Aaron on campus
Aaron Babbidge- Student Testimony
When I came to college I had just started to get involved in my faith. I had fallen away from the Church in years past, and did not go to church through most of middle school and high school. About halfway through my senior year of high school I had a very powerful conversion experience that brought me back to the faith and changed my life drastically. That, however, is a story for another time. I will just say that I started to attend church again and to try to get involved with my faith. The town I grew up in was a very heavily protestant town, so the little things I did hear about God growing up were mostly from a protestant perspective. So, after my conversion I was basically a protestant who happened to attend a Catholic church because that was where I went when I was younger.
When I came to college I had just started to get involved in my faith. I had fallen away from the Church in years past, and did not go to church through most of middle school and high school. About halfway through my senior year of high school I had a very powerful conversion experience that brought me back to the faith and changed my life drastically. That, however, is a story for another time. I will just say that I started to attend church again and to try to get involved with my faith. The town I grew up in was a very heavily protestant town, so the little things I did hear about God growing up were mostly from a protestant perspective. So, after my conversion I was basically a protestant who happened to attend a Catholic church because that was where I went when I was younger.
Coming to KU about 10 months after my conversion I still had learned nothing about the church and probably would have gone to a protestant church in Lawrence if St. Lawrence had not been so close to campus. During the first week of school St. Lawrence had a barbeque with free food so of course, I went. I am a fairly shy person, so I did not talk to very many people, but I did talk to Devin Burns, who is now a good friend of mine and is currently in seminary. After I talked to him I got a tour of St. Lawrence from Matt Kemnitz and found out about the classes offered at St. Lawrence. I took College Catholicism and had no idea what to expect going into the class. The classes turned out very well though, even though I had to of missed at least half of them. Thankfully, after every class that I missed Matt Kemnitz would meet with me sometime during the week to make the class up. I would meet with Matt very often during my freshman year, even when I wasn’t making up a class and I am very grateful for everything that Matt taught me and for his willingness to meet and talk with me so often.
Not long after I started taking College Catholicism, I realized the errors in my protestant views and began to see the beauty of the Catholic Church. After only a month or two of classes I decided I wanted to be confirmed. I was a little hesitant at first when Matt asked me about being confirmed, but I said yes anyway thinking I could back out if I wanted. I am not sure where my hesitation came from, perhaps just reluctance to let old ideas go, but whatever it was, my fears quickly passed and I felt very ready to be confirmed.
In the spring semester of my freshman year, I took the second semester of College Catholicism and also took Catholic Social Doctrine from John-Mark Miravalle on Wednesdays, just for something to do. My hunger for knowledge of the faith was very strong at this point and I began to read a lot of books about the faith. I continued to meet with Matt very often and I also started meeting with a spiritual director, Sr. Loredana. Sr. Loredana taught me a lot, and I mean a lot, about prayer which helped my prayer life tremendously. Another important moment my spring semester, obviously, was confirmation. My sponsor was Devin Burns, the one who had initially helped me to get involved at St. Lawrence. I also took St. Lawrence as my confirmation Saint because the St. Lawrence Center had done so much for me.
I thought I understood Catholicism well at this point, but I hung out with a lot of Protestants and after dialoging with them for awhile, I found I still had a lot to learn. I had heard of a book called Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn and that it was a great book to learn about Catholicism. Matt had the book so I borrowed it from him and started reading. This was exactly the book I needed at this point. I loved it so much I read it twice in the first 24 hours I had the book. For the first time everything I had learned about Catholicism came together. Catholicism finally made sense and all fit together. Everything I learned in class all made much more sense now. It was a wonderful feeling.
At the end of my spring semester, Devin told me he was going to seminary. I was a little surprised at this because I had hardly ever thought about seminary before. Devin leaving got me to think very hard about seminary. All summer after that I thought about the possibility of going to seminary, but still was not really considering going. A lot happened to change my mind about seminary during the fall semester, however. I took three classes with John-Mark; Virtue, Salvation History and St. Thomas Aquinas. John-Mark is a great teacher and I really enjoyed his classes. After a few weeks of his classes, I always left feeling like this is what I wanted to do with my life. This is the point that I really started to think hard about seminary. This is also another long story that I won’t get into now, but long story short I am now applying for seminary and will be going to seminary next fall.
For this last semester at KU, I will be taking a lot of classes at St. Lawrence. On Sundays I will be taking New Testament and Theology of the Body. On Tuesday nights I will be taking Church History and on Wednesday afternoons I will be taking G.K. Chesterton. John-Mark is also helping me and a few other students write a paper about a theological topic of our choosing. He is going to help show us how to write a good theological paper, which I feel will help me tremendously in seminary.
There is so much more I could say but I will end here. I would like to express my gratitude to all who pay for the classes at St. Lawrence to help make them free for students. I am only one example of someone who has been benefitted by taking these classes. I know many of my friends have similar stories to mine. I am sure that many more students in the future will continue to be blessed by all that St. Lawrence has to offer and I pray that St. Lawrence will continue to grow and to reach out to students.