Semester One - Week 6

What do you expect or hope to learn as a Religious Studies/Theology major?  Where do these expectations come from? (For instance: From classes you have taken already?  From sources outside Loras, such as your family or parish?)

Although I am a cradle catholic, our family fulfilled our Sunday obligation and that was it until we reached youth group age in which I became extremely involved. I was truly blessed with our active youth ministry that our Parish had, with four full time youth ministers, multiple youth groups every week, opportunities to participate and lead retreats, go on service trips, I started to learn what being Catholic meant. My seven years involved in middle and high school youth ministry opened my eyes to God, and left me with the desire to give others a similar opportunity through ministry, or at the very least incorporate my faith into whatever career I ended up on.

As religious studies major I really just expect to broaden my knowledge of the Church – its interworking’s (such as ministry), as well as teachings, and broaden my knowledge of Jesus and the bible and how this is applicable in whatever career path I choose. I am also a math major so I hopefully will figure out some way to combine math and religious studies into some super awesome career. Thus far I have taken three classes in the Religious Studies department; Catholic Social Teaching, Foundations for Ministry, and Seasons of the Sacred. Each of these courses has shown me a different aspect of Religious Studies; Catholic Social Teaching (CST) gave me my first experience with reading encyclicals, and a greater understanding and appreciation for the Church’s teaching on many social justice issues that we see today. Foundations for Ministry is increasing my knowledge of our call to ministry, what ministry entails within different parish situations, as well as the key aspects of a successful (or at least hopefully successful) ministry include. Finally Seasons of the Sacred has opened my eyes up to how we as Catholic’s interpret the Gospels and the greater meaning of the paschal mystery