Dear Seniors

This is the second year that DePaul's Catholic Campus Ministry held a retreat for graduating seniors. Last year I was blessed to have gone on the retreat with some of my best friends and favorite DePaul staff. It was truly a beautiful experience full of love, support, laughter and sadness. While I felt it was a great way to end my time at DePaul it was bittersweet to know that the community I had fostered while there was disbanding and spreading throughout the country. Funny, but I find myself in the exact same position now.

I was asked by a Campus minister to write a reflection on my first year out of college by answering the question "How do you know you are a Vincentian in the world?" Big question, right? Well I took the time to think about it and I really felt like I wanted to share my reflection with you.

Note DePaul is a Vincentian univerisity meaning it is founded under the charism of St. Vincent de Paul who is a saint from 17th century Paris. He spent his life devoted to serving the poor and his mission is still strong today throughout many countries. The men religious are known as Vincentians and women are known as Daughters or Sisters of Charity. They are wonderful people. You should learn more if you don't know that much about them.

My dear seniors,

Almost a year out of college I find myself miles away from the comforts of family and home as a volunteer with the program Rostro de Cristo in Duran, Ecuador. There are days when I find it difficult to believe that this is where God has taken me, that Ecuador was apart of God's plan for me. It's truly amazing what happens when you can let go and realize that where you end up is where you were supposed to be. But perhaps like many of you I find myself coming to the end of a very beautiful experience without any clue as to what lies ahead. Sometimes the uncertainty can feel overwhelming but I have come to realize that it is the uncertainty of life that draws me closer to God.

So how do I know that I am a Vincentian in the real world? I don't. What I do know is that everything I do here in Ecuador is influenced by my DePaul education, but more importantly by my Vincentian education. Throughout my time at DePaul I grew to love St. Vincent and St. Louise. I studied their lives, I befriended members of the Vincentian family, I became involved with their mission. And what I took away from all of that is that at the heart of being a Vincentian is loving God, and through your love for God giving your life to others. Being a Vincentian means seeing the face of Christ in all whom you come into contact with, all whom you serve, all whom you love and hate. Vincent spent the second part of his life working to improve the living conditions of those who were deemed worthless and a burden on society. He first listened to the struggles of the people and then acted, he took the time to give voice to the voiceless and restore their human dignity.

So how could I even begin to talk about how am I living all that out? Well for starters I am with a program called the Face of Christ in which we strive to see the Face of Christ in the people we meet and work with here in Ecuador. I am living out my Vincentian roots because the most important thing to me are my real, meaningful relationships with the Ecuadorian people. Because I live a life giving of myself to others through giving them my time and attention, the most valuable things we have to give. I like to think that like St. Vincent, I am somehow giving a voice to the voiceless and understanding the true problems of poverty so that when I return to the states I can begin to work on fixing them. I am striving for systemic change, not a band-aid solution.

Seniors, this letter may be dense, and hard to hear. But know that within all of you is the desire to do good, to make a change, to love. My parting advice or words of encouragement are to love, love, love. Love God and through God love others.

Love,
mary