On Monday, October 12th at 7:00 p.m. EDT, the Saint Benedict Institute will co-sponsor "A Frame for Freedom: Submitting to Truth as Creatures of the Creator," a live streamed conversation with Dr. David P. Deavel. Hope College's Markets & Morality student organization will host this webinar.
This event is free and open to the public. Please register to receive log-in information at: https://forms.gle/9DCvFFmeqJmhsUVv6.
In today's society, there is very little instruction about how to navigate the world of love and romance. Saint Benedict Institute co-founders Jack Mulder and Jared Ortiz invite current Hope College students to join them for a two-week Saint Benedict Seminar on Zoom, “Courtship, Marriage, and Sex.” Jared Ortiz (Religion) and his wife Rhonda Ortiz (author) will lead the first seminar on courtship. Jack Mulder (Philosophy) and his wife Melissa Mulder (Spanish) will lead the second seminar on marriage and sex.
Week 1 (Oct. 22): “What is Courtship?” with Jared and Rhonda Ortiz - Sign up here.
Week 2 (Oct. 29): “Sex and Theology of the Body” with Jack and Melissa Mulder - Sign up here.
Join us at 7 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, October 1st as we cosponsor a Zoom webinar with the Lumen Christi Institute. Dr. Erin Walsh will present “Expanding the Archive: Syriac Literature and the Study of Early Christianity Today,” a lecture in the fall webinar series Eastern Catholic Theology in Action.
Join us at 7 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 24th as we cosponsor a Zoom webinar with Father Alexander M. Laschuk who will present “Eastern Churches, Latin Territories: Ecclesial Catholicity and the Notion of Diaspora,” a lecture in the fall webinar series Eastern Catholic Theology in Action.
Join us at 7 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 17th as we cosponsor a Zoom webinar with Professor Robin Darling Young on “Christ the Lover of Mankind: Philanthropia, Mystery, and Martyria in Eastern Christianity.” This lecture is part of the fall webinar series Eastern Catholic Theology in Action.
Join us at 7 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 10th as we cosponsor a Zoom webinar with Dr. Andrew Hayes. Dr. Hayes will present “A Theology of Wonder: An Introduction to the Poetry of Ephrem the Syrian,” the second installment of the fall webinar series Eastern Catholic Theology in Action.
On Sunday August 16, 2020, Hope College alumnus Jacob Mazur-Batistoni (‘20) was vested in the habit of St. Dominic and began his Novitiate with the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Albert the Great.
We look forward to cosponsoring an “Introduction to Liturgical Mystagogy” presented by Dr. Daniel Galadza at 8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 3. This Zoom presentation is the first event in the fall webinar series Eastern Catholic Theology in Action. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this series.
We asked some of our students to reflect on their experience of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each month this summer we will share one of those reflections with you.
My house is a place that I typically dread; I tend to feel separated from faith when I am removed from my campus community. Naturally, I became nervous as the time of my departure from school drew nearer. The executive order that lasted until April 13 only contributed to this feeling. However, one fact of my faith was abundantly clear to me: Jesus is my eternal peace and comfort, and so I prayed for a sense of His presence in a place where I have historically hardly felt it. Amidst the chaos of the world, the Lord provided what I needed. By His grace, I experienced solitude instead of isolation. It was here in this place full of so many bad memories of pain and sin that He spoke. In this time of quarantine, the Holy Spirit led me through difficult but necessary conversations with my parents which led to internal suffering, but that suffering has become redemptive, allowing me to grow closer to Jesus.
Continuing spiritual direction with Fr. Nick has helped me to take my first steps in praying to the saints, and praying lectio divina daily has fed me with the Word of God. Abundant fruits have been borne in the house that I associated more with anxiety regarding pain and haunting remembrance of past sins than I did with faith. I cannot attribute these graces to anything other than God’s providence.
Kamaron Wilcox is a junior at Hope College. He is majoring in Physics and Math with a minor in Religion and is a member of the diving team.
Welcome to all Hope College students, faculty, and staff! We are excited that you are here and look forward to seeing you all on campus as we kick off another school year.
The work of the Saint Benedict Institute is centered around the intellectual and spiritual growth of Hope’s Catholic students. We are a ministry of St. Francis de Sales Parish.
The two people you are most likely to run into at Hope College are our Catholic chaplain, Fr. Nick Monco, and Carly McShane, our campus missionary. Learn more about the Saint Benedict Institute staff here.
There are also a large number of Catholic faculty and staff. Dr. Jared Ortiz and Dr. Jack Mulder are two of the professors who founded the Saint Benedict Institute. We all work closely with the student group Hope Catholics.
Carly McShane, Campus Missionary
Fr. Nick Monco, Chaplain
Due to COVID restrictions, we are not able to gather for Mass on campus as we usually do. Still, Fr. Nick will offer Mass on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12:05pm and Tuesday and Thursday at 11:05am. The schedule and location for daily Mass is still being discussed and may change as the semester goes on.
Also, in Schoon Chapel in the basement of Graves Hall, you can visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament any time. It is a Catholic chapel that is always open for private prayer (and in normal times, the place where we hold daily Mass).
We will still hold regular confession times, prayer groups, and Bible Studies. The schedule here will be updated in the coming days; watch your email for updates.
You are also welcome to attend services at the local Catholic parish; see more information here.
The architectural plans for the transformation of Schoon Chapel into the Saint Anne’s Oratory are complete. The final “look” is impressive. Unfortunately, work stoppages imposed by the COVID quarantine have forced us to postpone the construction phase one year. The new schedule has construction beginning and ending during the summer of 2021.
During the finalization of plans, we confirmed that the seating capacity of the chapel could be expanded as much as 50% by moving the back wall several feet. It is a load-bearing wall, and this change along with other details that were not part of the original estimate have given us a more complete picture of final expenses. Thankfully, the special gift which we received last Fall still covers nearly 2/3 of all expenses. This next year we will be raising funds to cover the last $100,000.
Amanda working on St. Anne.
COVID disruptions also meant that the iconographer we asked to create 8 original icons for the chapel couldn’t get the materials she needed to start her work. However, new baseboards have arrived from the Ukraine, and this part of the project is moving forward again. It is hoped that most, if not all of the icons will be ready by next summer.
Two recent Hope graduates were received into full communion with the Catholic Church this past May. Each of them shared their thoughts regarding their reception into the Church several weeks before it took place.
It has been several weeks since the coronavirus interrupted normalcy, and I am surely not alone in confessing that I would prefer an abrupt end to the current stay-at-home lifestyle. I’m also probably not alone in admitting that if I were God, there would not be a pandemic. I would have snapped my glorious fingers by now and the world would be healed. At a time like this, however, I must remind myself that it is a good thing that God is God and I am me. I must also remind myself that the Lord works everything together for the good of those who love Him.
This Easter season was set to bring unprecedented paschal celebration. I was scheduled to receive my First Communion on April 19th. I had been contemplating the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist in anticipation of this occasion. My hopes were high. What made it even sweeter was that I was entering the Church with one of my closest friends, and another dear friend was to be my sponsor. Because of the virus, this magnificent supper was postponed until Pentecost.
It is easy to look back and pout; the Lord did not give me what I wanted! I wanted a celebration, and I am instead receiving an invitation to grow in patience—probably the least exciting virtue to grow in. I have to trust that the situation I am in now is the very situation in which Christ is working all things together for my good.
During this time I have been developing a deeper passion for the crucifixion through an incipient love for the Mother of God. As a former non-Catholic believer, I have never opened myself to the gift of spiritual relationship with Mary. By diving into this gift, I have been preparing for the day when I get to consume the body and blood of my savior. I also have had the opportunity to read an incredible book called The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn. This book completely altered my perspective of the Mass, and it is wild to think that I almost received the sacrament of Confirmation without this new perspective.
Brenner Wallace graduated from Hope College this May with a degree in Secondary Education. He recently moved to Memphis, TN to pursue a Masters of Urban Education with the Memphis Teacher Residency program.
This season has been a season of waiting for many of us. I quickly realized, once everything shut down and graduation was upon me, that my life was always forward looking. I was so quick to embark on the next school year, the next job, the next day, whatever it was, that I often neglected, even loathed, the present. Ever since I turned in my last exam, I’ve been feeling like I’m staring at the world for the first time. I knew it was coming, but now it’s here, and the Lord has been teaching me a lot through it all, especially patience.
I decided during this past semester, through much prayer, discernment, and spiritual direction, to join the Catholic Church. Confirmation was supposed to be on April 19th, and here I am, still in a state of waiting; we’re all waiting and fasting. Many of you long to return to the Mass and I share your sentiments. (I miss Mass and I’m not even Catholic yet!) Having my first confession heard but being without the Eucharist is not the most encouraging Sacramental scenario to be in, but there is certainly good fruit to be had from these times for all of us.
Between joining the Church, graduating, saying goodbye to lifelong friends, starting new jobs, and living with new friends, my life is full of the temptation to be impatient. I’ve been praying for the grace to be patient, to be present, and to maintain inner peace at all times, no matter how mundane my season of waiting might be, or how excited I am for the next stage of my journey to unfold.
“Patience obtains all things.” -St. Teresa of Avila
Micah Stilwell is a Holland native who graduated from Hope this May with a degree in Business. He recently took a position with Hudsonville Ice Cream.
