So I have to apologize for my lack of keeping this updated, engineering has really started to kill most of my free time. This year, while being very stressful, has been a blessing indeed. I have seen friendships grow closer, and I continue to see the hand of God at work in my life. The theme that has been most prevalently revealed to me this past month is community.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to visit some TEC friends up at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. The weekend was a blessing indeed....getting to share time, laughs, and prayers with some very amazing people, as well as getting to meet many incredible people over the course of the weekend. The impact of the weekend did not truly hit me until the car ride home in which I had time to reflect on that has transpired. The feeling I left with was a sense of awe at the aspect of community I had glimpsed. One of the aspects of attending a Jesuit college that I was unaware of was the opportunity to join small groups that met weekly for prayer and to bolster one another in their struggles and celebrate one another's triumphs. This really caused me to take a step back and look at the communities I was a part of : my church back home (St. Mary), my church at K-State (St. Isidore's), knights of columbus, TEC, Pathways, and a few more and I realized just how vital a role these communities had in forming me into the man I am today. It is this sense of community, the catholic (universal) church, that I see becoming more and more evident in the youth and young adults. It is through these communities that we continue to fulfill God's command to "go out and make disciples of all nations." In closing I will leave you with this quote from Henri Nouwen

"What finally counts is not just that there are good spiritual men and women in this very chaotic world, but that there are communities of Christians who together listen with great care and sensitivity to the one who wants to make His healing presence known to all people."