For many Catholic college students, going to church is something they know they should do but never get around to until their parents visit and they have to look up the Mass schedule to make it look like they go all the time. For others, going to church is just as important in college as it was in high school – and not because their moms call them on Sundays to make sure they went. Every college is different, so while some campuses have very devout student populations, others… don’t. Throughout most of my four years, I was either the only college student at the local Catholic church or one of two students (not that I’m a saint; for whatever reason, I must have needed a little less of a nudge than other Catholic students to go to church). It wasn’t until my senior year that the Newman Association actually started to be a thing. So from my experience, this is what it’s like to be the only (or one of the only) Catholic on campus.
Basically all of your college friends are either atheist, agnostic, or Protestant.
Your atheist friends will occasionally say things like, “I don’t understand how you can be religious because you’re so smart.”
At least you can talk to your Protestant friends about Christ…
Until you inevitably run into topics that Catholics and Protestants fundamentally disagree on.
But you love all your friends anyway.
It’s just not the same as it is with your Catholic friends from home
Who tell you about their college chapels, but you’d be lucky if you could go to mass on campus
So you go to the local parish, where everyone is lovely but also a little too excited that there’s a college student who actually goes to Mass
And because the dining hall schedule and the weekend Mass schedule conflict, you have to go to Mass early on Sunday morning (unless you don’t want dinner in the dining hall on Saturday or to eat breakfast at all on Sunday)
But it’s nice because nobody else on campus is awake when you are, so it’s actually quiet
Which means you get the dorm bathroom all to yourself
When you get to college as a freshman, you were informed that there hasn’t been an active Newman Association for years
You become the only member of the Newman Association
Only God knows how you got enough signatures on Quad Day to keep the club still running… or where all those people are
Because you still send out email blasts
And hang posters everywhere
But for some reason the church is packed with college students every Ash Wednesday
And when you finally meet another practicing Catholic on campus
It is now a two person Newman Association
But that’s okay because some day you will take over campus
And when you’re an upperclassman, and you finally see a freshman at church
If you’re lucky (or have a car), you start going to nearby colleges to join their campus ministry
Or maybe you just go to events organized by the diocesan young adult ministry
And with all this struggling, you start to wonder if you should transfer
But you love your college. You chose it for a reason
And you’re not doing all this work (reinstating the Newman Association, complaining to student government about the dining hall schedule, writing to the dean about campus ministry) just for yourself
You know that not every college student has the same priorities as you, especially with all the work that piles up
You want to make it so that other Catholic students can remember to practice their faith without having to seek it out like you did
Well since I live in South Carolina I can say been there done that
Visiting a university’s/college’s Newman Community and/or local parish should be part of the college visit. It was part of my son’s. Visit them, don’t merely check them out online. He has yet to select a school. However, I was impressed with Holy Spirit Parish – the Catholic Prescense at the University of Kentucky. UK is still in the running.
How did you get into ANY uni when you use the absurd and meaningless expression “one of the only”?
“Only” is the adjective of “one”. There can not be two, three or four “onlys’. If there is more than one of your kind, then you are NOT the only one. You perhaps mean “one of the few”.
^ constructive kind-spirited helpful loving worth-posting deep and thoughtful comment
^ not sarcasm
^definitely not sarcasm
^that would be absurd if it were sarcasm
^most truthful comment ever
^Sometimes I use sarcasm, but this is “one of the only” times I commented when I didn’t use sarcasm
Yeah it’s very constructive and helpful to make five off-topic self-referential comments on your own comment.
The reason for my initial comment is that a grammatical howler like that, especially when it’s in bold and in the headline, almost destroys the effect of the otherwise worthwhile article.
“One of the only” is a common phrase where I’m from, with a different connotation than one of the few. “Uni” is not. People say things differently in different places. Insulting someone by questioning how they got into college and then proceeding to give them a patronizing grammar lesson that has nothing to do with the substance of the article might be ok where you’re from, but where I come from you run the risk of being called a jerk. In fact, I don’t think you’d get off so easy.
OK I’ll take your bait. If that oxymoronic phrase was NOT used instead of “one of the few”, then what on earth DOES it mean to you? I certainly can’t think of any other possible meaning, if indeed it has a meaning.
Uni is a standard worldwide abbreviation for “university” fyi. As listed in three USA-based dictionaries which I looked up, on the assumption that like the author you live in the USA. I guess it’s just you who doesn’t know what uni means.
Ronky, you are certainly not “one of the only” and not even “one of the few”. You are one of a kind – and one rejoices for that!
I am long out of college but can relate to everything you wrote.
When I was a senior, my roommate started dating a guy who had previously noticed me walking to 8 AM Mass on Sunday mornings.
Not knowing me at the time, he thought I had been doing the “walk of shame,” but he was confused because I didn’t look ashamed and my clothes weren’t all wrinkled.
Sorry-I thought this was about colleges and universities that used to be Catholic and say they still are. There are more Catholics at secular universities-and I mean Catholics who accept Church teaching and adherer to the maigsterium, on campuses of secular universities than there are on formerly-Catholic (“FC”) schools such as Notre Dame and many here in Texas. The “most Catholic” school in America is Texas A & M, College Station, Tx-going by sheer numbers; and certainly more Catholics than at the FC schools.