CHERRY HILL – Calling on the young Church to “imitate the mercy of God [and] bear the image of the heavenly Lord,” Bishop Dennis Sullivan celebrated Mass for the Catholic Campus Ministry of Stockton University on Feb. 23 at the Blessed Carlo Acutis Center.
At the 10 a.m. liturgy in the center’s chapel, Bishop unpacked the day’s reading of Luke’s Gospel, which recalled Jesus explaining his “code of conduct” to his disciples.
The Savior’s calls for His followers to practice virtues such as “charity, goodness, compassion, forgiveness, mercy,” he admitted, are challenging and difficult to observe, but “these are the ways of Jesus.”
Photo Gallery: Bishop Visits Stockton Students
“If you live this way, you will be on the road to holiness. When we live this way, the Kingdom appears, and the rule of God is realized,” he preached.
Bishop Sullivan’s visit with the 18 Newman Center students included lunch and fellowship; it came during the ministry’s weekend retreat, themed “Our Journey with Christ.”
Finding hope, healing
For three days, Feb. 21-23, the young adults – through faith-sharing, special visitors, and Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament – came to understand how to better know, seek and follow Christ.
“We’re young, looking at what we want to do in our lives, and it’s good that people living in the faith are teaching us,” noted Khrystyna Svystovych.
A Stockton sophomore, she is majoring in communications and minoring in anthropology.
“To know that someone such as Bishop Sullivan has devoted their life to God, is very inspiring,” she continued, adding that “He’s bringing us closer to God.”
An exchange student from Ukraine, Svystovych acknowledged she has had difficult days, as her family remains in the war-torn country.
A decision on whether to return home this summer and reunite with relatives, especially her sick father, has been weighing on her mind lately, she said. The time spent on the retreat, especially in Adoration, “helped me find healing,” she noted.
“This experience has given me hope. Whatever happens, I know I will be fine. Wherever God sends me, He will provide.”
Jonathan Cordero, a sophomore majoring in history, couldn’t help but note the contrast between this retreat and the last one he attended last fall with the Stockton Catholic Campus Ministry. “Back then, my family was in a very different place. I spent time [on the retreat] asking God for guidance for my family and I.”
This time, he was happy to say, was much different. On Feb. 22, he woke up to a morning text from his mother, who informed him that the family had just found a house in Winter Haven, Fla. It means leaving his beloved Stockton community, yes, but, also, stability for his family.
“This whole time, I’ve felt closer to God; he’s been telling me everything’s going to be alright,” Cordero said with a smile. “When we went to Adoration, I looked at God and told Him, ‘Thank You.’ I’ve come here a changed person, a thankful person. I feel blessed.”
Saints in the making
During his visit, Bishop Sullivan also encouraged the students to learn more about and imitate the lives of six millennials on the road to sainthood: the center’s namesake, Blessed Carlo Acutis; Servant of God Akash Bashir; Servant of God Pierangelo Capuzzimati; Servant of God Sister Clare Crockett; Venerable Matteo Farina, and Servant of God Helena Agnieszka Kmiec.
Blessed Acutis, who is set to be canonized in April, had a profound love of the Eucharist and used his computer wizardry to evangelize in the digital age.
Bashir was just 20 years old when he gave his life to stop a suicide bomber from entering a church in Pakistan in 2015. He has since become a symbol of hope for the country’s Christian community.
Capuzzimati died in 2008 at the age of 17, after a three-year battle with leukemia. He called his suffering “a gift from God,” Bishop Sullivan remarked. “Those who knew him testified to his serenity during these challenges, and his dedication to the Church.”
Sister Clare was transformed after a religious retreat, and left a promising career in television and movies to enter the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother religious community. While teaching students in Ecuador in 2016, she was killed during an earthquake.
Farina, with a devotion to Padre Pio, kept his faith during the six years of illness caused by a brain tumor, before dying in 2009 at age 19. “He told his friends he was offering his pain for them,” Bishop Sullivan said, adding that Farina was “always smiling, with tremendous hope.”
Kmiec, killed in Bolivia in 2017, was born in Krakow in 1991; she joined the Salvator Missionary Volunteer Service, and traveled to places such as Hungary, Zambia and Romania to help children and young people in vulnerable situations.
These holy women and men, Bishop Sullivan said, lived by faith. “They developed a relationship with Christ, and they carried that relationship with them through the various situations they faced. They followed Jesus with all their hearts. You and I should do the same.”
Britany Shields, director of Stockton’s Newman Club, said that Bishop Sullivan’s time with the students “shows how important they are to the Diocese. It’s a time for them to get to know an impactful figure in the Church, and to have a conversation with him that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
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