God bless us, everyone

With Christmas fast approaching, what are you doing to get into the true ‘spirit’ of the season? Crissy Bowen, the retreat coordinator for Campus Ministry, would like to know.

She has recently brought to light a new and experimental idea to fulfill a student’s spiritual satisfaction in the form of an online retreat.

During a time when Christmas is more about shopping and less about praying, an balance between the spiritual and the temporal becomes all the more difficult to maintain, Bowen said. However, she believes that preserving a sense of equilibrium is a necessity.

“It’s really hard to keep that balance,” she said. “Actual spiritual preparation really needs to be our focus, and it’s the hardest to do because there are other things crowding our time.”

FUSA President Hutch Williams ’08 agreed.

“I think that Campus Ministry is realizing that students today are very busy,” he said, “but this could allow students to escape spiritually while remaining where they are physically.”

This online program is based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and is the product of the Collaborative Ministry Office at Creighton University. This initiative, which began on Dec. 2, will last for 34 weeks and focus on readings of scripture. The entire program can be done individually or in groups that meet once a week. Newcomers can join at any time.

The idea initially drew a positive response from students at Fairfield.

“I think that there should be a lot of thought put into why we even celebrate [Christmas],” said Jeremy Shea ’10, a practicing Roman Catholic.

Shea said this sort of program might not be for everyone.

“I think that this is a good idea for Catholics, but you have to realize that there are plenty of people on campus who are not Catholic.”

However, non-Catholic student AJ Piper ’08, who identifies himself as an agnostic, supported ideas similar to the online retreat. He agree that we should try to prevent Christmas from becoming just another consumer-driven holiday.

“I have huge problems with how consumerism has dominated this, and almost every other, holiday,” he said. “There are many members of our country who partake more in the consumer Christmas than the Christian aspect of Christmas.”

The idea for an online retreat differs from other programs Campus Ministry has structured, such as the Beaten Path or SOS. In the past, these programs have been set up by undergraduates and disappear the moment the student organizer graduates.

“Small faith-sharing programs usually come and go with the student leaders,” said Bowen.

Whether or not the online retreat will follow a similar path is yet to be determined. As of now, the project has garnered interest from only a few people, but Bowen is flexible and said that this is enough to get started.

“If somebody, anybody, comes up to me and tells me that they’re interested in this, whether it be today, tonight or tomorrow, I will work with them,” she said.

Campus Ministry is one of the larger on-campus organizations at Fairfield University.