Making a campus connection to Christ
“It feels like coming home to a place that you’ve never been before.”
That is how Helen Walter, a junior at the University of Maine in Orono, describes what it has been like becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“It’s probably the most wonderful thing that has happened to me in my whole life,” she says.
Before discovering Catholicism, Helen says she felt restless, believing there must be something more to life.
“There is this quote by St. Augustine, which I think about all the time. It’s that our hearts are restless until they rest in you. And I was restless, in academics and social life, looking for the love of God everywhere except in Him,” she says. “I feel a little bit like I was unable to see where I was going. I was kind of walking in this sort of white, foggy mist, and now it’s been lifted, and I can see a beautiful world around me and in front of me.”
Listening to Helen now, it’s hard to believe that not long ago, she had given up on religion entirely.
“I kind of decided that the whole of Christianity was sort of silly and ridiculous,” she says.
Helen credits the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas for convincing her that God does exist, the Eucharist for bringing her to Catholicism, and campus ministry for helping her faith to flourish.
“The thing that I really do love and appreciate about campus ministry is that it’s very intentional, and it’s very centered on the teaching of the Church,” she says.
Helen had been baptized in the Lutheran Church but attended several different kinds of Protestant services with her family. Then, when she was in high school, she became a nonbeliever.
“I left the faith and embarked on a sort of agnostic, atheist, I’m-too-smart-to-believe-in-God phase of life,” she says.
That changed when Helen was introduced to St. Thomas Aquinas and The Summa Theologica during a humanities class her senior year.
“In my desire to disprove Christianity and disprove the existence of God, I started reading [Aquinas] and found myself being beaten, so to speak, intellectually by him,” she says.
When she arrived at UMaine, Helen started attending different church services, walking to those nearby because she didn’t have a car. Eventually, her search led her to Mass at Holy Family Church, an hour’s walk away in neighboring Old Town.
“I had all of these things that I was coming in with, but I remember kneeling and watching the priest raise the Eucharist and say, ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ and I started weeping. I am not the type of person that really cries very often or at anything, so it was a shocking, almost embarrassing, experience,” she says. “But I just knew at that moment that I needed to become Catholic, that I needed to join the Church, and I needed to experience the grace of the Eucharist and life with Christ.”
Such was her conviction that, after the Mass, she approached the pastor, Father Kyle Doustou, about it. She began participating in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) and was introduced to missionaries from the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), who are an integral part of campus ministry at UMaine Orono. FOCUS partners with dioceses around the world to enliven the faith on college campuses.
“[The missionaries’] job is to build relationships with students and invite them in,” says Ben DiBello, the UMaine campus minister.
Throughout her journey, Helen says the FOCUS missionaries have been by her side to teach, guide, support, and, when necessary, nudge a little bit.
“The FOCUS missionaries here have been absolutely wonderful in my formation and walking with me and saying, ‘This is what it means to live the Christian life. These are things that you should not be doing. These are things that you should be doing. Here is how to develop a habit of prayer and a habit of going to Mass, of experiencing the sacraments,’” says Helen.
She recalls, for instance, how one of the missionaries, Kelly Burns, convinced her to go to confession.
“For three whole weeks, I was like, ‘Oh, next week, I will do it. Next week, I’ll do it,’ and finally, she schedules me into attending, and it was absolutely a life-changing experience,” Helen says. “Kelly is very good at just calling me higher and inviting me higher and saying that maybe that no to something, maybe that no to confession or maybe that no to adoration was just a temporary no or a no out of fear.”
Helen participates in Bible study led by a FOCUS missionary and is one of 10 students who also lead Bible study groups.
“Having the opportunity to do that with young women whom I’ve met and really gotten to know has been such a blessing,” says Helen.
According to Ben, 103 students have attended Bible study sessions this school year, with 69 attending four or more times. In addition, 21 students are participating in a discipleship program, intended to strengthen their faith even further.
“You have this book that FOCUS produces that lists all these different topics that kind of help a college student to become a saint. That is the idea,” explains Zach Pelletier, a senior studying mechanical engineering. “So, one week, you could talk about virtuous friendships, for example, or certain temptations that you face in college and how to overcome them. It provides that structure but also provides the opportunity to spend more time with each other and to grow as brothers and sisters.”
Like Helen, Zach says not that long ago, he did not believe in God.
“I just assumed that there are no good reasons for God and that it was kind of an antiquated way of thinking,” he says.
However, during his freshman year at UMaine, he became curious and decided to do some online research.
“I really owe it to the YouTube algorithm in a lot of ways because it just kept feeding me more and more videos. I kept watching them, and eventually, I realized that there is more evidence that there is a God who exists and that He is good,” Zach says.
Zach tried different churches, first attending a Methodist service on Easter 2023, then meeting an evangelical Christian man whom Zach credits for starting to bring his faith to life. Zach says he prayed a lot about which way to turn and decided that he needed to attend a Catholic Mass.
“I went in, and it was a really good experience, and I came out of there, and time had passed so weirdly for me,” he says.
He says what “sealed the deal” for him was going to his first Latin Mass.
“I went to it and said, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is so beautiful,’” he says. “I saw the absolute beauty of it. I said, ‘This is incredible.’”
Zach connected with FOCUS missionaries at the Masses and was invited to participate in Bible study and to attend one of the Wednesday night suppers offered through campus ministry.
“I really was blown away by the good community,” he says. “I found this group, and I was like, ‘This is really great.’ Now it’s to the point where all my friends up here are Catholic and, basically, all the people that I see or talk to on a regular basis are Catholic or from this community.”
Along with the Wednesday night suppers and Bible study groups, there is Sunday evening Mass, currently held in the Memorial Union because the Newman Center on campus is undergoing extensive renovations and rebuilding. Once a month, that Mass is followed by a potluck dinner. On Mondays, students can join either Father Doustou or Father Brad Morin for Theology Lunch. On Tuesdays, there is adoration and a Mass for students at Holy Family Church. And there are also social events, such as ice skating, organized by Black Bear Catholic, which is the student government organization recognized by the university.
Ben emphasizes that, along with him and the FOCUS missionaries, the students themselves play a big role in spreading the faith on campus.
“It is spread relationally. It’s not something we can just post on social media. It’s about the encounter,” says Ben. “The student piece is huge because they can meet people in their classes.”
Ben was president of Black Bear Catholic when he attended UMaine and says he experienced firsthand the difference campus ministry can make.
“I think I was convicted enough in my faith where I would have gone to Mass every Sunday, but by the time I was a senior, I was going to Mass every day of the week. I was running a Bible study,” he says. “None of that stuff would have happened if I didn’t have the opportunity to be invested in it and to invest in others.”
Zach and Helen say their lives, too, have been changed for the better.
“There are just so many problems, so many personal things that could never have been changed without having God in my life,” says Zach. “It’s been an incredible journey.”
“There is a peace of mind in knowing that this is what my life is about, and this is what I was made for,” says Helen. “I think I’ve gained the confidence and the ability to not just be filled up but to go out and fill others up.”
