Alma Mater

Tomorrow I return to my alma mater, the Franciscan University of Steubenville. As soon as I tendered my future resignation to Padre he told me right away to start looking for someone to replace me. And of course I would love for it to be someone from where I come from! So off I go to Steubenville to recruit at their career fair. In a way it's like Divine Providence that this all happened just in time to book a flight and a booth at the career fair.


I'm very excited to go back to Franciscan but I'm also nervous! I'm nervous because this just seems so grown up. I mean, it was only three years ago that I was attending the same career fair in hopes of finding a job (which I didn't). And now I'm returning, not as a perspective employee again, but as the EMPLOYER! How grown up is that? I'm not ready. But I guess I will be. I'm also hoping to be able to conduct some preliminary interviews with some of the students who are interested. Again, I can't believe that I have now become the interviewer. I'm also a bit nervous just because I don't know that many people there anymore. All my friends have graduated by now and the freshman from when I was a senior would now be seniors but I'm not realizing I didn't know very many of them.


Now onto what I'm excited about. I get to see some household sisters! At Franciscan instead of having fraternities and sororities (although there were a couple) we had the household system. Households are pretty similar to fraternities/sororities and yet totally different at the same time. My household is called Totus Tuus Maria (Latin for Totally Yours Mary... I'll go more into that in a later post) and at the time I graduated we had around 50 active sisters. These are sisters that I shared meals with, prayed with, laughed with, played sports with, lived with and did so many other things. My sisters and household community life is definitely one of the things I miss the most since graduating. So I am so excited to see the sisters who are still in the area! In fact I get to stay with one of them.


Other things I'm excited for:

• Seeing my professors and people I used to work for on campus
• Seeing the renovations they've made since I've been gone, including a brand-new friary for all the TOR priests!
• Going to Mass and being able to worship God "Steubenville-style"
• Seeing a couple of my friends and their families who transferred from Wyoming to the oil fields out east. They're going to drive an hour and a half to see me!
• Having a mini-reunion with four of the people who went to Chile with me the very first time!

Okay, now that I write out this list I am definitely more excited than nervous. Please pray that God will provide some really great candidates who want to move to Wyoming and work in our parish!