Witnessing Truth

A number of times governmental figures have claimed to speak for all women in terms of their decisions dealing with the HHS Mandate (who's effects I think are well laid out in the Sisters of Life's article regarding their future if the mandate takes hold).  However, a large number of women's voices have been unheard in this debate, mine included.  While I was in New York this weekend, I sat down with my good friend Brittany and we discussed our own personal and educated views of the Mandate.  We both have graduated from NYU and have multiple degrees to our names, we are not the uneducated masses most people assume are the only women who could possibly not support this plan.  So why haven't we been heard?  Why haven't we been included in the debate?  Recently, two powerful and educated women (Helen M. Alvare JD and Kim Daniels JD) drafted a letter that succinctly captures these unheard voices and touches on our leading arguments against the "contraceptio...

Some celebrated President's Day by sleeping in and enjoying the day off, but us missionaries, we're different people.  We capitalized on this rare day off and invited all of the student missionaries at MIT over to our apartment for a student missionary event.  This was the first of a four part series, in which we will be talking about the topics of prayer, evangelization, discipleship, and life-long Catholic mission.  Not only will we be addressing these topics, but we will also be pairing each of these with a saint who exemplified the discussed pillar. Tom, Natalia, Margaret, Megan, and Maita discuss their prayer lives. On Monday, after feeding the students sandwiches and chips, Levi spoke about Mother Teresa's devotion to prayer and her ongoing love and work for the Lord despite years and years of darkness and desolation in her prayer life.  She was a force to be reckoned with!  Levi made reference to Pope John Paul II's homily about her upon her beatific...

Natalia, a Sophomore in Course 8 (Physics), also wrote a short note about her experiences at Summit!  Natalia has been in a Bible Study lead by one of our student missionaries (Maita) for more than a year.  She is also being discipled by Maita and will be beginning a Bible Study of her own this semester! (She made her first invitation just yesterday!) Here's what she had to say about the Summit and the March:  " I came back from Summit and the March for Life renewed in my faith and newly committed to serving Christ, but I didn’t fully realize how much Summit had changed me until about a week after we had returned to MIT. I found myself sitting across from one of my friends at the dinner table, sharing with him a gospel presentation. It occurred to me that before going to Baltimore, I had known everything that I told him that evening, but it was at Summit that I took the leap from knowing my faith to sharing my faith. I said yes to a question I had hesitated to answer b...

I asked one of the students who attended FOCUS's Student Leader Summit to write up a little blurb about their experiences.  Rachel, who is a Junior in Course 2 (Mechanical Engineering), has an affinity for writing and it brings her to life so she joyously accepted the task.  Rachel is currently leading a Bible Study during IAP on the Gospel of Luke and she is discipling Nahomy, a Sophomore in Course 16 (Aerospace Engineering).  And this is what she has to say: " I can't say that Summit changed my life.  But I can say that God brought me to the people who DID change my life.  When 1200 college students and FOCUS missionaries who are on fire for Christ are in a single place, how can you NOT be moved?  These are people who are going out on their campuses and sharing God's infinite love with those who need to hear it!  And Summit brought them together and gave them new tools to go out and move the world?!  Again I ask, how can you NOT BE MOVED? ...

IAP. SLS. MFL.  Okay, so I truly made up that last acronym, but the other two are actual abbreviations that I have been using over the past month.  The first is IAP or Independent Activities Period.  The second, SLS, is Student Leader Summit.  The third (the fictitious one) is March for Life.  But why this scramble of letters?  Why this not-so-tasty version of alphabet soup?  Let me tell you... Beginning January 9th, MIT began IAP, which is a fusion of a Winter Session, a time for epic amounts of research, and a hang out session if MIT ever did see one.  Arriving on campus a few days after the commencement of IAP, I had the pleasure of experiencing MIT students when they actually have "free time."  I got back to campus and without a moment to spare students were wanting to hang out with me, just talk, and go to Mass with me.  I had the pleasure of spending time with students from Spanish House for more than just the 45 minute long Stud...

Businesses, corporations, stores, non-profits, religious orders.  What do all of these have in common?  Mission statements.  A small phrase or sentence that encompasses what it is these groups of people have set out to do.  FOCUS itself has a mission statement, as does our Team at MIT so that we might all be united.  But I also, through the encouragement of my wise Team Director Joey Gruber, have created a mission statement for myself.  What is mission?  Why am I at MIT?  Why am I serving with FOCUS?  All of those questions are very succinctly answered in my mission statement.  And I wish to share it with you: To boldly enter into students' lives in order to combat the lonely isolation created by today's society by sharing and witnessing God's unconditional, uncalculating, Fatherly love and by giving God permission to act through me.   This is the thing that drives me.  This is my purpose.  This is my mission as Ann G...

"Thank you for praying with us." --Woman who led the Rosary at St. Robert's today So beautiful.