Faith on Campus | A School of Prayer

In the second of a two-part conversation, Bishop Donald Hying and Fr. David Carrano turn from why young people are searching to what happens when they find the Church. Fr. Carrano, pastor of the St. Paul University Catholic Center at UW-Madison, describes the peer-to-peer ministry at the heart of St. Paul's – students, interns, and missionaries who build the bridges that lead others to Christ – and the remarkable number of students received into the Church this year. Together they consider what parishes might learn from campus ministry, and why teaching people to pray may be the most important work of all.

Transcript

Bishop Donald J. Hying 0:00

Welcome to Things Visible and Invisible, a podcast that discusses life, faith, current events, culture, history, and more, all in relation to Jesus Christ and his church. I'm Bishop Don Hying, and again we have Father David Carrano with us to reflect on the beauty of so many young people being drawn to the church and specifically those who enter the church through the community at St. Paul's here in Madison. Again, I'm very grateful for uh Father David Carrano to be on the show today and profoundly grateful for your leadership, Father. Uh your gifts of priesthood and gentle way of accompanying young people and your ability to articulate the faith, I think are gifts that really help serve us well in the mission of St. Paul's. And I really think of St. Paul's as a vital part of the mission of the diocese. Here we are. We have this remarkably big and varied campus in the midst of our city, in the heart of our diocese. And it's a rich mission field. And here you are leading that formation evangelizing charge. And in the last program, we talked about the general religious impulse within many young people today and what what they find at St. Paul's as points of attraction. In this conversation, perhaps we could focus more specifically on those who, in the end, become Catholic, go through OCIA at St. Paul's, receive the Easter sacraments, and some of the dynamics of that and how that process looks and some of the beautiful fruits that that come from those that um enter into the church. So maybe you just want to start there and just I know that this past Easter, if I'm not misspeaking statistics, there was something like a hundred college students came into the church. There were maybe 40 baptisms and then a multiple reception. So those are remarkable statistics. And whenever I cite them, crowds break into spontaneous applause. So everybody in the church is concerned about the faith of our young people and what's going on at St. Paul's gives us all of us great hope.

Fr. David Carrano 2:21

Well, thank you for your compliments about our ministry at St. Paul's. Clearly, we are building upon foundations that other people laid, and uh it is a beautiful place. It is uh an exciting place to proclaim the gospel and to, as you said, form the faithful, but also to evangelize. And I think that, you know, before I kind of get into the answer to your question, I think it's really important for us to realize that the key to our ministry is the peer-to-peer aspect of it. You know, so the whole concept of focus missionaries, they're just finished college, they're able to relate to college students and what their daily life is, what their struggles are, our internship program, which is our own students who graduate and then devote another year or two to ministry. I mean, these are such great and easy ways for bridges to be built for our students to a deeper life of faith. And that's what that's what creates the whole atmosphere of joy and the openness. And we were talking last time about how you need that sense of belonging first. For many people, they need that sense of belonging first before they can actually come to accept the teachings of the faith and believe. So, yeah, that peer-to-peer ministry is really the key. In a sense, it's a very different way of being a priest, you know, because it's it's empowering the students and empowering the student leaders and empowering the interns and missionaries to do their work. And you know that they're the ones that are are creating all of these bridges for students on campus to come to know Christ. So that's very, very exciting. I'm always a little hesitant to answer the question about how many students are in this program or that, uh, especially because recently we read about King David and taking the census, and that wasn't a good thing for King David to do. And every time I see David in the Bible, I have to pay more attention since that's my name. But that's right. Um if I remember correctly, we had just shy of a hundred who received sacraments of initiation throughout the academic year. And a number of baptisms, I believe that was 29 baptisms, um, a number of receptions into full communion with the Catholic Church, about 25 of those, and then many Catholics who were confirmed. Um, so for whatever reason, had not yet been confirmed, but made that choice for themselves here in this stage of their life, um, we're happy to accompany them. So, yeah, coming from very different backgrounds or very different stories, very different reasons why. But for the the vast majority of them, right, it's through the witness of another student that they're making this choice to receive the sacraments of initiation.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 5:09

That gives all of us great hope. And it also shows the effectiveness of that one-on-one pure ministry. And I think we we see clearly also that those that initiated into the church often have the fervor and the fire to go out and evangelize others. So I know individuals who themselves perhaps were agnostic or atheist, encountered St. Paul's, came to the Lord, entered into the church, and they've already evangelized others to the point where they were sponsors for other young people coming into the church. And uh that that's the the beauty of our faith that disciples make other disciples, that those who are rescued by Christ end up becoming instruments of rescue for others. So I think we have a lot to learn from campus ministry regarding both evangelization and formation. I think challenges like how to translate that into the parish context, because you know, the college campus, it's kind of this hothouse environment. You've got a very specific demographic, you've got young people with relatively more time on their hands, you know, they're they're not married, they don't have children. Yeah, I guess the question that arises is you know, what can we learn from the fruitfulness of St. Paul's regarding how we evangelize, catechize, and welcome people into parishes? And I know that's maybe a challenging question.

Fr. David Carrano 6:35

Certainly. Very, very good question, very important question. First, I think it's worth noting that absolutely, yes, those converts to Catholicism are very good at engaging and inviting others into faith and into the Catholic Church. You know, a number of our interns last year, for example, were newly baptized in the last couple of years or um received into the Catholic Church. And, you know, they have a particular zeal. And yes, we can certainly learn from that. They're they're falling in love with the Eucharist, first and foremost, or above all, is is the the biggest, I think, fire in their hearts, right? And yeah, do we have that same love for Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament, Christ fulfilling his promise to remain with us always to the end of the age by becoming our our food, our spiritual nourishment? So certainly we want to cultivate that awe, that gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist in parish life. And I think that in itself is a is a motivator for mission. And yes, you can certainly say that life on campus and life in the parish are different in many ways. There's a difference of the scale, right? How many students are walking by St. Paul's every day? There's a difference in kind of the degree of intensity. There's a difference in the amount of free time that a student has as opposed to parents raising young children, you know, in your parish. Um, there's also a difference in the malleability of young people, as you mentioned, right? They're at this stage where for better or for worse, our culture is taught them to kind of be open to anything. And yeah, we're hoping, you know, we hope to take take advantage, doesn't sound like the right word, but you know, to be able to propose in the midst of that openness so that they can what did uh Chesterton say? An open mind is like an open mouth. It's useless unless it closes on something. Yes, I think closes on the truth. That's right. Exactly. So so there's those differences, but there's also the essential likeness between life on campus and life in the parish that people listen most to others who are in a similar state of life as them. Evangelization happens not anonymously or in a big crowd, but one-on-one through authentic friendships and relationships. If people encounter a community that is full of life and joy, they want to be a part of it and they want to discover what's behind that. So, I mean, these are the the kinds of things we need to be aware of in parish life. How do we cultivate our own relationship with Christ, our love for the Eucharist, um, such that we want to invite others into it? Are we living a joyful witness? Right? Are we, you know, as parish leaders, are we equipping these faithful to articulate the gospel at least in some simple way in their lives?

Bishop Donald J. Hying 9:36

Yeah, I think a young convert is uniquely placed, especially if he or she came from maybe a questioning agnostic or even atheistic background, and now they've come into the fullness of the faith. So they chose it as an emerging adult, number one. Number two, they understand the agnostic secular culture because they were immersed in it. And I find in them, for that reason or those reasons, kind of this fearlessness in talking to other peers who perhaps are agnostic or atheist, because they have the credibility of being able to say, I was once like you and thought these same things. And this is what God, Christ, and the church have have done for me. So there's kind of this courage and zeal to step forward and not be afraid. And I think many Catholics who perhaps are cradle Catholics, we we don't necessarily have that same um courage or zeal. Like there's a little bit of hesitation, like, what if I say something wrong, or what if this person rejects what I'm saying? And I think we can take great lessons from these young, fervent converts to not be afraid, but but to engage others and and to especially engage others that perhaps are far from the church or even hostile to some of her teachings. And yet through friendship, through genuine concern, through honesty of conversation, God can use those moments to really bring someone's heart and mind to the Lord. So I just have great admiration for the fervor of the young people that come into the church. And at St. Paul's, you you really see that up close. And uh again, I think St. Paul's is wonderful at what evangelization gurus would call those low entry points where people can come to some event within the community without necessarily making a big commitment and we're not gonna be asked necessarily a lot of questions.

Fr. David Carrano 11:28

So it's like free food is uh is the number one way.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 11:32

Yeah, that's right.

Fr. David Carrano 11:33

Yeah, absolutely. And I think to sorry to interrupt, Bishop. It seems to me that uh yeah, there's something beautiful about kind of the leaders in our community being able to say, Oh yeah, well, two years ago I was exactly where you were, you know. There's not this sense of uh I'm so far ahead, you know, of in the spiritual life as you, or you know, I think it's very easy for our students to to feel that connection point, like, yeah, we're all sinners, right? And the person that's teaching me how to pray maybe two years ago and never prayed before in their life, you know, and that that just makes them so much more comfortable to ask what they think is a stupid question or, you know, to to start with the basics. And I think there's something about us as Catholics that I think we would evangelize much better if we were able to kind of be a little bit more vulnerable in that sense and be like, you know, I've been I've been doing this for 40 years, 60, 70 years, and I still don't know how to pray well, or I still struggle with sin, or, you know, maybe I never did those kinds of things, but you know, when I examine my heart of hearts, I know that I'm capable of it, you know. And, you know, it's there's a sense in which if we don't let people that are quote unquote outside of the church know that they're like us, they're never gonna feel like they're they could belong, you know. So we have to be willing to admit a little bit more, you know, what's the wound of our human fallen human nature is and how we're still, you know, struggling with this, even as we can struggle with hope because we know Jesus Christ, we know his mercy in our life, we receive his forgiveness in the sacraments and so on. But I think that's very evident in our campus ministry that students don't feel uh there's always a temptation, but generally speaking, they don't feel that this is impossible for me because they they see the the steps or the the process or the progress that's possible by looking at these student leaders who a very short time ago were doing exactly the same things that they're doing now, you know.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 13:46

But there's a beauty to that, and it reminds me of a phrase that people forgive us for our strengths but love us for our weaknesses. And I think if we give off this aura of perfection, that there's something off-putting about that. But when I can be appropriately vulnerable, it gives people permission to be vulnerable as well. And it's in that realization that I'm not perfect and I need God and that the Holy Spirit can work. So I always think the only people that Jesus had a fundamental problem with are those that I would call the religiously self-sufficient, you know, those who didn't think they needed him. And essentially the Lord couldn't do anything with them because they they had closed themselves off. So yeah, that that freshness of a conversion uh allows them to be able to relate to those that are are still perhaps even just beginning to think about Christ and the church. And I'd like to conclude with uh, you touched on it, teaching people how to pray. And I think a significant part of the fruitfulness and spiritual success at St. Paul's is teaching our young people how to pray. And I know that's a large part of kind of the one-on-one mentoring and uh the group work that goes on. And I think uh Father Nielsen, who served at St. Paul's for many years, that was kind of his mantra. If we just teach him how to pray, the rest is gonna fall into place. And you know, maybe you could just comment briefly on and how you do that. You know, is it Lexio Divina? Obviously it's the liturgy. What are some methodologies that you've found successful?

Fr. David Carrano 15:14

Yeah, and Father Nielsen is definitely correct in that if we can teach our young people to pray, we may not be able to convince them of every every uh every one of our teachings or whatever, but that prayer life can carry them through a lot of the ups and downs of life because they're still growing, they're still developing. And I've, you know, as I reflect on my own story, you know, going through Catholic school, you know, we we talked about prayer a lot. And I don't remember being actually taught how to pray, you know, it's it's there's a difference between telling someone to pray and then being taught how to pray. And I think there's reasons why that's so difficult to do, but actually it it it's the simplest thing in the world, you know. I think it's simply modeling what you're doing. And yeah, so that's a big part of our outreach, you know, as a student just saying, I'm going to morning prayer. Would you like to come with me? You know, and so we pray the liturgy of the hours, we pray the prayer of the church. Okay, that gives us one framework for which a student can start. I'm gonna go to adoration. Well, what do you do in adoration? I kind of just sit there in silence, you know, but um, okay, and then you you start from there and you build how to enter into mental prayer, how to have a conversation with God, how to engage core odd core, that heart to heart. You know, our Bible studies are a big part of our ministry. So in that setting, students learning how to engage the scriptures, wrestle with them, pray with them, you know, all of these things. Ultimately, I think it should be at every stage of kind of our process, right? There should be the proposition about prayer, the teaching about prayer, the accountability about prayer. And yeah, so we have as our goal when if a student's engaged at St. Paul's for any length of time that they would leave St. Paul's with, you know, a commitment to 30 day 30 minutes of mental prayer every day, that they would have a deep devotion to the sacramental life of the church, you know, going to mass on Sundays, desirous of going to mass another time during the week if they're able, um, that these kind of cornerstones of prayer would be there for them. We think that's the most likely thing to keep them rooted in the faith throughout their life. So, yeah, in a sense, we want to be going deeper rather than just broader and trying to get as many people in the door. It's like, well, yeah, once you're here, we wanna see, we want to encourage you to kind of put the roots down deep in prayer because the drought will come and only the tree that has the roots down deep is gonna be able to to survive um, you know, to survive that drought to continue to grow and thrive. And yeah, in the life of faith, the drought is, you know, there's gonna be times of doubt. There's gonna be times when um life is just difficult and you wonder whether God cares and loves you. There's gonna be times where you don't have as much support as you used to have or as you'd like to have. And yeah, the only thing that can get someone through is is daily prayer.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 18:23

That's beautifully said. And it just reveals clearly that we can enter the church, we can embrace the faith with this initial enthusiasm, but that can only be sustained through the deepening of the interior life. So that evangelization and catechesis isn't just head knowledge, but it's really entering into uh the richness of the spiritual life. Would it be that every parish really became a school of prayer where what you're inculcating at St. Paul's would be evident in the life of every parish, that we're just setting out to teach all of our prisoners how to pray? And it it converges well with um our four holy habits here at the diocese and with our evangelization initiative, the importance of daily prayer, Sunday Eucharist, regular confession, and then some form of penance is the building blocks of the spiritual life. Brother David, I'm so grateful not only for your presence here on the podcast, but also just uh the work, the ministry, and the life that you offer our students as a model of a disciple of the Lord, one who is immersed in the gospel and is all about making disciples. So prayers and blessings to you in this upcoming school year that that all of our young people at St. Paul's will encounter the Lord and and come to that richness of faith that he has bequeathed us. So thank you.

Fr. David Carrano 19:43

Yes, we count on all of your listeners to support us through their prayers as well. Thank you, Rishad. Amen.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 19:48

Thank you.