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Since we arrived on Friday, the Newman Center celebrated their Lenten Friday night Mass followed by a soup meal. A feature movie followed: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Tonight was not going to be the night I would see it. During the next four hours of the party, the students and Bros. Karl Lupe, Christopher, Pio, Michael Augustine and Kohl enjoyed the movie, pizza, and each others’ company. During this time, various friends kept coming up to me, asking if I would walk a lap or four with them around the Center. One by one, each community member or student would give updates on their lives or ask for some advice. What’s so funny is that I did more “counseling” in those four hours than I had in all the time previously combined. The next day, over in Chino Hills, some of the student leaders were doing a skit for a Youth Rally at St. Paul the Apostle Parish—the home of one of the best youth programs in the Diocese. Bro. Lupe and I went over to offer support. While over there, strangely enough—a good thirty minutes away from Riverside—I reunited with the woman who was the Newman Center’s Peer Minister the year before I took on the position. Then it was time to get to work. Bros. Kohl Maria, Michael Augustine, Christopher and Pio Marie were great at engaging their congregations, impressing upon the faithful always to go deeper, go further, and be bolder in living their faith. The students close to me were pleased to see me preach my vocation testimony at the Student Choir Mass. …it was good to be home. Overall, I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful it was to see all those that I had left behind only six or seven months before. People are getting engaged. Those who I introduced to the Newman Center are running Kyrie-Catholic Student Fellowship now. How did this all happen? Others are graduating, some off to bigger things and bigger places, and all the kids are growing up. Life’s moving on.
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RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA (as told by
