Joy at Work

IN JULY, KAYLA GARCHAR ’19 returned to The Bluff to join UP’s campus ministry team. When she received her housing assignment—part of her duties involve being a pastoral resident in Mehling—she realized she’d be living in a newly refurbished version of the same dorm room she lived in when she was an undergraduate. She says it made a lot of sense that she was “back in the same space, but transformed,” because that was how she felt about herself. Over the last five years she’d explored her longtime goal of becoming a nun (a hope she’d had since middle school). She spent most of that time in discernment and formation as a postulant and then a novice readying to become a Daughter of St. Paul, an order of nuns that runs a publishing house and evangelizes through modern media. “St. Paul used letters—the media of his time,” she says.

“If St. Paul were here today, he’d definitely be on social media.” (This order often goes by #MediaNuns, and they produce and distribute media, from print books to music.) Kayla worked in a bookstore and publishing house in Boston. But eventually she started to feel a lack of joy about the work. “I surrendered my heart,” she says. “I started to wonder if God had a better plan for me.” Before she made her decision to leave the order, she bumped into Fr. Tim Weed, CSC, someone she considers to be a mentor, and he offhandedly asked her to send someone his way for a campus ministry position. And so she decided to give a lay vocation a try. She has realized she loves the work, what she calls a “ministry of presence.” She walks with students through their every day. She goes to weekly dorm Masses, prepares hall retreats, and fosters community. She’s performing a role that she often looked for as a student, and the work is bringing her a lot of joy. We’re so glad she’s here.