Since graduating from the CSTM I have had the opportunity to be a youth minister at a parish, a resident minister at a college and I am currently working as a biology teacher and the Director of Christian Service at St. Augustine High School, an all-boys Catholic school in San Diego.
While I did not anticipate becoming a high school teacher, I am grateful for the journey that led me here and I have found this ministry to be extremely fulfilling. I first experienced a pull to ministry in my time as an undergraduate at the University of San Diego. I was involved in liturgical ministry, service and justice groups and I had some wonderful mentors who were campus ministers. I felt called to pursue a vocation in which I could minister to young people in a similar way.
After college I spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Scranton, PA working as a food pantry assistant. Working in social services that year gave me insight into the lives of those on the margins and I knew that in ministry I wanted to facilitate encounters between young people of privilege and those on the margins. This desire is what led me to the CSTM.
I appreciated the practical approach that the Masters in Theology and Ministry offered. As a student at the CSTM, I focused my coursework on topics such as ministering to youth and young adults, the various traditions of Catholic education, human sexuality, liberation theology, pastoral care and counseling, among others. I also gained practical experience through an assistantship at the BC Volunteer & Service Learning Center, an internship in campus ministry at Emmanuel College in Fenway and as a volunteer Confirmation teacher at St. Ignatius parish.
These experiences helped me develop skills such as spiritual companionship, curriculum development and event coordination that I utilize daily as I accompany students in their day-to-day high school experience and organize opportunities for them to get involved in service to their communities. Some of my favorite days at school are the days I get to take a van full of students to a homeless outreach center in downtown San Diego. While we are there, we prepare and serve a meal, and then reflect on the encounters we had and how we work for justice for those on the margins. It is encouraging to see a students’ perspective on a social issue change in just one day, once they have encountered a person living the reality of homelessness.
At the CSTM I also had the opportunity to mentor an Arrupe Immersion group in Nicaragua and an CSTM delegation in El Salvador and both of those experiences gave me tools that I use to facilitate experiences for students in the U.S./Mexico border here in San Diego. The Augustianian order that runs our school sponsors an orphanage in Tijuana, so each month we take a group of students to the orphanage to spend time playing with the kids and building relationships with them. Some of our students will attend these trips nearly every month to visit the kids with whom they have formed meaningful relationships. Accompanying students in these capacities is so rewarding and I’m grateful for the holistic formation I received at the CSTM that led me to this work!