“Go and bear fruit that will last”

The Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi have been faced with the sad reality that, at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year, Mater Ecclesiae College (MEC) will close its doors.  This college is the hard earned fruit of many talented women who spent years (at least a decade!) navigating political red tape and meeting (and exceeding) educational standards to give Regnum Christi and the Church a school that would form women for the New Evangelization. And that it has done. I feel myself a fruit of that labor and would like to share the depth of my gratitude; this will be difficult to do in a blog, but I will give it a shot.

I arrived at MEC in the summer of 2011. This was an interesting moment for the consecrated and I dare to say especially for the formation center/MEC.  There was a change of authority, many women discerning that the path of consecration is not what God is calling them to, the recent NEASC accreditation and the renewal process of the CWRC in full swing. It seemed that everything was in flux, a good, forward moving flux. I came with my “fresh out of the world’ lenses, having been studying psychology at Northern Kentucky University for a few years and graduated from a public high school. Not to mention the fact that I had been through about seven changes of school in my life. Needless to say, I was a bit different from the others and had some educational gaps. It’s funny though, I only noticed these gaps once I started classes here at Mater Ecclesiae College. After a few semesters here, I realized something; I was actually being educated. Taught to observe, see, understand, identify, think and get to the truth of matters. My mind had finally begun to receive the tools it needed to truly interact with reality. And not just my mind, but my whole person. My formation through MEC has really been “integral and integrating”. Not just because of the class content, but also because of the guidance and accompaniment that I have received from everyone here. With their support, what I have learned most here at MEC is to let myself be informed by and totally conformed to the Truth. Then with that relationship with Truth I can allow the knowledge I have received to be a bridge to the other person (instead of the barrier that knowledge or education can sometimes seem to be). I can say with all honesty that the more I learn, the more I can see the person, understand them, empathize with them and walk with them on their journey. I have seen that education is freedom, but in a different way than I thought before. This Catholic education has been the instrument for me to see that I don’t need to be afraid of what I don’t understand or defend when I don’t know the answer; I now have the capacity to peacefully look at the issue, while looking on the person with the gaze of Christ in order to help them reach the Truth and happiness they are searching for. I had previously thought truth was winning arguments and knowing more than others, as if always being able to “one-up” someone else made you more valuable. While I still struggle with the remains of this very human habit, I am able to put it aside in order to love others in truth.

Truth, knowledge and education are all at the service of love; of bringing others to the love they were created for. This is what I have received and it is deeply freeing. Deeply freeing in a society that is so high speed and info saturated that it’s hard to determine what is true. It would be naïve to say that MEC is perfect or is just like other colleges… It’s not..  But it is something unique and wonderful; a gift of God that has sent out dozens of young women equipped to look at the world and establish the reign of Christ in hearts and in society. Mater Ecclesiae College is closing, but the fruit of this tree will last- I am proof of that.