, there is little that indicates the Newman Center is the spiritual home of the university’s Catholics.
There’s no tower, no church bells, and no visible stained glass windows or other things one would typically associate with a Catholic church.
But now, thanks to an anonymous $1.25 million donation, that will all be changing soon, as the center plans on breaking ground next year on a “truly Catholic” renovation of the building.
“The spiritual state of the Newman Center is amazing. There is so much good happening there for so many,” Fr. Kyle Doustou, pastor of The Parish of the Resurrection of the Lord and priest at the Newman Center, told CNA on Aug. 27. The Newman Center is one of the churches in the parish’s cluster.
The physical state of the building, however, falls short of amazing. In addition to the structural problems inherent to a building dedicated in 1969, the center is “impossible to heat efficiently,” and is liturgically problematic as the building’s chapel is open to the rest of the Newman Center, Fr. Doustou said.
“With our new plans, the structure will be rebuilt to handle the Maine winters, reconfigured so that we have more space for all of our formation programs, and we will have a separate chapel with beautiful stained glass windows, statues, etc.,” Fr. Doustou explained.
In addition to Mass, adoration, and other sacraments, the Newman Center is a place to “pray, study, play, and serve,” and is the closest Catholic church to the University of Maine’s campus. Fr. Doustou told CNA that the renovations will be key in establishing the church’s identity and helping with the mission of evangelization.
According to the Diocese of Portland’s website, the planned renovations include a “quiet, beautiful narthex where one can transition into the presence of God;” different entrances for the chapel and for the main hall, a separate chapel “featuring a new sacristy, tabernacle, altar, ambo, and main crucifix,” a steeple with a bell, a Marian garden, and spaces for students to have meetings and foster community.
“The building is essential. We’re right on College Avenue, right in the midst of all the frat houses, right in the the midst of all the traffic and energy,” Fr. Doustou said.
The church building, he said, does four important things: It sends a message that the Catholic community exists at the University of Maine; it evangelizes; it “physically provides a roof over our heads as we engage in our mission” and, as the closest tabernacle to the university, “it houses the mysteries of God, particularly the Eucharist.”
Fr. Doustou told CNA that it was particularly important that the chapel transform into a “truly sacred” place.
“[The chapel] needs to be a place where our students can experience something different, other-worldly, and supernatural,” he said. “They need a place that is quiet and contemplative to pray, but also one dripping in Catholicism so that they can learn the faith.”
Maine is one of the least-religious states in the country, and surveys have found that Mainers report praying less than any other state, and only 48% say they believing in God. The Pew Research Center reported in 2016 that 22% of people in Maine say they attend a weekly religious service, and barely a third of the state says that religion is “very important” in their lives. There are seven seminarians in formation for the diocese, and only two of them are Maine natives.
That, coupled with Gen Z’s apathetic feelings on religion, means that Fr. Doustou and the campus ministry staff at the Newman Center have their work cut out for them. But Fr. Doustou said that even so, he has “a little miracle happening on College Avenue.”
“People often think I’m exaggerating about what goes on at the Newman Center. They see Maine as so secular,” he said.
“I have multiple young men discerning a vocation to the priesthood, and two will likely go to the seminary next fall. I have young women discerning religious vocations. I have many young couples getting married and choosing to stay in the area because there’s such a robust Catholic community here,” Fr. Doustou explained.
“And it’s growing. You have to see it to believe it.”
Eucharistic adoration at the SLS18 conference in Chicago. / FOCUS.
Denver, Colo., Jul 20, 2021 / 16:19 pm (CNA).
The Fellowship of Catholic University Students is sending nearly 800 missionaries to eight additional locations this academic year i… […]
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