Life on the Rock - 2022-03-06 - Jim Anderson and Rachel Vandermeer

tonight on life on the rock we have jim anderson and rachel vandermeer from the saint therese institute i'll give a reflection on nature and much more [Music] welcome to life on the rock tonight our guests are jim anderson and rachel vandemir they are from the saint therese institute of faith and mission this is a small school that's training young people academically and giving them a human formation to live their faith and to discern their call in life it's a call to evangelization we're now stepping into nature's bounty with father mark [Music] from the book of genesis we're told that god called the dry land earth and the waters that were gathered together he called seas and god saw that it was good genesis chapter 1 verse 9. we're told that several times that god saw that it was good it's really an amazing statement the infinite all-powerful god does this work of creation and he acknowledges its goodness so we too made in his image and likeness share in that delight and that acknowledgement that we are called to recognize the goodness of creation that god himself marvels that it's there for us it blesses us and especially the beauty of the natural world has a certain pride of place i think in speaking to us and nurturing us to help us flourish as human beings to experience that beauty we can look at the splendor of a thing the colors we're here in an autumn fall day we see different colors we can look at the the proportion or the harmony the way things interact how the plants grow together and even how the animals interact you know in the woods it speaks of a harmony of nature and we can see how these things fulfill their ends their perfection thomas aquinas called it its integrity you know that it if saint francis would praise the obedience of the things god created they fulfill god's plan as perfectly and we can marvel at that thing it can please us thomas aquinas said that beauty is that which pleases when seen or heard and god has given us this great beauty it's meant to speak with us to speak to us to comfort us to be a place that we can flourish as human beings i remember going to oregon and going to crater lake and it's a this collapsed volcano it's filled with water it's the most beautiful cobalt blue you've ever seen mesmerizing you just look into it and it it just gives you pause it lifts you up maybe takes you out of the ordinary the mundane god's nature speaks to us nurtures us and helps us to flourish as human beings [Music] welcome jim anderson and rachel vandermeer to life on the rock thank you so much and we're here to talk about the saint therese institute of faith and mission uh jim what is it what is that institute about saint tres institute of faith and mission uh is a place of formation for young adults we have students coming from across canada they live in community with one another a common life of prayer fellowship and study our studies are at a post-secondary level and the emphasis is on community we have students that join us many coming straight out of high school looking for a year of to deepen their faith come to a deeper understanding of who they are in order to move on in the world many of our students are taking a year off university some come after a year of ministry like nat many are coming after a degree and just wanting to gain more traction in their life and so some will go on and go to college you go to university some will go into the workforce some might discern a religious vocation so you get quite a collection of people there don't you we certainly do uh and it's very beautiful to see the trails that go out from saint therese many do go on to higher education uh but really it's the beautiful place of vocational discernment and their following paths as it was once said you can pretty much go anywhere from here i often describe this program as training up stem cells for the mystical body of christ where god calls we're ready to respond right that's our desire anyway so you have a nine month program and some do a second nine months and even a third year of apostolic service tell us about the academic part of say the first and second year yes absolutely the academic part again once we've established community within that community the primary work that we do is our studies and the students will take courses in scripture the catechism of the catholic church an introduction to philosophy church history human formation human sexuality and these courses many of them do transfer to other universities who we have arrangements with the second year study will deepen those first-year classes the core courses will happen from october through into march then we have a shift in our third trimester we have three trimasters our shift then goes to week-long intensive courses that the students are able to continue their formation but those are also open to the public who would like to come and enter into the way of life to live with the students and receive formation with the students a bit like a learning retreat gives the students themselves an opportunity to actually do apostolic work of witnessing to the way of life and welcoming people into it and rachel you've you've done two nine-month years with them so to speak and tell me your experience of the the human formation that takes place well i would say the biggest part of the formation in this program is really the community it forms you in a very human way because you get to interact with a small group of people that you didn't know before and sometimes you meet people that you don't get along with as easily as others and so there's the formation that happens as you learn to relate to one another and to have that discussion that dialogue to grow with each other to learn how to listen to each other and so the biggest human formation that happens is just being in relationship and you learn how to do that here which is beautiful because that's formation that can go and happen your whole life you can build those relationships you can receive that kind of formation in the world and you learn how to be formed in relationships here right and i heard you jim use describe it almost like a novitiate in religious life that it's teaching you fundamental principles of spirituality and prayer life and catechism theological formation talk more about that part of it just the formation and the kind of because you're the director of formation and just the bedrock that could be in a person's life well we're dealing with a society now where in the past two three generations there's been an eroding of those fundamental structures within which the human person is formed the family the small small communities even our parishes there's so much uh transients and uh and the challenges there so young people we find more and more are not actually receiving that grace that grace of grounded human formation within the family context the family being called the school of love so at st therese uh you mentioned it being like in novitiate many people have said it's like that has once been aptly described as a novitiate for the laity to be able to come into and and intentionally develop a common life and a community life we learn to love one another and in that school of love and of course we borrow from saint thread learn from saint terres to live the vocation to love there's the strengthening of all aspects of the human person we speak of four pillars borrowing from the the document on the formation of priests when we speak of the human formation which is the relational formation the ability to relate one another uh to truly love one another and enter into that committed relationship um as brothers and sisters in christ the intellectual formation through the classes the spiritual formation through developing the habit of prayer a personal relationship with christ within this devotion to the scriptures and the sacraments and then finally the apostolic how do we actually carry this out and live this vocational call particularly for the lay faithful in the world responding to call of the church to be missionary disciples and why did you name it after saint therese a funny story on that the original board that was gathering together uh at one of their meetings in saskatoon where we're an hour away from was trying to decide on on what the name should be and they were tossing all sorts of names around and then somebody piped up saying well it's october the first what about saint perez yeah saint i look back now and we can realize that this is one of these niggling intuitions of the holy spirit we don't totally understand the significance of that at the time so because it was her feast a small rose petal dropping we realize now the significance of her spirituality for the formation particularly the young john paul the second in his document demini morris uh siencia when she was declared a doctor the church recognizes saint teresa's spirituality is has universal appeal and universal applicability but particularly because she was a young person her little way serves to form young people as i often say to the students saint frese is not my peer but she is your peer and so let no one say that you cannot reach the heights of holiness at your age in your youth and to really engage that yeah in my experience of saint rose she's one of the more approachable saints and that makes her little way very approachable the the spirituality that she teaches and that's one of the amazing things about this place is it's something that young people can encounter and be like this makes sense to me i can see how i can live this out it it makes sense it's something that speaks to the heart of young people always that's what i hear from all of my friends here from people who leave this place it's something that just resonates with the young and she was proclaimed the greatest saint of modern times and you have to believe her little way as a teaching to help guide us through these modern times that are so um i have you describe it today it's hard to describe but uh we're going to take a little break we're going to talk more about her spirituality and about the setting of the institute so we'll be back in just a minute [Music] welcome back let's talk a little bit more about saint therese and the connection to mission and that's your institute right you're forming uh lay people to have a sense of mission in the church tell us why therese well i think that the church is speaking loudly in declaring saint there is a doctor of the church and the co-patron of missions and missionaries she lived nine years in a carmelite convent in a cloister and died at 24. so i think what's being spoken loudly is that the missionary activity is is more than the doing but very much about the being and the sanctifying of the moment and this is the core of what saint teresa's mission teaches us is that another one of our patrons or patronesses is catherine doherty she would say nothing is foreign to the gospel except sin so sanctification of the world works out in the day-to-day you've lived this maybe you can speak on that rachel yeah i think um one of the biggest things about sanchez's spirituality is it's about doing what you're doing with great love and so for my heart it's not so much that in order to be a saint i have to do this or become this or go to this school or do that with sanchez's spirituality it's the desires on my heart what god has been speaking to me the way he seems to be leading my life that's where i'll be sanctified that's where sainthood is found whether that's in nursing or in teaching or if that's just in getting married that's where the holiness of the world will be produced in saint charles spirituality because in doing what you're doing with great love you're encountering god and you're bringing his presence into the world and i love that she finding she said you know i found my vocation my vocation is love that was very practical very tangible right in the moment we encounter god and you know it's like nazareth it's here the word became flesh right i love that emphasis on the the spiritual part of it you know sometimes we want to just jump to the activity or the the work that we want to do for the kingdom and stuff but it it's got to absolutely be rooted in our communion with christ without him we can do nothing and therese really i think speaks to this modern culture in such a powerful way and i'd like to talk a little bit about your location too you were in the in the province of saskatchewan the plains you tell me of canada you're in bruno which is a small town and you're in a former convent tell us about the setting of all that we are in the middle of the canadian prairies yes they were close to nothing and central to everything we're an hour uh east of saskatoon uh bruno is a small town of about 550 people in in the middle of a grain grain growing area grain farming is the principal industry the building itself is a 65 000 square foot former ursuline girls school so a convent school and uh saint tres institute purchased the building from the earth lines and we're very grateful to be able to continue the the tradition of catholic education here it's beautiful it's a big old building it sounds like a wonderful place kind of to break away from the pace the hecticness hecticness of life and just the tension that we feel in our culture today and spend time with the lord a little bit and with a group of people your classes are about 50 all together the enrollment is about 50. about 50 all together and we deliberately keep it small so that we can maintain that intimate sense of the family environment uh it makes it a challenge of course with with the the fewer numbers we really rely upon a larger network and family of of benefactors and those who support us in prayer we do have students coming from right across canada here which is a beautiful thing and part of that human formation as well that community life you all talk about sharing groups is that part of the the day-to-day life or the weekly life yeah absolutely so we have share groups built into the weekly schedule every saturday you meet with your share group of about three or four people and it's the same people for the whole year so you can really accompany each other so that's built in as well there's a pastoral accompaniment so one-on-one working with people and going deep with it's usually one apostolic year student like myself with a first-year student just one-on-one once a week just accompaniment and working together as well in the community it's very built in that just be with each other talk with each other share with each other get to know everyone be willing to be vulnerable and go deep as a whole community we meet once a month to just share what's going on in our hearts and keep each other up to date on what the goodness is and what the hardship is and just like be a family in that way of being able to know what's going on in everybody else's life father you've mentioned about uh the big building with people pulling away and indeed that's it it's like a nine-month retreat of coming together to be in the presence of the lord to journey with one another uh what we're discovering is we're entering into this time of synodality and actually doing a saint therese is snotl so much of that is deeply embedded in our way of life accompanying one another joining with one another in the presence of the lord listening uh being attentive and learning to love very deeply yeah and i i think it's a nice point about the institute too that someone could come and do a year they could do a second year or this third year apostolic year rachel what really called you back what made you feel like you wanted to do a third year well i think most of it was gratitude i've received so much from coming to saint therese like i had a beautiful family life growing up i had so much my catholic faith was built in but i had no idea how deep it could go until i came to this place and my life has been changed so many times and gone so deep and i've learned so much about god's goodness and the desires that he has for my life and how much i can learn and so after receiving one year i was like i want more i just want more of god and i'm finding him in this place and so i came back for more and after receiving the two years of formation there was just so much gratitude that i want to come back and share that with others so the third year program is really it's moving away from just receiving the studies and really beginning to give to the community so it's a lot more service and accompaniment and time of just being with people i get to show the first and the second year students like this is where god can encounter you like let me help you in your journey and so a lot of it was just this overflowing like gratitude for what this place has given me and the life-changing experiences that i've had i just wanted to be able to help share that with more students coming in this year right i i think it's terrific what you all are doing i i had a sense of that when i was in formation about how even the academics human formation could bless anybody whatever walk of life so i think you all are just basically bringing an intense catholic culture i think to people that come to the institute but thank you so much for joining us and i think the lord has his hand upon you so expect great things from the institute thank you so much [Music] i enjoyed my conversation with our guests tonight you know you just feel like the hand of the lord with them the fact that they're making it existing a small little school it's not easy today and they have benefactors and donors i think i just had a sense the lord's really using this and i i think it's so important as i mentioned the show that we were studying for the priesthood and in my community you have intellectual formation you have human formation and they're trying to to provide that and i think what makes them special too is that they're living a community life yes there's like no more than 50 students and so they got to live coexist and kind of take the edges off each other well it's so important today having that sense of community because i think too with just the world today a lot of times with social media internet we've lost a lot of that reality of how to connect with other people and it's so vital if we're going to have a spiritual life a community life or really just a fruitful life we have to be plugged in and be able to relate to others and just instead of being kind of isolated and separated from a living just community that can help us grow and develop and like you said you know just to grow intellectually spiritually pray your life that's a really important thing that we need today so in school college you can obviously be such a pressure cooker you just feel like you're running going all the time and even oftentimes it's oriented to very practical things you're learning a skill to go make a living i think it's so powerful to take some time to come away a while to be with the lord have an intense spiritual life to get to know people develop some friendships i just think that's going to bless these young people their whole life whatever they go on to do it'll be a blessing for them so i just want to keep them in our prayers and wish them the best in their great uh work there at the saint therese institute of faith and mission so we'll send you into that vineyard with a blessing may heavenly father shine his face upon you may he give you his peace may almighty god bless you the father and the son and the holy spirit we'll see you next week on life on the rock i'm just way fair and stranger traveling through [Laughter] this world below there's no sickness no toil or danger in that bright land to which i go i'm going there to see my father and all my loved ones [Music] i'm just [Music] i know dark clouds will gather around me i know my way is hot and steep but beauteous feels arise before me [Music] i'm going there to see my mother [Music] i'm just [Music] i'm just [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 252

Keywords: rok, rok17229, ytsync-en

Id: _oa9VgCO82E

Length: 23min 45sec (1425 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022