In My Shoes: Young Catholic Professionals: Encourage One Another

Last night I went to an event hosted by Young Catholic Professionals with some friends. I was interested in the speaker because he is the Vice President at Goodwill and this thrifty gal wanted to hear what he had to say on the subject of being Christian at work. The evening is organized in a way that promotes networking among young adults for the first hour. There’s wine, appetizers and a warm environment to get young adults talking about faith and to foster godly friendships. I am an introvert so usually networking events are not something that I enjoy nor am I likely to do much socializing. Small talk kills me- I just have no idea how to keep it going. Thus, I usually go with a friend and I am most likely to remain by her side. Last night, however I was able to do a little bit of mingling and by mingling I mean I found a person outside of my comfort group to have a great conversation with. Father Bartus – yes, I spent most of my night having the best conversation with a priest (smile). We both talked about our conversion stories and about the style that we most enjoy worshiping God. I think I spoke about him before, he’s the priest that converted from the Anglican tradition along with more than half of his congregation. Last night he gave me the details of his conversion going from agnostic, to various Christian denominations, to finally finding his home in the Catholic Church. He shared how he took his congregation with him in this faith journey (studying the church fathers) and how together they discovered the one true church. He shared about the unique way his parish community celebrates the Eucharist and invited me to attend. He also explained something that I have long wondered like why in some traditional Eucharistic celebrations the priest faces the altar not the community. I learned that when a priest faces the altar it’s a gesture to help the faithful focus on God. It helps people in the pews change their point of focus from priest to God. I found that really interesting, so am hoping when I get a break from my RCIA classes I will attend Mass where he presides. Though he joked that services are in old English and not Spanish (LOL). It’s such a blessing finding priests that are so inviting and accessible. Father Bartus is doing a lot of great things with the young community and I love attending the events he creates.

The speaker was great too, even though he didn’t really talk about his work with Goodwill. His talk challenged us to not be afraid to practice our faith in the workplace. After all Catholicism is a twenty-four-hour vocation not a religion to be practiced only in the privacy of our homes. We must always be people of honest character never deceiving even if it brings us trouble and unpopularity. We must be people of high moral character unafraid to stand for our values while at the same time loving others who differ from our views. He encouraged us to be the light of world and gave us some great tips to follow in our places of work.

The combination of talking with Father and listening to the speaker strengthen my faith and by end of the night I was feeling pretty motivated. I have learned that in order to continue our conversion we need to feed the light that God lit in us at our baptism by being around godly people because Catholicism will always be about community. We can’t be Christian alone nor become saints by ourselves.