Two Daughters and a Big Little Sister

Last year I took on a new challenge: I left a stable job in an essential industry to take the helm of the Catholic School of Evangelization, a small lay apostolate that has become dear to my heart. It's where my family lived for two years of missionary maintenance service. A little more than a year after we moved out, I found myself applying for the vacant Executive Director job. And I got it. There's a long story there, and I won't recount that here today.

The primary mandate for the incoming director was to relaunch the school's Discipleship Formation Program: a year of faith formation and missionary outreach, lived in community at the school. When the school opened in 1992, this program was its primary aim. But after the 2007 graduating class, it folded, and the CSE's ministry focus shifted primarily to retreats and youth camps. Relaunching the student program required a lot of work, a lot of prayer, and a lot of trust, but it paid off. We successfully recruited students and supervisors and teachers and built a curriculum... and this thing is actually happening! I'm blown away at how God brought it all together. That's also a long story which I won't recount today.

Here's what I am writing about: An unexpected blessing with overseeing this program is that my third daughter Ella is enrolled as a student. I didn't expect her to apply. Who wants to go to a school run by her dad? But she's here, and I get to witness her blossom into a fuller manifestation of who she is in Christ. Nothing makes a parent happier.

One of the many steps in discerning how to rebuild the Discipleship Formation Program had me spending countless hours in conversation with past students, staff, and directors, as well as anybody I could connect with who was involved in faith formation for Catholic young adults.

Perhaps my most fruitful discussion was with Jim Anderson, Director of Formation at St. Therese Institute of Faith and Mission, a similar school in Bruno, SK.

St. Therese opened in 2007, the year the CSE stopped offering its student program. It plunges its students into an intense nine months of prayer, mentorship, reading, writing, lectures, share groups, and retreats, all focused on St. Therese of Lisieux’s little way of becoming a saint. They offer a two-year program, and it’s beautiful. My second daughter Julie attended both years and is back there this year ministering to their students in a year of apostolic service. St. Therese has transformed Julie and enriched her. I couldn’t be a bigger supporter of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

In my discussions with Jim, he encouraged me to draw from the wells that are nourishing me personally, but also to draw from the wells that I’ve inherited as director from the CSE’s own history and traditions. The two schools share a common goal of forming young people in the deep truths of the Catholic faith, especially He who is Truth himself: Jesus the Christ. Yet our expression of formation manifests in very different ways.

The CSE is not St. Therese. The program here is shorter at eight months, and limits itself to one year. The first half focuses primarily on deepening the student’s relationship with Jesus through personal encounter through devotion and the sacraments. The second half is intended to convict and empower them to share the love of Jesus with the world after they leave. This has been the CSE’s way from its 1992 inception. Its original logo has the arms of the cross extending outside of the house, reflecting our community's purpose to go beyond our walls. 

G. K. Chesterton in his 1929 book The Thing put forward a concept which today is known as Chesterton’s Fence: if you find a fence in a field, before you tear it down because you don’t know why it’s there, consider perhaps leaving it intact precisely because you don’t know why it’s there. We can find the same idea articulated in Proverbs 22:28: “Do not remove the ancient landmark that your ancestors set up.” There is a charism and a history at the CSE that I intend to respect in my tenure as director. Jim Anderson’s advice helped to crystalize this vision for me.

God, through St. Therese, is giving my Julie what she needs. And through the CSE, he’s giving my Ella what she needs. Jim Anderson and I both believe that there’s room for both of our schools in the kingdom. Young people need faith formation, and having different options for them to discern between is a good thing. Secular thinking would view St. Therese and the CSE as competitors in a small market. But that is missing the sacramental character of the communion within the Church as the body of Christ. Our "big little sister" is part of that body. As the CSE proceeds on this path of trust in God’s providence with the DFP, we have confidence that he will bring each school the students meant for them. 

Sisters, Ella (CSE student) and Julie (St. Therese student)