Catholic Campus Ministry Newsletter 2024 Issue 2

Alumni Corner

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C l ass of 2022

I answered Christ’s steady call to live all in for him and his Church during the onset of the pandemic in 2020. It completely changed my junior and senior years at Virginia Tech. My ideal of a “balanced life” where I attempted to ‘serve both God and mammon’ (Matthew 6:24) was obliterated by the freedom that came from a life ordered with Christ alone as my head.

During a time when my classmates were deep in their isolated woes, I was surrounded by authentic friendship and the grace of the sacraments at the Newman House. I soon became the New Evangelization Minister on the Servant Leader Team, giving me VIP access to biweekly meetings with Chris Hitzelberger. Chris guided me as I wrestled with a heart consumed by apostolic zeal on a campus that was shut in and far from God. One day, presented with either plans of attack or wails of discouragement, Chris reminded me that the best thing I could do for our Virginia Tech student body (or, really, any apostolate) was not a program or event but to simply be a saint. Upon graduation, I moved to Belize to work with the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) Missionary Volunteers where the simple sanctity of the present continued to fill me with peace and freedom. Even when faced with challenges unlike any I had experienced before, the lessons I learned at the CCM to stay close to the sacraments, prioritize authentic friendship, and above all, strive for sainthood carried me through trials and into a life filled with more love than I ever thought possible. I hold onto these truths as I face my greatest challenge yet: leaving behind the days of driving a truck full of students and friends through the jungle and instead driving within a sea of hurry and pretension in Northern Virginia traffic. While I wish two years in Central America would turn into a lifetime, he has currently led me to a small nonprofit called Contigo where I still aspire to live the life of a missionary, serving the youths of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church. I am overwhelmed with gratitude when I think about how God used the CCM@VT to fill me with the tools I needed to live a life of abundance even while sitting in NOVA traffic. Please pray with me that our CCM will continue to form the saints this world so desperately needs. It begins with you and me.

Natalie, second from the top left, with her college bible study.