FINAL 2011 STARR!

It's our final STARR for 2011! Come join us as we head into Indianapolis one final time this Friday at 3:00pm.

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Urban Ministry internship available with Rebuilding the Wall

Rebuilding the Wall is currently seeking to fill a non-profit student intern position for our Community Development Ministry. Rebuilding the Wall exists to stabilize families, combat social injustice, and stabilize communities. Rtw has been part of the fabric of our inner-city community for over a decade and continues to be a grass-roots social justice organization.
Here are some details of the internship:
-One year commitment
-Will work closely with Executive Director
-Manage a variety of projects to include: grant reimbursements, office organization, event coordination, volunteer relations.

For more information, inquiries, contact Shelley at shelley@rebuildingthewall.org. Check us out on Facebook!

Saints Who Served: Part I

In standing with our Catholic Identity at Marian University, I decided to share the stories of some of the great heroes of our faith, Saints who excelled in service of others.  The first installment:  St. Damien of Molokai.

When Joseph de Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium, in 1840, few people in Europe had any firsthand knowledge of leprosy (Hansen's disease). By the time he died at the age of 49, people all over the world knew about this disease because of him. They knew that human compassion could soften the ravages of this disease.
Forced to quit school at age 13 to work on the family farm, Joseph entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary six years later, taking the name of a fourth-century physician and martyr. When his brother Pamphile, a priest in the same congregation, fell ill and was unable to go to the Hawaiian Islands as assigned, Damien quickly volunteered in his place. In May 1864, two months after arriving in his new mission, Damien was ordained a priest in Honolulu and assigned to the island of Hawaii.
In 1873, he went to the Hawaiian government's leper colony on the island of Molokai, set up seven years earlier. Part of a team of four chaplains taking that assignment for three months each year, Damien soon volunteered to remain permanently, caring for the people's physical, medical and spiritual needs. In time, he became their most effective advocate to obtain promised government support.
Soon the settlement had new houses and a new church, school and orphanage. Morale improved considerably. A few years later he succeeded in getting the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, led by Mother Marianne Cope (January 23), to help staff this colony in Kalaupapa.
Damien contracted Hansen's disease and died of its complications. As requested, he was buried in Kalaupapa, but in 1936 the Belgian government succeeded in having his body moved to Belgium. Part of Damien's body was returned to his beloved Hawaiian brothers and sisters after his beatification in 1995.

Source: americancatholic.org

Giving Matters

Friday, October 27, we will head back to many of the sites we have been to often this semester: Miracle Place, Noble, Gleaners and Holy Family Shelter. Get excited! This would be a great opportunity to bring a friend who hasn't been to STARR for a great experience with kids at Miracle Place, with persons with disabilities at Noble (who are full of so much joy!), or to our other sites that provide longer-term support for concerns of family and poverty.

Serving others, loving our neighbor, matters. Let's take a couple of hours from our Friday afternoon to offer our time, hearts, hands and minds for others. And let's bring someone else who may honestly be very busy with good things (like many of us), and ask him or her to attend.

It is in giving of ourselves that we receive. Each of us has experienced that at STARR. Let's give again and get another to give, too.

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Why Reflect?: A Reflection

In case anyone was wondering, STARR features a double 'r'.  No, its not there for cutesy reasons, nor are we really bad at spelling.  When STARR was founded, it was originally STAR (Students Taking Active Roles), with the singular 'r'.  However, changes in the program led to the addition of another 'r', becoming STARR (Students Taking Active Reflective Roles).  So why the change?  What role does reflection play in our ultimate mission of Christian service?

Teach a Man to Fish: Respecting the Dignity of the Individual

One of my favorite hobbies is to watch TED talks on Youtube.  Briefly, TED is an academic forum for people, typically experts in their fields, to give short talks to an audience about whatever it is they're working on, and those talks are videotaped and posted to Youtube.  I watched a video by Josette Sheeran, who heads the UN's World Food Program, entitled "Ending Hunger Now."  I found this video to be rather fascinating because Mrs. Sheeran suggested that world hunger could be ended now if we are willing to take the collective steps to make that happen.  One idea she shared that I especially found relevant is the idea that, rather than just giving away food to those victims of hunger, we empower them to be the solution of their own problem, thus feeding them and stimulating their local economy.

We Must Because We Can (and Should!)

Last night I found myself in the kitchen at the seminary, grabbing a late night snack and chatting with some of the other guys. For whatever odd reason, guys end up meeting in the kitchen, munching on junk food and start talking about deep topics such as religion and philosophy. Why a can of Pepsi and a half-eaten bag of Doritos puts us in the introspective mood, I'll never know. Anyways, myself, Tyler Tenbarge, and a few other guys were talking about retreats and conferences we'd given or been to, and Tyler brought up one he gave for FFA called "We Must Because We Can." Being the nerds we are, myself and a few others pointed out that just because can do something doesn't mean we must do it (Think "We can massacre an entire demographic --> Genocide). Thus, one of us added the qualifier "We Should," making Tyler's conference title "We Must Because We Can and We Should." Granted, that idea doesn't roll off the tongue quite so easily, but it does bring up a moral imperative worth discussing...