Worried about your college student?
Who isn’t? That’s why this Washington Post piece is just so uplifting, even though it’s now mid-October. Maybe especially so.
Every September, Father Bob makes the rounds, teasing, badgering, laughing and blessing his way through Catholic University’s student housing. In almost every room he says a quick prayer with the students, sprinkles holy water and tapes up a paper crucifix and small yellow sign over the door that says: “Peace to all who enter here. This Room has been Blessed.”
Most important: He gets in the door and lets them know he’s there.
How comforting is that?! I don’t know whether it’s more so to the parents, or the kids.
The beginning of freshman year is the time some student-life officials worry about most; about one in five freshmen at a four-year school doesn’t make it to sophomore year. Some flunk out, but some just walk away, said Gwendolyn Dungy of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. Studies suggest that giving new students a connection, a sense of home, is crucial.
“If you can’t help to do that by October,” Schlageter said, “you risk losing them.”
College students face a plethora of stresses and problems, but especially freshmen. There are programs designed to keep them busy, help overcome potential ‘meltdown’ of one sort or other, and give treatment when they’re already suffering. But this is different. It’s a personal mission, a ‘ministry of presence.’
He started blessing rooms when he came to Catholic nine years ago; back then, it took him a week. Now it takes two weeks and a dozen people to get to the thousands who ask for a blessing. He doesn’t go in if not invited, but at Spellman Hall last week, almost every door had a note on it: Please bless this room.
Maybe it’s a sign of this generation of students’ interest in spirituality. Or maybe it’s Father Bob.
He never wants to force himself, or God, into anyone’s life, he said: “I just keep opening doors.”
Thank God he’s there. I can think of other universities that could seriously use the presence of some of his confreres.
