So Many Catholics…

Back to my Catholic church relationship…Are you rolling your eyes?

As you know, I work for a small Catholic non-profit. We provide tuition assistance for underserved families that want to have their children in a Catholic school but cannot afford it. The main funds come from an organization called Catholic Education Foundation. Then, in cases where we can help, we try to give assistance to those families in our program.

That being said, I love what I do and I love seeing the success stories, which are not always the case. Sometimes, even with the financial support, these kids don’t always get to the finish line. Often, there are too many struggles at home and at school. We have resources like testing for learning issues, tutoring and counseling for students and parents. Even with these resources, some kids just can’t make it. However, there are many great kids that do succeed and it is great to be a small part of that success.

Over the years, Catholic schools have become out of reach financially for many (maybe even most) families. For those of you who were fortunate to have a Catholic education, you know the sacrifices your parents made for you and as an adult, you appreciate it I’m sure.

Tonight, I attended a fundraising event celebrating ten or so successful Catholic alumni. As a non-profit that partners with the Catholic Education Foundation (hosts of the event), we were invited as guests to enjoy the evening.

The hotel ballroom was full of Catholic educators, priests, nuns, employees, friends of the honorees, and students from a variety of schools that represented several success stories. There were 1,200 guests in attendance. I’m not sure, but the price is high…I mean really high, to attend this catered dinner. So, being one to not miss a party, I attended.

I wasn’t really excited as the temperature had dropped, it’s my day off, and I had a doctor’s appointment this morning and took Mom to an appointment this afternoon, so I was second-guessing my decision to go.

My plan was to go, have a cocktail or two, eat dinner (think rubber chicken!), listen to the speaker and watch the nephew of a friend be honored. Then, I’d sneak out!

Well, from the minute I walked in, and grabbed my cocktail, I was seeing so many familiar faces and new faces that were connected to me somehow! Afterall, just like other cities, Louisville and its Catholic schools provide a connection to just about everyone you know.

I traveled in the elevator with a good friend of my parents and her sister. When I walked into the bar area, I ran into my co-worker and her husband. Then, I was randomly at a cocktail table with other people connected to the honoree that I knew, and they knew the Marcellino name…In fact, the woman whom I had just met said, “Weren’t the Marcellino’s a big name at Ascension?” I chuckled and said, “Well, if you call being a member of the first, first grade class, and having a parent helping to paint classrooms the week before the school opened, then yes! Marcellino was a big name at Ascension!” My Mom was the Music Director, my brothers were servers & musicians, my Dad was a lector, Eucharistic Minister, church decorator, my sister and I were in the choirs, parish counsel member, and anything else they needed! After all, we helped open the school! Those were years that I remember fondly.

I loved meeting these people and I continued to make connections to Ascension (my grade school), the honoree’s family, and enjoyed the company of many of our tutors at Community Catholic Center.

When I entered the massive room, I discovered that my table was located in the front row, in the corner, which was fine with me, but finding table 22 in a room with rows of tables was not easy.

We were seated with some delightful people that we connected with right away. They were involved in one of our partner schools and we shared good conversation.

The dinner was a huge surprise…not rubber chicken at all! It was a delicious chunk of beef (huge!) and a glazed salmon. Way too much food, but actually, delightful! I was pleasantly surprised that unlike last year, the bar was free, there was wine on the table and yes, the meal was delicious!

Then, the young handsome priest, who was the keynote speaker, spoke! He was fantastic! He had traveled from Deluth to speak and he had the audience listening to his every word. He works with the youth of his diocese and I’m sure they have an active young/young adult ministry because he is dynamic!

He spoke well. He spoke of how all of the honorees had truly given credit to their Catholic education and their parents and teachers for their support. I was interested in following up on a few things that he mentioned. He has a podcast called The Bible in a Year. You know how Catholics do not really read the bible, well this sounded like something even I could do.

The Catholic Church needs someone like him to serve all of the young people who have become disenchanted with their faith. I’m not ready to re-commit at this point, but there is something to be said about a room full of Catholics. This dinner alone brought in over $1.5 million dollars to be used for Catholic tuition.

I’m not totally sure why I felt the need to write about this. Perhaps it was something I really didn’t want to do, but I did it. Perhaps it was being invited as a “seat filler” and I was pleasantly surprised that the evening was enjoyable. The keynote speaker was animated and easy on the eyes (yikes…did I just say that about a priest?). Perhaps, I just needed it.

I left early, with no Catholic guilt and I decided to share the info about Fr. Mike Schmitz and his podcast! If you want to check it out, feel free to do so with this link below.

https://podcasts.apple.com/qa/podcast/the-bible-in-a-year-with-fr-mike-schmitz/id1539568321

See you next week!!! oxoxox