That is why we both knew she would be the perfect fit to write about the benefits of a Catholic college education. She has seen it firsthand, in addition to being a key part of providing such an environment for students.

As many students head back to school this month, we say “thank you” to all those teachers who work tirelessly and have made an impact on the lives of so many students. They are helping to shape our future.

When confronted with her husband’s death, this woman turned to art journaling for comfort.

On Good Friday of 2018, the bottom fell out of my world when my husband, Bill, learned he had late-stage abdominal cancer. We’d been doctoring the previous nine months for a variety of symptoms—chiefly insomnia and an unsteady gait. His primary care doctor had ruled out cancer and other possible illnesses. Finally, back pain brought him to the ER where a scan revealed a “large suspicious mass around his vena cava.” Subsequent biopsies and scans in the next few days showed that the cancer had spread to his liver, lungs, and other internal organs. Because he’d felt no abdominal pain till now, all the specialists had missed it. At 74, Bill had at best six months to live. Chemotherapy might buy him a few more months, but it carried risks as well.

Bill and I had long ago signed advance directives for health care. Both his parents had been in hospice care during the last few weeks of their lives and wished they’d chosen it sooner because it was so much more humane than conventional medical treatment. Bill did not hesitate to accept this was the end of his life. “I’ve had a good life. I’m tired of being miserable. I’m done,” he insisted. We called hospice three days after the diagnosis.

Adjusting to a Transition

It was as if Bill had used up all his fighting spirit trying to stay active the past nine months. Before retirement, he’d owned a home inspection business that took him all over Cincinnati; he could navigate over 70 zip codes and understood houses from top to bottom. He was also a gifted carpenter who remodeled our kitchen and improved nearly every other room; he’d built a two-story (6-by-18 feet) playset in our backyard that was still sturdy decades later. In retirement he’d been busy as a community volunteer and activist in local politics. But nine months of insomnia drained all his energy.

Once Bill decided on hospice, he never left our home. Almost immediately, he lost the ability to walk unaided. Soon, he was no longer able to dress or bathe himself, or even to transfer from our bed to a wheelchair without my help. He was at risk for falling, so someone needed to be within earshot every moment of the day and night. At first, I was completely disoriented by the changes in my husband. With his can-do spirit and goofy sense of humor, he’d been my rock through decades of our happy marriage. Now it was time for me to be his rock.

A book about end-of-life care poses the question: “A year from now, when you look back, how would you like to remember this time of caring for your loved one?” I wanted to honor his wishes to stay at home and be cared for by family. Four of our five adult kids and their families lived nearby; I figured among us we could do whatever it took to make Bill’s remaining time as calm and comfortable as possible.

And in fact, I found within me an unstoppable river of love. I learned to manage his various, ever-changing medications. I found the physical strength to turn and lift and transfer him to a chair or bed when needed. I learned how to work with Bill’s near-falls and how to ease family tensions. (How much time should the grandkids spend with him? Who would give me breaks from caregiving? Would he receive better care in a nursing facility?) In the midst of turmoil, I tapped into more patience than I ever dreamed I had—sometimes when it was 3 a.m. and he needed help to the bathroom yet again, I got testy. But for the most part, I felt more love for Bill than ever before, and I was able to stay grounded in my best intentions. We even found things to joke about.

Finding Solace in Art

As the weeks went by, I realized I needed occasional breaks to keep up my own strength. I hired a home health aide to come four hours every Wednesday so I could continue attending my weekly art journaling class at a church-sponsored community center. It was a relief to drive to another part of town to be with a dozen strangers who knew nothing about Bill’s cancer. For three hours every week, I lost myself in color and texture as I experimented with watercolors, collage, lettering, and more. Teacher and accomplished abstract painter Barb Smucker has a rare talent for helping all us rookies believe we are artists too. She once called the art journal a “kitchen table for the soul”: a mixed-media sketchbook where we could capture daily impressions and emotions with images.

Every week Barb set out a glorious array of art supplies. She’d introduce a particular technique, offer a poem as a prompt, turn on music, and then set us free for “studio time.” No grades, no fixed assignments, no critiques. As we worked, she’d move from table to table, offering encouragement. Her smiling, caring demeanor made us eager to share our artwork with the group. Every Wednesday, I returned home refreshed for another week of caregiving.

Even better, I started projects in class that gained momentum through my week. It was as if Barb had unlocked a long-neglected room in my mind, one that was sunny and spacious, a room where I could retreat during spare moments when Bill slept. I’d recently reread Little Women, which draws heavily on Pilgrim’s Progress, so I decided to read that classic allegory as well.

Written by John Bunyan while he was imprisoned in the 1500s, Pilgrim’s Progress tells of the main character’s journey from the City of Destruction (his selfish, worldly life) to the Celestial City (joyful union with God), and of the many challenges, setbacks, and stopovers along the way. Although the book has fallen out of fashion, it was extremely popular for over 300 years as a self-help guide for Christians.

I decided to use my art journal to complete several journal pages based on Pilgrim’s Progress. One drawing showed a figure of Everyman looking across a hilly landscape to a distant range of mountains resembling the Celestial City. Another showed many tiny figures climbing uphill around boulders toward an alpine meadow that they could not yet see because of rain and cloud cover. To this drawing, I added text: “We can expect storms & boulders on our climb to Eternity.”

It was a welcome diversion to figure out how to capture my ideas on paper, using paints, colored pencils, and collage. Which medium would work best to make the mountains? How could I show the cloud cover? The art journal was small and required simple materials that were easy to keep handy on our dining room table. It became a portable studio that I could take anywhere in the house and still be available for Bill.

A Path to Deeper Insight

My art journal became far more than a diversion. It allowed me to create a visible frame of reference for Bill’s and my struggle with cancer. His body was caught up in an inner battle against disease that took all his energy, and I was fighting hard to find ways to care for him without totally exhausting myself. I already believed in eternal life, but my drawings of the Celestial City let me sense it more viscerally. They helped me believe that our sorrow and struggles had meaning, that both of us were ultimately headed toward a joyful place. Even when others were saying, “It’s so unfair,” or “It’s such a tragedy,” I was able to see Bill’s dying as a normal part of life, one that had spiritual potential and was full of opportunities for deeper love.

Bill had never been a religious person—he stonewalled the hospice chaplain and said to me: “He won’t make me religious! Don’t let him come back!” But as time went by, he softened. When I offered to pray over him, he no longer resisted. Holding his hand, I often prayed aloud for him to experience God’s love and to be released from his damaged body. His depression lifted some. My adult son and a neighbor also prayed with Bill.

Over time I kept adding to my art journal. Besides the Pilgrim drawings, I included sketches of Bill and other loved ones. I illustrated the nature poems Barb brought each week. I hand-lettered and illustrated various quotations that inspired hope. I called it my “noticing journal” because it really did help me to notice what was going on with me and Bill, and to notice the natural beauty of springtime unfolding in our backyard. The journal made me more attentive to our daily life together, as well as better able to imagine how our journey might fit into a larger story, a story of hope far larger than the awful cancer symptoms. Because it was filled with images, not just words, the journal was easy to share with visitors who asked how I was doing.

Enduring Love

As the weeks passed, Bill grew so weak that he could no longer speak clearly. We ordered a hospital bed and placed it by a picture window where he could see the treetops and sky. When our hospice nurse made her weekly visit, she commented on how peaceful our house was. Although I was often frustrated or exhausted, I did sense an underlying peace in both Bill and me. We were suffering in different ways, yet we appreciated being together so intimately in his last few months. Even when he could communicate only by hand signals and touch, Bill and I had many tender moments—moments I will carry with me always.

Most important, Bill felt safe and valued. He was certain that I would do everything in my power to keep him surrounded by love and free from pain. For example, one evening two adult sons were visiting Bill while I dashed to the grocery store. My cell phone rang. “Dad’s in pain. He said ‘Call Trudelle. She’ll know what to do.'” I was able to tell him how to make Bill more comfortable as well as which medicine to give him. By the time I got home 20 minutes later, his pain had subsided and he was drifting off to sleep. It meant a great deal to me that Bill trusted me so much.

When he began “actively dying” 11 weeks after his diagnosis, all five adult kids gathered at our house. There had been clashes along the way, but by this time we’d all found reserves of love and acceptance toward Bill and even made some happy new memories. On June 9, he died with us around his hospital bed in our living room.

Now, it’s time for me to buy a new art journal. The one I started before Bill’s illness is full—a precious reminder of all the beautiful and tender moments we shared during his last weeks of bodily life.

It was a five-day road trip put together by my friend Lisa Sharon Harper and her organization, FreedomRoad.us. The purpose was to look at the intersection of theology and economics in the deep history of the American South.

We spent the first day at the Whitney Plantation, about an hour outside New Orleans in St. John the Baptist Parish/County. Established in 1752, the Whitney property was used to grow sugar, rice, and indigo. Like so many similar farms across the South, it was a forced-labor camp, and it now serves as a “museum of slavery.”

Our guide, Dr. Ibrahima Seck, led us on a journey across the property, helping us understand the physical and psychological brutality used to control and terrorize human beings for generations at Whitney.

From there, we traveled several hours west to Sugar Land, Texas, to visit a mass grave. Here nearly a hundred African American convicts—themselves the descendants of slaves—had been worked literally to death in a forced-labor camp. They were rented out by the prison warden to the Imperial Sugar Company, and they died from starvation and exhaustion. They were buried where they dropped.

After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, except for felons. This clause was exploited for decades, into the early 20th century, to continue the practice of slavery by another name.

From Past to Present

On the third day, we traveled to San Antonio to visit the Alamo. Standing in front of it, I realized that the image in my head from the history books was not the fort, but rather the mission church. Along the back wall near the altar was where the “heroes” of the Alamo took their last stand against the Mexican army.

In 1829, Mexico had abolished slavery. Davy Crockett and his compatriots were fighting to free Texas from Mexico in order to guarantee that they could continue to own slaves. They took their last bloody stand for this cause, using a church altar as their shield.

The fourth day found us near the US-Mexico border at the offices of LUPE (La Unión del Pueblo Entero), a farmworker and immigrant rights organization cofounded by César Chávez. The lust for exploitive farm labor that drove the horrors of the Whitney Plantation and the fields of Sugar Land are alive and well on our border. We met and talked with those who work every day to preserve and protect the human dignity of the most vulnerable among us on our borders.

A Wake-Up Call

At dawn on our final morning together, we drove through the endless croplands of McAllen, Texas. As we passed one field, surrounded by a fence, I recalled the words of Leviticus: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not be so thorough that you reap the field to its very edge. . . . These things you shall leave for the poor and the alien. I, the Lord, am your God” (19:9).

Over five days and 1,500 miles, I confronted my inheritance as an American. This is my history—and yours. The Lord commanded that we provide for the poor and the alien among us. Instead, we have stolen their bodies and their labor. We have denied the poor and the alien their dignity and even their lives. We have reaped to the edges, in defiance of the command of the Lord.

I invite you to join me as I repent for this grave sin and as I begin to learn to make amends.

Catholic colleges that are rooted in mission draw students who want to put their faith into action while they learn.

Four years ago, Rebecca DeBurger, a college freshman, sat in her Common Ground class at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, “surrounded by all new faces, each asking the same question: ‘What is the point of this class?'” Unlike many of her classmates, it didn’t take her long to figure it out.

“As the semester progressed, we were confronted with ethical dilemmas, exposed to the harsh realities that immigrants face on their journey to the United States, and debated about the impact and inhumanity of imposing the death penalty,” she remembers.

The course changed DeBurger’s life. “I had never felt so small,” she continues. “I began to realize and appreciate that people all over the world and in my backyard face similar life and death decisions daily. I was beginning to put myself in the shoes of others, one class at a time.”

As her professor, I had no idea how this required class was affecting her. A few years earlier, I had helped craft our university’s liberal arts curriculum around the theme of “the common good” and chaired the group, creating the first-year course, Common Ground, as an expression of our mission. Reading student evaluations at the end of the first semester, I realized that many students might not “get it” until years later. Nevertheless, at Mount St. Joseph (the Mount), one of many Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States, we remain committed to this core curriculum and to our mission.

Although public and secular private institutions have much to offer in the way of curriculum, athletics, and professional preparation, Catholic universities cluster similar opportunities around a mission rooted in Catholic identity and the graces and gifts of their founders. What they offer is a values-driven, cohesive educational experience.

Catholic institutions of higher education are focusing on mission and identifying ways that faculty and staff can carry on the vision of their founders, acknowledging the decreasing presence of priests, religious sisters, and brothers on campus. These days, mission is not only a Catholic university concern. Hospitals have missions, as do automakers and fast-food chains. If you work for Nike, for example, you strive “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

For Catholic colleges, the mission statement answers the questions “Who are you?” and “How does this make you as a college different?” explains Sister Karen Elliott, CPPS, director of mission education at the Mount. The words of any mission statement, she contends, are important. “The mission is what we hope to be. Even though we may fall short, we are striving for the fullness of the statement,” she says.

In that mission statement, we acknowledge that we are “a Catholic academic community grounded in the spiritual values and vision of its founders, the Sisters of Charity” of Cincinnati. Although the Mount is a separate entity from this religious order, our values flow from their charism.

According to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), 90 percent of the nearly 200 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States were founded by religious orders. Many are deliberate about staying in touch with their founders’ visions.

The word charism comes from the Hebrew word nefesh, according to Sister Karen. “It’s hard to find a good translation. It’s your essence, the totality of who you are,” she says. “It’s a passion given to a group of people by the Holy Spirit to do what you have to do. When God enters the occasion, it takes you deeper than you would have been on your own.”

Solid Values

For the academic community at Villanova University near Philadelphia, the charism flows from the Augustinians, according to an article in the 2017 issue of its Heart of the Matter magazine, an annual publication from the Office for Mission and Ministry.

Father Peter Donohue, OSA, as he began his term as president of the university, “recalled that the ‘Augustinian principles of Veritas, Unitas, and Caritas (Truth, Unity, and Love) are the foundation upon which the Irish friars formed Villanova,’ that they remain ‘the ideals that continue to challenge us today, and . . . that will propel us into the future.’

“‘Every decision we make,’ he suggested, is to ‘be framed within these values.’ To avoid being ‘simply words we speak’ or allowed to become some historical artifact ‘engraved on a seal,’ he directed the community to take them into our hands [as clay] and ‘knead them into all that we do.'”

Like the president of Villanova, administrators at other Catholic universities embrace their school’s specific mission. At the Mount, our president, Dr. H. James Williams, makes it clear from his frequent acknowledgment of the Sisters of Charity that he understands how essential their charism is to the identity of our academic community. In speeches and e-mails, he frequently quotes a line from the Sisters of Charity charism statement: “As pilgrims, we pray for the wisdom to know the needs of our sisters and brothers and we dare to risk a caring response.”

But beyond his words, Williams and his leadership team are putting money behind the mission. This year, the Mount announced that 10 incoming freshmen had been named mission ambassadors for the university. These students receive $1,000 a semester, renewable for four years as long as they support the work of campus ministry. Recipients “will serve as leaders of interfaith prayer, assist with student retreat experiences, serve as prayer leaders for our athletic teams, engage in service activities, and assume leadership for other campus ministry events.”

Making Mission Real

While not every Catholic campus has designated mission ambassadors, it’s a goal of administrators overseeing student life at Catholic colleges to embed the mission into decisions affecting students. That’s the hope of Dr. Doug Frizzell, vice president for student life at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. A convert to Catholicism while he was in college before coming to Duquesne in July 2015, he worked at three universities, each affiliated with a religious denomination.

It was when working at a Lutheran college that he felt compelled to “give back to Catholicism,” a decision that led to 15 years at a small Catholic college, then to Duquesne. Frizzell believes that “the mission gives you guidance so that people know who you are.”

Working with Duquesne staff in three centers at the university, Frizzell constantly reminds them to focus on the well-being of Duquesne’s students. His mantra is, “We serve God by serving students so they, in turn, can serve others.”

Integrating the mission into student activities is sometimes a balancing act, he says, recounting an incident a year ago when he intervened with a fraternity to cancel a concert that had already been cleared through other channels before it was brought to his attention.

“The lyrics of the band’s music were inappropriate,” he says. “The students had already put a deposit on the venue and the band, so they were not happy when I told them it would be canceled.”

His conversation with fraternity leaders revolved around a question used as a litmus test at his university for mission fit: “Is it Duquesne-able?” The students agreed this event was not, and they were satisfied when Frizzell’s office reimbursed them for deposits that had not been refunded.

Not all students have to be educated about the value of a mission. Some students enroll in Catholic colleges already in touch with it even though they cannot yet articulate it.

Making a Difference

This was true for Hattie Frana, a 2019 graduate of Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. Founded by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), Clarke states on its website that its outcomes for student learning “are grounded in a Catholic vision of education, particularly as we express it in the BVM core values of freedom, education, charity, and justice.”

For Frana, these values reinforced what her parents had emphasized over the years: “Help those who can’t help themselves.” With dual majors in history and philosophy, she feels prepared for law school at the University of Iowa, where she began this fall. Although she always intended to be a lawyer, it was during her years at Clarke that she zeroed in on immigration and children’s rights law.

She points to several experiences that led her “to discover this passion along the way” while she was at Clarke: a class in modern Latin American history, a local screening of a documentary about the 2008 raid on undocumented workers by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Agri Star slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, and conversations with a high school friend, a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy from the Obama presidency.

She remembers telling her DACA friend, “We need more immigration lawyers. Those attorneys are making a difference.”

While at Clarke, Frana was already making a difference in small ways. She volunteered at a local elementary school through the AmeriCorps Partners in Learning initiative, working with students in primary grades to develop reading fluency. She was also active in Clarke’s PB&J group (Peace, Betterment, and Justice), hosting open discussions on timely topics that promote the common good and initiating service activities beyond the two required annually of all Clarke students.

Community through Liturgy

As active as she was, Frana made sure to take time to strengthen her spiritual life by singing with music ministers at Sunday Masses on campus. Although the congregations at those Masses were “not very big,” every Sunday she felt nourished by the homilies from a young priest “who was so easy to connect to.”

Even though most Catholic universities do not require attendance at Sunday Masses, the impact of sharing in the Eucharist as a music minister or as part of a dynamic congregation can be lasting for college students, leading to a strengthening of religious faith and their commitment to Catholicism.

When my eldest daughter, Katie Barkley Lavelle, began college in August 1999 at Xavier University in Cincinnati, she faced more than the typical challenges of first-year students. She moved into her dorm, knowing that her father, who a month earlier had undergone neurosurgery for an aggressive form of brain cancer, might not have long to live. What a blessing that the 10 p.m. Sunday Mass at Bellarmine Chapel on campus became her primary community, a source of support leading up to her father’s death on October 26, and in the months and years afterward.

“By being able to share that time at Mass each week with some of my classmates outside of the academic setting, I connected with them at a deeper emotional and spiritual level,” Lavelle reflects. “Our 10 p.m. Mass community supported each other through deaths in families, relationship struggles, illness, career decisions, engagements, and more.”

As a spouse anticipating the death of my husband, the father of three daughters all in their teens, I was grateful for the support of Katie’s Xavier family and the bonds she formed through those weekly Masses. When she and Kevin married in 2004, it felt right that the nuptial Mass should be where they had formed such a tight community, Bellarmine Chapel, and that the celebrant would be a Jesuit who had been the dean of Kevin’s college, with whom he and Katie had forged a deep friendship.

Walking her down the aisle that July afternoon, I felt the absence of her father, and realized some of the tear-stained faces in the pews acknowledged the same. But there was more joy than sadness in that space because many knew how important that chapel had been to Katie as she grieved her father’s death. Her Catholic university‚ and that sacred place in the middle of campus‚ had been an anchor as she integrated her loss and matured in her faith.

Dealing with the Price Tag

Even if they affirm the value of a mission-centered college, students and parents have to find ways to finance a Catholic college education. That was the experience of Rebecca DeBurger, introduced at the beginning of this article. After her father’s death when she was in high school, “My mom was the only source of income for our family. Having a twin who also wished to attend the Mount meant serious cutbacks at the house. Luckily, we had received a few generous scholarships from high school and a few from the Mount.”

DeBurger’s reliance on financial aid mirrors the experience of many Catholic college students. More than 90 percent of first-year, full-time students in Catholic higher education receive grant aid from the institution, according to the ACCU. Overall, institutional grant aid has increased by 23 percent over the past five years, from $1.4 billion in 2010-11 (in 2015 dollars) to $1.7 billion in 2015 and 16.

Students rarely pay the published tuition at a Catholic college, according to Joseph Smith, chief financial officer at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Although in 2019 Gonzaga’s published tuition and fees were $41,330 per year, that year the average Gonzaga undergraduate student paid $23,109 (tuition and fees less institutional financial aid).

That compares to tuition and fees at neighboring four-year public universities ranging from $7,323 to $11,207, according to Smith.

The choice of a college “is often a very personal decision and financial aid/price is one part of the dynamic,” says Smith. “A prospective student should consider factors such as course of study, majors, research, class size, geography, type of campus, safety, comfort and amenities, mission, legacy, pedagogy, and faith considerations.”

He adds that this choice “should address a more global measure of success, that is to say, where will I have the best chance for short-term (through college) and long-term (in life) success to become the person I hope and aspire to be? And what level of personal investment am I willing to make to that end?”

He quotes Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, former superior general of the Jesuits (the founding order of Gonzaga) in support of this view: “The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become.”

For DeBurger, who she is becoming is intimately linked to her first semester as an undergraduate in her challenging Common Ground course. “I carry Common Ground with me every day as I interact with patients as a future health-care provider. I will work with my patients toward a common goal of improving their health,” she says. “Common Ground is about working to make strides in our community. It is about taking the time to understand the struggles that our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing and influencing legislation together to better the lives of all.”

DeBurger is convinced that “my Catholic education is invaluable and something I will carry with me forever. The education I received from Mount St. Joseph University nourished not only my mind but also my soul.”

A Brief History

A decade after the birth of this nation, the first Catholic college opened in Washington, DC: Georgetown University, founded by Bishop John Carroll. By 1850, nine more permanent Catholic colleges followed, according to Edward J. Power in A History of Catholic Higher Education in the United States: Mt. St. Mary’s (Maryland), St. Louis University, Spring Hill, Xavier (Ohio), Fordham, the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), Holy Cross (Massachusetts), Villanova, and St. Vincent (Pennsylvania). These institutions shared three goals: to prepare men for the seminary, to support Catholic missionary efforts, and to lay a strong moral foundation for young men.

As with most non-Catholic colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries, Catholic colleges did not admit women. The first four-year Catholic college for women, the College of Notre Dame in Maryland, was founded in 1896, according to Power. By 1955, that number had increased to 116.

Today, about 260 institutions of higher education in the United States identify as Catholic, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Serving 891,000 students, most are small to mid-size, with an average enrollment of about 3,550 students and an average annual tuition of $29,532, according to 2017–2018 data.

A Ministry of Music

Bill Brinzer’s commitment to liturgical music began during his first days on the campus of the University of Dayton. His initial impression from a campus tour, that this was a friendly place, was confirmed during a concert, an “icebreaker” for new students. Several upper class students approached freshmen, hoping to recruit musicians for campus choirs. Brinzer and a new friend, both musicians, signed up. He was hooked.

Over his four years at UD, he played piano and guitar at many Sunday Masses: the 10 a.m., which welcomed area residents, and the 10 p.m., “always packed, mostly with students.” Although Brinzer had declared a major in computer science, he also picked up eight semesters of classes in music theory, ear training and dictation. Once he graduated, he returned to his home parish in Pittsburgh to share his talents.

In what he now recalls as a fortunate turn of events, his father “badgered me to help with music at Sacred Heart Parish,” which was in need of good musicians. During his first music practice, he met a flutist, Marguerite Link. Once again, he was hooked‚Äîon this parish’s music ministry, but especially on Marguerite, who would eventually become his wife.

By the time their first child arrived, the couple was living in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighborhood. The first weekend there, with a new baby, they were “just too worn out” to drive to their former parish, and St. Mary of the Mount was just around the corner. Thus began their long association with the music ministry at their current parish, where Brinzer plays guitar, piano, and the pipe organ and Link plays the flute at least two Masses every Sunday.

Despite the addition of three more children to their family, the couple continues their devotion to the St. Mary of the Mount music group. Both are employed outside the home‚ Brinzer full time, as director of engineering with a Pittsburgh company, and Link part time, as a lawyer certified in mediation and collaborative law.

How do they manage to find the time, with children ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years? Every Sunday for the past seven years, they have hired a babysitter to watch them. The couple count her salary as “a financial contribution to the parish.”

“For us, it’s a steady time each week when we can see each other,” says Brinzer. “We both love music. We met through music. And it’s good service to the Church.”

Today, 20 years since graduating from UD, Brinzer says the values he imbibed at UD remain strong. Through classes beyond his major, he came to respect the Catholic intellectual tradition, which reaffirms “that faith and reasons are compatible.”

“I would name the worldview of UD as both Catholic and Marianist,” he says. “They value individual people, and there’s a strong sense of caring there.”

Although Brinzer could not say for certain how his alma mater defines its culture, he has intuited what the UD website confirms: that in the Marianist tradition “the University encourages its members to collaborate in building community and to join in a quest for a more perfect human society.”

What Brinzer remembers about his years in Dayton is that students were encouraged not to be overly competitive, but to be “cooperative and supportive of one another.”

“I learned a lot about true friendship at UD, how to think about and support others,” he says. “And that’s how I live my professional life, too.”

This New York neighborhood, formerly a place of drugs and crime, is making a comeback. Father Jim O’Shea’s entrepreneurial movement has been instrumental in its recovery.

By his own description, Efrain Hernandez was “a terror” growing up in a single-parent home in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of New York City. He did what he wanted to do and drifted into selling drugs to have some money in his pocket. Eventually, Hernandez was arrested and spent 18 months in prison.

These days, Hernandez serves as associate director of Reconnect Brooklyn, an entrepreneurial movement of young men in his old neighborhood. How he traveled from where he was then to where he is now is due in large part to one man: Passionist Father Jim O’Shea.

Filling a Need

New Yorkers and others who haven’t visited “Bed-Stuy” since the neighborhood began to gentrify in the past decade may still think of the area as one where selling drugs is the most common type of entry-level employment. Times have changed—a little. And Reconnect Brooklyn can take some credit for helping the neighborhood and its people come out of the shadows. Father O’Shea is the cofounder and executive director of Reconnect Brooklyn. He describes it as a neighborhood movement that offers an opportunity for young men to access employment and learn how to work at one of several businesses Reconnect Brooklyn has started since 2014.

Father O’Shea first encountered the neighborhood in 1997, when he was assigned to Our Lady of Montserrat, a church that has since merged with another parish. Drugs and violent crime had taken a toll on Bed-Stuy, and Father O’Shea used his background in social work to develop several initiatives for at-risk youth. “There was nothing for them to do but get into trouble. I saw bad outcomes for good guys,” he says.

One of his early activities was an after-school program where young people could play basketball after they finished their homework. The lanky Father O’Shea was often on the court with the students. One of his first basketball players was Efrain Hernandez.

In 2010, Father O’Shea started the Vernon Avenue project, an organization whose mission was engaging neighborhood youth through entrepreneurship, education, and leadership. “There was no entry-level work, and there were a lot of unprepared young people. You had to imagine there was a place for them in the world,” he says.

The initial idea was to take the skills they knew from selling drugs on the street corner to make money legally and without the deadly consequences. “I hired four or five guys from the corner,” Father O’Shea says. “We grew vegetables in a community garden and sold them at stands outside churches.” They also bought vegetables from a wholesale market to supplement what they produced. “We didn’t make any money,” he recalls with a laugh, “but it was a way to start working on skills.”

Other ideas followed, including a small bakery specializing in fresh cookies. The sweet treats were also sold at local churches and a retreat house. Looking at the parade of young professionals moving into the area, one of the bakers observed that the newcomers would likely want to buy coffee, so Reconnect Café was opened, a first for the neighborhood. Later, a fellow moving out of the area offered to sell his T-shirt printing equipment. Voilà! Reconnect Graphics was born.

Reconnect Brooklyn’s businesses, or social enterprises, “are the schools of formation and connection. Without them, the conversation doesn’t begin,” Father O’Shea says. “It’s not easy to gather people who are socially disconnected.”

High Expectations

In the neighborhood, one-third of the residents live in poverty, only 30 percent of students read at a grade-school level, and the school-to-prison pipeline is well-honed, Father O’Shea says. “It’s a familiar story: Good guys disconnect from school, start doing other things, stay on the streets, and are either locked up or killed.” For a long time, the area was so violent that young men risked being shot if they walked down the wrong block.

Reconnect Brooklyn’s social enterprises are places where people can learn about business and work on themselves at the same time. The process is designed to help access employment and ensure that each participant learns how to work. Father O’Shea says the entrepreneurial businesses distinguish Reconnect Brooklyn from more traditional job-training programs.

Despite the relaxed atmosphere at the businesses, Reconnect Brooklyn’s methods are clear and unambiguous. Groups, or “cohorts,” of seven to 12 young men ages 17-23 begin their three-month experience at the same time. Some have never left the neighborhood; others have served jail time; many are in unstable living situations; most have a lot of stress.

But each participant is expected to arrive punctually at the work site, prepared to start the day, wearing the Reconnect Brooklyn uniform, and not carrying a cell phone. His work is evaluated every week by the manager of the enterprise, and he has a weekly meeting with a social worker, a mentor, and a program director whose focus is education.

The support is critical to get the young men to the next step, which may be further training, employment elsewhere, or school. “We give them their first experience and the opportunity to get their legs steady. They get a lot of attention,” Father O’Shea says.

But the path is rarely straight or smooth. He says it would be unfair and delusional to expect the youth partners to have it all together in three months. “It’s not just a tune-up that is needed. Healing is a lifelong process.”

The young men work 20–25 hours a week at minimum wage. If they arrive late, or in the wrong outfit, they are sent home. “It’s not a game. This is life. You have to work. If you can’t smile and show up on time, you can’t get a job,” Father O’Shea says.

“I say: ‘You guys are creating your own legacy in the neighborhood. This is not Father O’Shea giving you something. You have to figure out how to work with other people, play your part, and actualize yourself.'”

Moving Forward

The educational component of Reconnect Brooklyn helps young men prepare to matriculate at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. It also works closely with Jesuit Worldwide Learning, whose aim is to bring higher education to the margins, in part via online learning.

Reconnect Brooklyn operates on a slim annual budget of approximately $600,000, drawn from the businesses, an annual fund-raising dinner, a municipal contract for wage subsidies, foundation grants, and private donations. The Passionists of St. Paul of the Cross Province have also been generous and supportive, Father O’Shea says. In addition, the Ignatian Volunteer Corps has placed seasoned professionals with Reconnect Brooklyn, including Ron Oberdick, who has been the chief financial officer for five years and also serves as a mentor and tutor. Last year, Reconnect Brooklyn drew on the talents of an intern from the Fordham School of Social Work.

But it is Father O’Shea’s vision and tenacity that have kept Reconnect Brooklyn moving forward. In the early days, he connected with youth through parish-based basketball and church activities. “The church was a nice intersection with people on the margins,” he explains. “But the church is less visible in the community now. The youth have no connection to it and there is no common vocabulary through the church. How do you talk about morality and ethics when people don’t know the Ten Commandments?

“I’m not shy about talking about faith,” he says. “These are children of God, and that’s why I’m here—to help them see that in themselves. The world is drenched with God and signs that remind us of God—Reconnect Brooklyn is one of them.”

A Changing Neighborhood

Efrain Hernandez cofounded Reconnect Brooklyn with Father O’Shea. He is now the associate director and recently joined the organization’s board. He participated in many of Father O’Shea’s activities, including a Skills Academy that taught basketball and teamwork to local teens.

“It was the best thing for me—to sit down and take time to think about what I wanted to do with my life,” he says.

During Hernandez’s incarceration, Father O’Shea visited him twice a month. In the visitors room of the prison at Rikers Island, they developed the idea of Reconnect Brooklyn. “I jumped on board because I believe in the mission,” Hernandez says. It was a good decision because, among other things, “The people I grew up with here are either dead or in prison.”

The neighborhood has changed dramatically since Hernandez was a youth. On the positive side, streets and parks are no longer littered with drug syringes, and the most prominent local crack house is now home to a real estate firm. The success of Reconnect Brooklyn’s trending enterprises is directly related to gentrification, an irony that is not lost on Hernandez. It squeezed out many longtime residents, including Hernandez himself, who now commutes from Manhattan.

“Landlords charge millennials $1,000 a month for an apartment the size of a jail cell,” he explains, and the frequent turnover of tenants bumps the rent to unaffordable levels for everyone. “Old folks and individuals with scarce opportunities feel it the worst. A lot of people are ending up in shelters.” A federally funded housing voucher system provides relief to low-income residents, but many landlords now refuse to participate in the program, he says.

Working and Learning

The group’s first brick-and-mortar business was Reconnect Bakery. It was an upbeat place that provided a learning experience for workers, but it closed after the death of one of its lead organizers.

At the second enterprise, Reconnect Café, a local coffee roaster helped young men learn the business, from ordering products and supplies to serving and cleaning. The café sold coffee, sandwiches, and pastries in a cozy storefront. But plumbing issues elsewhere in the building caused the shop to flood and its ceiling to leak. The café closed for repairs and re-opened several times before Reconnect Brooklyn decided to “cut its losses and move out,” according to Father O’Shea.

Reconnect Graphics was established in 2017. The popular enterprise designs and prints T-shirts for organizations and special events. It shares space with other local nonprofit groups in several stately brownstone buildings.

Reuben Felder and Jaben “Meek” Taylor were in one of the first cohorts at Reconnect Graphics. Felder says that the creative work and quiet space help him with his other interest, writing and performing music. “When I come here, there’s peace, and no one’s arguing with each other. The work’s not hard, but you have to be dedicated and want to get it done,” he says.

Taylor, also an aspiring musical performer, heard about Reconnect Graphics from a fellow member of a local car club. It was an opportunity to pick up a new skill in his quest “to be bigger than what I am now,” he says. After his time with Reconnect, he landed a job in construction.

Reconnect Graphics expanded in 2018. With help from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, it designed and built a pop-up shop for use at the street fairs and festivals that are popular throughout New York City. The shop was decorated by a prominent graffiti artist and features T-shirts and cold brew coffee. There is talk about adding Reconnect Bakery’s popular cookie to the mix too. Hernandez, who formerly managed Reconnect Café, is running the new venture. He is being mentored by someone with sales experience and will eventually mentor others.

“The overall movement is healthy. It was difficult to lose the café, which was our signature enterprise, but we are always responding and looking for opportunities,” Father O’Shea says.

Community Connections

More than 150 young men have come through Reconnect Brooklyn. Many return to check in, share a meal, or ask for help. “That’s the kind of community you want to create—a place where people can come back, be welcomed and taken seriously, and know that someone will care,” Father O’Shea says.

He describes one former worker who subsequently spent two years in jail and was then “dumped in a men’s shelter, a horrible place to be.” He found his way back to Reconnect Brooklyn, where he was welcomed and given money to buy pants for a job interview.

Reconnect Brooklyn has evolved to meet the changing realities of the neighborhood and the young men it serves. But the organization that Father O’Shea says is “built on the richness of relationships” may soon be challenged in a new way: His Passionist colleagues elected Father O’Shea provincial in May 2018. The province includes eastern Canada, the eastern United States, Jamaica, Haiti, and parts of the West Indies. Even as Father O’Shea’s considerable provincial leadership duties draw him away from the day-to-day world of Reconnect Brooklyn, he is confident in the organization and its ability to morph as needed.

“From the start, Reconnect Brooklyn has been doing what it was supposed to do: being a low-to-the-ground connection with young men who are having a difficult time in a difficult neighborhood,” he says. “And if it wasn’t for the Passionists, this would never have started. It has always been a point of pride for the province.”

Father O’Shea is sure the many people invested in Reconnect Brooklyn will advance the group’s straightforward mission. “This is the reality of human growth: You start and stop and figure it out and find better ways,” he says. “And this is what we say about lives too—it’s not about mapping it out, but figuring it out.”

Click here to learn more about Reconnect Brooklyn.

“Make known to me your ways, LORD;
teach me your paths.”
(Psalm 25:4)

It’s no secret in the Heffron family that I was born with an appalling lack of direction—a gene that I, with all due respect, inherited from my mother. Quite the opposite, my father and sister have an uncanny sense of where they are headed: They could find a needle in a haystack. It would be a miracle if Mom and I could find the haystack. Maps, for me, are like antiquated formulas. Driving directions, if not broken down into the simplest forms, are like riddles. Being lost, in the literal sense, has become a sort of pastime for me. Often I find myself, to quote the great Robert Frost, taking “the road less traveled,” but it’s almost always by accident.

When it hits me that I am hopelessly lost, on the road or in my life, I am reminded of a passage in the psalms that has taught me to abandon my fears and sometimes enjoy not knowing where I am going. This bit of biblical wisdom gives me a reason to celebrate being a little off-course.

Guided by Faith

It wasn’t always easy to appreciate the pleasure of being lost. The words of this particular psalm remind me of when, at the age of 5, I wandered from my father in a crowded department sore. Panicked and terrified, I was, in a cruel instant, alone—and scared.

Finding my dad a few minutes later was a relief, but it was in being lost that I really learned something. That’s why I like this long, lovely verse. It isn’t about finding my way. It’s about not knowing where I’m going. It’s about letting go and allowing my faith to guide me. This isn’t always easy. I rely heavily on what my eyes can show me. Many times I feel 5 years old again—panicked, uneasy, and out of sorts. I have often wandered from grace in life’s great big department store, looking for toys or candy. The phrase “teach me your paths” reminds me that I still have a ways to go in the journey.

“Guide me by your fidelity and teach me” shows that an eagerness to learn the path is normal and perhaps even encouraged, but that I will be no wiser for knowing what lies ahead. The spirit, ever watchful, will not mislead me. Rarely do I know where I’m going in this life and that’s O.K. Ignorance has never been this blissful.

With GPS on smartphones and in cars, however, getting lost is getting harder. Relying on our instincts or guidance from a higher power is becoming obsolete. And that’s a shame. After all, you cannot be found if you haven’t been lost.

On the Road Again

I’ve always loved a good mystery. There’s a sense of adventure in not always knowing what’s in store for me. Life didn’t provide a book of instructions or a handy manual to carry in my pocket. I’ll slip. I’ll fail. And I will begin again with hopeful eyes watching the skies. I know that I will never be alone.

I will travel a great many roads in this beautiful but convoluted life. Without a dependable sense of direction, I know it’s a given that I will be navigating strange towns and unfamiliar streets without a clue as to where I am.

Sooner rather than later, I’ll be driving in my car and realize that I am, once again, lost. With a willing heart, all I can do is ignore the chatter of GPS and say, “God, I hope so.”

Understanding Psalm 25

Psalm 25 is an expression of trust and dependence on God’s guidance and mercy. The psalmist acknowledges their own shortcomings but affirms his or her trust in God’s love and faithfulness. Throughout the psalm, there is a sense of humility and recognition of the need for divine guidance in navigating life’s challenges.

The psalm concludes with a prayer for deliverance from troubles and a reaffirmation of hope in God’s goodness. Overall, Psalm 25 encapsulates the human experience of seeking guidance, protection, and redemption.

Next Month: Psalm 27