The Heights of Glory!

Before sending out my final newsletter in a few days, I thought I would take you all through some of our last events here at Rutgers. Enjoy!

Here's how we prayed and reached out to the Rutgers Campus during Holy Week:

 Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper

 

Stations of the Cross on Campus at Brower Commons

 

Good Friday Veneration of the Cross

The Easter Vigil

AKA: the Biggest party the Church has!

. We celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus by entering into a powerful Mass and welcoming new students who were baptized and brought into the church!

 

 

We had a party after Mass to continue the celebration!

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair, we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song!" 

St. John Paul II

We also had our first ever Parent's Lord's Day. We normally have Lord's Days a few times a semester. During Lord's Day we bring in Sunday with special prayers, a time of worship, and a great meal. This time the students invited their parents so that they could get a glimpse into our CSA family.  

  

Our last Women's Group was quite the celebration of the new Life the Lord has brought us as a Women's Community!

 Our Spring Skit Night was a blast! (See the Spring Newsletter for more details!)

We rounded out the year with our End of the year Banquet. It was night filled with great Joy in celebrating how far the Lord has brought us individually and corporately! 

 Please stay tuned in the mail for my last newsletter. There is so much to be grateful for as I come to the end of my three years of Missionary Service here at Rutgers. What a gift the Lord has given me in being able to walk alongside these men and women!

"With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us...And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe."

1 Thessalonians 2:8,13

Made for MORE: RU Beautiful 2015

"The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with the Spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling." 

 ~ Pope St. John Paul II

In a world that is screaming for women everywhere to have the perfect guy, get an awesome career, fit into a certain jean size, and have the perfect complexion the real meaning behind being a woman gets lost in the shuffle.  Isn't everyone woman looking to the cover of Cosmo to find out who they should really be?  We're doing everything to change, contort, and fix everything in us that doesn't match up to this "perfect woman." We're left feeling inadequate, exhausted, empty, and unloved...

BUT, from February 8th to the 11th the Rutgers Catholic Center women wanted to tell the women on campus that they were made for MORE...

More than a a women's empowerment or self-esteem movement, the RU Beautiful Campaign is an effort to speak the TRUTH to every woman on the Rutgers Campus; she is infinitely loved and cherished by the God who made her. Throughout this week we wanted our every action and interaction to convey the Father's words about who a woman TRULY IS.

She IS cherished.

She IS treasured.

She IS a sought after gem.

She IS beautiful.

She IS infinitely Loved by her Father in Heaven. 

In order to reach the Rutgers women with the TRUTH, we did different outreach events on Campus each day of the week. All of our efforts were geared toward loving the women we came into contact with on campus and inviting EVERY woman to our Women's Group that Thursday night, 50 Shades of More. Take a look at our RU Beautiful week:

My parents baked over 330 cookies and shipped them up to New Jersey. On Sunday of that week, the CSA girls and I decorated these cookies to put in the gift bags we would hand out during the week!

On Sunday and Monday we had teams of CSA women packing these gift bags. Inside we put the homemade cookies, custom made RU Beautiful compact mirrors, a letter to Rutgers Women, candy, a flyer for our 50 Shades of More event, and other little giveaways. We wanted to give RU women a gift to show how they are a gift just by being who they are. 

Monday we also took the campus by storm by putting sticky notes and Women's Group flyers in student centers, bathrooms, and dorms. Any place on campus we knew a woman would walk by we left sticky notes to remind her of her TRUE identity! Here's a little sample of our sticky notes on campus. 

For Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we had teams of women tabling at two of our campus centers. Here we handed out gift bags, asked women to fill out surveys and posters, handed out hot chocolate, and invited women to our 50 Shades of More Event. 

All of this to speak to women about the incredible gift that they are! We got to meet so many different women and speak to them about how they are Loved. It was a packed few days of out reach all leading up to our Women's Group, 50 Shades of More that took place at 8pm at the Catholic Center.

There was CHOCOLATE...

JOY

FUN

AND a ton of great Women! We had such a great event! There was a great turnout of women we had meet during our outreach efforts during the week. Our older students gave witnesses about living for Christ in the midst of a secular campus.

There were also many opportunities for women to meet each other, build relationships, and just enjoy each other's company! 

Our RU beautiful Campaign allowed those women already involved in our ministry and those who we met during the week to come to a deeper knowledge of God's Love. It's so hard to describe all that happened in words. God used our efforts to speak the TRUTH to so many new women, but also to open our hearts to receive His Love in a fuller way. What a gift! We want to continue sharing this message with women on Campus. He has made us and Loved us beyond what we look like, what we can achieve, and how well we fit in. He has made us for MORE! He has made us for abundant life in Him! He has made His daughters good with an incredible call to make Him known! He has made us to love and be Loved!

No more do we have to live in the lies that the world would give us to tell us who we are. We can live in freedom of the daughters of God. We can live now out of the TRUTH that every part of us is Loved and incredibly beautiful.

Duc in altum

 "While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.     

Luke 5:1-6

Jesus calls out to Simon, an ordinary fisherman into something extraordinary. If we listen carefully, our Lord's call to Simon can be heard in our own hearts. He is calling each one of us to "set out into the deep," to follow Him on a great adventure! Jesus calls us too, to put out our "nets for a catch." He is calling each of us to be instruments of His Love. Are our hearts attuned to hear His call? Deep is calling unto deep!

I've been really praying through this Scriptue as we've kicked off our second Semester here at Rutgers. These past month has been packed with different outreach initiatives. There are lists upon lists with so many different lists of names. Some from the Fall Semester, even some from my first Mission year two years ago. I've been asking the Lord,

How can we reach these students? How can we try new things to reach those we've never been able to reach before? How can I share you with those who have fallen through the cracks?

With a new semester always comes new opportunities to invite new students to into an encounter with our God. We brought about 50 students to the March for Life in Washington, D.C.

We've been storming the dorms with dorm visits and Socials.

We've been contacting and connecting with new students on each of our Campuses through one-on-one meetings.

 

We've been creating environments like the Superbowl Party to help students connect with others who are curious about their faith (and have a lot of fun too)!

(You need good food to share the Gospel!)

All in an effort to share to answer His call, to share His Love, to make Him known.

My heart could just explode with all the ideas that are running through my head about new ways we can try push even farther out, to put out even further into the deep. A few exciting events are coming up that I pray will continue to give many more students an opportunity to experience the Lord's Love. More blog posts and updates to come on these events. Would you consider praying for them in these next few weeks? Would you pray that the Lord could use me just as He did the first apostles?

Please keep in your prayers:

• The women we reached during the RU Beautiful Campaign (February 9th through the 12th)A whole other blog post out this on coming your way soon!
• Our Spring Retreat, Totally Yours (February 20th-22nd)
• Our Women's Overnight Retreat (March 6th-7th)

What a gift the Lord has given me in this Mission Year to share how He has Loved me with His people. We have quite the semester ahead of us! There are so many students to reach!

May we imitate the first disciples in their zeal to advance the Kingdom!

May we continue to be attentive to the Lord's call to us to set out into unknown waters to proclaim His Love!

May He set our hearts a blaze with a love for His people! 

May we be like Simon Peter who heard the Lord's call and responded generously!

May we hear the Jesus speaking to the depths of our hearts,

"Duc in altum."

Put out into the deep



The sum of His Love

Perhaps one of my favorite things about being a Mission Leader at Rutgers is the opportunity that I have to share with the women on campus what the Father in Heaven has spoken to my heart. You see, we live in a culture where a woman is defined by her physical beauty, her grades, her accomplishments, her total number of boyfriends; you know the list. She is what shes does and if she can't do it all, then she better prove to the world that she's good enough.  And on a college campus where lots of different things and people try to inform us about who we are, I have the sincere and utter privilege of witnessing that while we are beautiful, accomplished, and successful; the truest thing abut us is that we are infinitely Loved by our Father in Heaven. We are His BELOVED Daughters worthy of a love and respect that honors this dignity.

In many of my one-on-one meetings with women on campus I have the opportunity to share about how the Lord loves us particularly as women and how He's spoken the truth of this in my own journey to come to know Him. These meetings are privileged times to hear about their life and share about God's plan of Love for them. In these meetings I encourage them to get connected with the Catholic Center Women's community so that they can get built up and affirmed and Loved for who they really are. I wanted to share the highlights with you my dear Mission Partners, friends, family, and colleagues of how we've been building a Catholic Women's community here on the Rutgers campus.It's a great passion in my heart to be able to share Christ's words of life with these women and to be a part of building a community of women who can point to our TRUE identity as Beloved Daughters. 

Our apple picking adventure was a great way to do this with some of the women. What a great way to just be together, laugh, and be goofy! 








What girl doesn't like to take fun pictures in the middle of an apple orchard? We really enjoyed spending time together. Often times, we don't have to even say God's name, but we can still communicate His Love by being really present to one another!







When it comes to building women's community you have to get creative. Star gazing of course! Another way to get to know the women on campus and have alot of fun too!

Thursday is easily one of my favorite days of the Mission week. We gather at the Catholic Center every Thursday at 8pm to have Women's Group. As a team of women's staff we try to plan nights where we can cover topics that will speak to women in particular about God's plan of life for them and the JOY that it is to be a Catholic woman. 

Topics range from things like, surrender, prayer, the lives of the saints, men and women's relationships, emotions, sex, contraception, authentic friendships, worship, image, and beauty. We really pray through what kind of topics will best serve the women on campus. 





And there's no Women's Group without a serious dose of fun! Spa nights, zumba, tug of war, twister; we are never at a loss for crazy things to do together!





I count it a real gift to be able to reach out to these women and help get them connected to a family that wants to reflect the Father's Love for them. Each of us is a matchless treasure and a true gift. Pray for our Women's Staff that we can really reach these Rutgers Women and share with them the Truth about who they are. Would that we all know deeply in our hearts of His Love that is so totally other! At the end of the day it doesn't matter if we've accomplished everything on the to do list, bombed a test, if we were recognized, rejected, if we got the job, if we feel beautiful, or if we're feeling completely inadequate. The one thing that does not change is that we are INFINITELY LOVED by our Father in Heaven. 

We are the Sum of His Love for us... 

And We're Off!

Hello from the Mission field at Rutgers! We are off to a great start of our school year. The Lord has really been at work through the past couple of weeks of outreach. 

I would like to introduce you all to the Mission Leader team. In the top row we have Justin Leach coming from Northeastern Unniversity in Boston along with Rachael Kirk, a fellow Florida State Seminole. Next to yours truly on the bottom row we have Matt Warne, hailng from Michigan State, and Jesse Diaz to my right, also from Florida State. Please keep our team in your prayers!

 

 I want to also thank you for your prayers for the success for our welcome week events. Dorm vistis, Pizza-Q's, Luau's, one-on-one meetings, involvement fairs, campus dinners, Spirit Nights, Women's Groups, and Googa Mooga have been filling the month of September. What a joy it has been to get to meet so many new students! There's just so much to say about what's been happening, but pictures are worth a thousand words! Allow the montage of pictures below to take you through the past few weeks.

 

Leadership Day:

Before classes start, we gather all of our student leaders for a retreat day. We pray together and hear talks to get us ready for the semester ahead. This year, the other Mission Leaders and I gave a talk to help our students develope more meaningful conversations with new students. It was a great day of seeing how the Holy Spirit wants to work through us this year. As you can see below, we have a lot of fun being together!

Pizza-Q on Livingston:

What's a Pizza-Q you ask? Well, it's basically a BBQ out on campus with all the regular games: corn whole, relay races, and frisbee and then a whole lot of Pizza!

We were right next to one of the student centers. A PRIME place to meet students!

 

During the first week of classes, Rutgers hosts an involvement fair. Below is a picture of me talking to a student interested in becoming a part of the CSA (Catholic Sutdent Association) family.

 

Who says Catholics don't know how to have a good time? Check out our Luau we had after the Involvement Fair. Fr. Keith (one of our chaplains) prepared over 30lbs of pulled pork!

This Luau gives us a chance to really get to know the RU students, along with an opportunity to have a killer limbo competition. All for the sake of the Gospel ;)

 Spirit Nights:

Our main meeting every week happens on Tuesday nights at 8pm at one of the Campus Centers. Here we have time to socalize, pray, and talk about different aspects of our Catholic Faith.

Here are some pictures from our first Spirit Night entitled: Survival 101. We played a bunch of Minute to Win it games and two students gave a sharing about what their faith has brought to their college experience.

 And there is no welcome week without a good game of GOOGA MOOGA!

It's basically like capture the flag, but stepped up a couple notches. We play with all of the normal rules of capture the flag, but at night while throwing flour bombs at each other for points.

Charcoal for camoflauge is the only REAL way to play!

 

Such are the adventures of a Missionary at Rutgers! I hope you've enjoyed the pictures as much as I've enjoyed being a part of the God's work in bringing many people to come to know His Love.

 

With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.You recall, brothers, our toil and drudgery. Working night and day in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:8

The weeks ahead will be filled with more one-on-one meetings with students. Just as St. Paul talks about in the 1 Thessalonains Scripture above, my job is to share the Gospel with these women through the very gift of myself. Please continue to pray that the Lord would give me many opportunities to be His Light on the Rutgers Campus.

 

Stay tunned for more Missionary updates! Please send prayer requests to my email: erickaelemire@gmail.com. It would be my pleasure to bring your requests before the Lord in prayer!

 

 



With many reasons to be full of JOY,
Ericka