FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
Dive into the heart of the Catholic experience at Yale University with host Grace Klise, Director of Alumni Engagement at Saint Thomas More. In each episode, Grace and her student co-hosts engage in conversations with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members. Together, they discuss the nuances of living out the Catholic faith in today's world, culminating in the question, "Where have you found God?" This podcast offers a space to explore the intersection of spirituality, community, and education, providing listeners with personal insights and meaningful perspectives. Subscribe now to join the journey of discovery and connection.
FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
Katie Painter: Scholarship Anchored in Faith
Have you ever considered how a love for language, literature, and music could be a gateway to spiritual growth? Join host, Grace Klise, and student co-host, Mary Margaret Schroeder ’24, as they talk with Katie Painter, a bright scholar from Yale’s Class of 2023 who is now studying theology at Oxford University. During Katie’s time at Yale she graced the halls of STM and the sidewalks of campus with her peaceful and inquisitive mind that helped launch her on an unimaginable spiritual journey.
Discover how Katie blended the classics and theology into an enriching tapestry of study during her time at Yale and how her faith grew in unexpected ways through this unique synthesis. She shares more about Jerome, Ambrose, and the connections between the Church today and that of antiquity. Katie shares her experiences of engaging with diverse perspectives and backgrounds, providing a fresh lens through which to view her faith. In a testament to her leadership skills and humanitarian spirit, Katie founded “Service and Solidarity,” an initiative that bridges individuals of various faiths through their shared commitment to service.
Finally, Katie candidly articulates the ways in which her desire for God grew while at Yale, especially when churches were closed during COVID. And, she shares more about why she thinks campuses like Yale are fertile grounds for fostering faith among young people. Looking back on Katie’s time at Yale, we celebrate her accomplishments and are inspired by her scholarship and faith.
Welcome to Finding God on Park Street, a podcast from Saint Thomas More Yale's Catholic Chapel and Center. I'm your host, Grace Klise, joined by Mary Margaret Schroeder as the student co-host today. Thanks for listening. We had some rock star graduates in the class of 2023, some of whom have already been on the podcast. We're bringing you another conversation with one of them today.
Grace Klise:Mary Margaret and I met Katie Painter in the studio as she was finishing her final assignments as a Yale undergraduate. If you were lucky enough to hear Katie give a reflection during Adoration or read one of her pieces on the STM blog, then you'll know that Katie can write. Beyond that, she has a deep longing to know God and grow in intimacy with Him. Whether she was in prayer at daily Mass, writing a paper in the dining hall, participating in an Alternative Spring Break trip or serving as a leader on our Undergraduate Council, Katie's mind was always open and her heart always generous. Katie is now across the pond studying theology at Oxford University, but she continues to inspire us in our own search for God. Let's dive in. How has the end of senior year been?
Katie Painter:It's been really good. It's been a little bit busy, I think there's just been a lot of writing to do in the past few weeks that I've been enjoying because I get to write about some of my favorite topics. Just this morning I sent my final paper of Yale to my mom to proofread. I think my mom is probably the best proofreader that I've ever met in my whole life. I sent her my paper on Jerome and pilgrimage in late antique Mediterranean world, which is a topic that's very close to my heart. It was a long and difficult research process, but also something that I was really grateful to be able to do, which has been a theme, I think, of my undergraduate major. It was a good end, I think. Definitely some late nights leading up to it, but it was good to finally send that in today.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:Gosh, did you always know that you wanted to be studying classics and religious studies? I'm thinking back of you on your apple farm when you were little. Were you always thinking about this, or was this something that, once you came to school, you were really drawn to?
Katie Painter:Not so much when I was little. I think actually when I was really little I wanted to be a classical pianist. I had that dream probably up until age 15 or so. I thought about going to a music-oriented high school, but I had the world's worst performance anxiety and I really was not meant to be a performer. I think I put that to the side and started focusing on writing and learning languages. I really fell in love with Latin.
Katie Painter:My first year of high school I had a really great teacher who was super supportive.
Katie Painter:She actually did her PhD at Yale and told me that there's so much you can do when you have access to the ancient world through language and that there's so many things you can read that you would never otherwise be able to explore. Her example,
Katie Painter:and she was just so radiant and excited in the classroom, that I really wanted to be like her when I grew up, even though she's just much more exuberant than I am as a person. I think her energy was just really captivating to me. I came to Yale thinking I would focus on classics and maybe write about Cicero or some of the classical thinkers that I had been somewhat exposed to in high school. Then I think religious studies sort of opened up to me as a second major in my sophomore year as I started getting more involved personally in my faith. There were just certain questions that I realized that were so on my mind personally all the time, like how do Christians engage with other intellectual traditions? What does that mean for us in today's world? I think I was seeing seedlings of those questions and answers in the ancient world and I really wanted to use my Latin background to kind of get into those.
Grace Klise:Over the course of your time, Katie, at Yale, what have been some of your favorite research topics? You just mentioned Jerome and pilgrimage. I know your thesis was on St Ambrose and the hymns of that time. Do those stand out? Are there other ones that have really just captured your heart and mind?
Katie Painter:Yeah, I think my thesis has definitely kind of been, it's been a labor of love for about a year and was one of my most favorite things that I've gotten to do with Yale, first of all because I had a really wonderful advisor who helped me kind of bring my interests in religious studies and classics together in a way that I haven't really fully been able to do, I think, until the final completion of this project. It was just a really exciting and fruitful year to spend with him and diving into Ambrose, because I was able to kind of touch on some of these questions that I again personally are always on my mind about how do we as Christians engage with other intellectual traditions and how do we incorporate them into our belief systems and also differentiate where we see the truth to be different. Getting to look at Ambrose through Latin was really exciting in that respect. Then I also am kind of just perpetually interested in this question of how do we use literary art and poetic art and music and kind of these ethereal forms of communication to pray and to express our understanding of there being an ultimate reality which transcends our everyday experience of the world. To be able to look at music in hymns again, even maybe going back to some of those very earliest dreams that I had as a child when I thought I wanted to bring music into the world and have that be my expression of beauty, was just really a wonderful experience to kind of bring those different strands of all the things that have sort of been on my mind forever into one paper that I think is very much a work in progress. It's quite a few pages at this point but it could still be more.
Katie Painter:I think the topic is such that you can devote a lifetime to it. I'm hoping that maybe in combination with a few of the other things that I picked up at Yale, it will be maybe a lifetime research question. So yeah, it's been a highlight. But I also love Jerome and even I've continued to work on classical writers too and I'm always bringing in things that I've read from Virgil and Horace.
Katie Painter:One of my favorite papers, kind of the first big research project that I did at Yale, which was kind of my step from doing the five-page little analytical things into like a real research project kind of oriented, self-directed thing, was on meta-theater and social critique in Plotus, and so I'm kind of always just interested in this way that literature comes to life and the way that it enacts real things in people's lives. I think that's something that Ambrose does in his hymns, but it's also something that people like Plotus were doing in the Roman world well before. So I think just being able to explore that question of why does, why does literature have meaning and how does it come to life, how do we use language in a way that actually does real things to real people, is something that I'm just kind of always perpetually concerned with.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:I had the great honor of attending the Mellon Forum when you got to present your thesis and it was so awesome to see you in your element and so passionate about the work that you were doing. And I especially love the translations that you shared and how those really were able to bring all of us lay people into the mind of Ambrose and learn about these hymns and really gain an appreciation for the beauty in them, and I think that you are no stranger to sharing some beautiful translations with all of us here at STM. I know in our undergrad spirituality group for women, it's always like the highlight of the whole dinner when Katie speaks up and tells us the root word of something that we were learning about or reading about. I'm wondering, Katie, if you have a favorite translation or something that recently maybe has helped you grow in your faith or understanding of God from something that you've read.
Katie Painter:So I actually have a translation of Confessions on my desk right now and I kind of keep it there always, and I think that was one of the texts again that sort of opened my mind to this synthesis of classics and religious studies academic work that I could be doing, and it's a text that I kind of keep coming back to as something that really exemplifies the place of autobiography in our Christian intellectual tradition and how important that is for us to kind of commit to beautiful writing, the stories, the experiences, the moments that have brought us closer to God.
Katie Painter:And so I think for me to enter very closely into Augustine and the way that he is so vulnerable and so authentic and so true to what it means to be a broken human being who discovers the goodness and the glory that is in God's world. I think it's just been a really formative text for me to encounter. I think I first actually encountered it in high school but was not as drawn to it then, just because I didn't have sort of the formative few years that I had in between then and now. And I think just every time I go back to it it feels more and more immediate and more and more relevant and there's less and less distance between me and the fourth century. So, yeah, it's one of my favorite translations, I think.
Grace Klise:Katie, what has it been like studying this synthesis, as you describe it, between classics and theology here at Yale? So I know there's a personal dimension with the growth in your own faith life, but also academically, what has it been like? What resources have you been able to tap into here? I know you've done some work up at the Div school, so would love hearing about that experience here at Yale.
Katie Painter:Yeah, sure, that's a good question. So I think my mind was probably first open to the possibility of kind of doing this double major when I took Carlos Eire's Catholic Intellectual Tradition and just sort of stumbled into the way that there were so many different avenues of inquiry that I could incorporate my classics background into and that kind of inspired me to go on to the Divinity School and take a few more specialized courses. And they're very different environments, I would say, the Divinity School and Yale College. One thing that is challenging but also that I really am grateful for is just the way that Yale College really asks you to engage with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds that are very different from your own. Within just my very small cohort of seven majors in religious studies, I'm the only one that is coming at it from my particular faith context and perspective. So we have people who are working on Hinduism, who are working on materialism and secular philosophy and I'm kind of the only representative of this particular dimension. I'm also, I think, the only classics and religious studies double major at Yale
Katie Painter:currently.
Katie Painter:It's just not a field that attracts a lot of people in our particular time and place, but I think I'm really grateful just for the opportunity to have been presented with difficult questions that I think in another context I wouldn't have had to answer or had to grapple with, and to learn a lot from people who definitely don't share my beliefs or my perspectives on what it means to do research in this area, but who are still brilliant people on this campus and who have a lot to contribute, I think, to my own intellectual development and who are just good role models, I think, in other ways, and who have just provided me, like I said, with that really just challenging and interesting kind of perspective.
Katie Painter:But at the same time I think it's really important to have community in a sense of a real belonging and personal ability to connect with people who are actually coming at it from your similar perspective. So to that end the Divinity School is kind of a good place for, it has been at least for me, to draw on kind of people with a shared experience and commitment to the Christian intellectual tradition from a confessional perspective. So I kind of go up the hill and I meet my friends and companions who are occupied with similar questions, and then I go back down and I talk to my classics friends who have really no stake in this argument but are, just again, good interlocutors and who are working on very different things, but I have really enjoyed growing and learning from them. But then I'm able to draw, I think, from that strength of knowing that there is a community of people who kind of share my convictions and my commitments, and I'm able to bring that, I think, to my conversations with classics majors at Yale.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:I think I definitely see how you've brought those lessons of different perspectives down to STM. I'm thinking especially of your work as the chair of our Act Committee during your time on the undergrad council and an initiative that you started called Service and Solidarity and bringing together people of different faith backgrounds. That's something that we've actually continued quite a bit and it's definitely a highlight whenever we have those dinners. Can you tell us a little bit about that and maybe what inspired you to start something like that?
Katie Painter:Yes, that was something I was really excited to be able to bring to fruition. I think last, last fall was our first iteration. It seemed to me that there was a lot of opportunity for us just having the beautiful Golden Center that we do and so many vibrant students who are interested in service, that there was an opportunity to kind of activate that passion for service amongst people who share that commitment and who may have different religious convictions but are still grappling with this question of what does it mean to have faith at Yale which is really no easy question to grapple with. So I thought that there could be a space maybe for us to connect and to share and to learn from each other about where are the points, maybe that we converge and diverge, but ultimately to center it around this commitment to service that I think we all share.
Katie Painter:And so, yeah, we've had some really exciting dinners, learning about different faith groups on campus and being able to, I think, teach some students like what it means for us to pray the Rosary and what it means for us to observe Lent, what it means for us to say that we believe in Transubstantiation, and these things that I think are often misunderstood or just spoken about very casually and quickly around Yale's campus to create a space where those things from our perspective could be explained and really just set forth in a way that it often isn't given the space to, was really important and I think life- giving for me too.
Katie Painter:I think I was just able to sort of articulate why I have certain convictions and then also make space to listen and let students share why they had their particular convictions. I learned about a lot of students having very deep commitments because of their family and like their moms being really influential and that's something I relate to as well, and so I think it was just a really good thing to have that space to connect and then to activate sort of those commitments that we talked about in the second part of the evening, where we would do some active service work and just kind of have some high energy, like good times together. High energy,
Katie Painter:good times, I feel like that describes a lot of the things that UGC is involved in.
Grace Klise:Both of you have been leaders of the Undergraduate Council for my years at STM, when I have been working primarily with undergrads. I'd love to hear from both of you what that experience has been like in serving alongside peers to not only cultivate the faith lives of those who are members of the committee but also, as we have tried to do, to bring other Catholics into St Thomas More and other students on campus to engage with the greater community. So love to hear you guys served together alongside one another as co-chairs. What has the experience of UGC been?
Mary Margaret Schroeder:Yeah, it has been such a gift. I think it was like the coolest feeling when I came into STM for the first time, I guess this was on Zoom, so when I came into an STM Zoom room for the first time and I saw so many people my own age who were just like hearts on fire for their faith, I had never been in a space like that, even in my home parish, where there were that many young people who were really like wanting to be there. I think that was like such a shift for me. Coming into a space like STM, where at Yale, there are a lot of other things pulling your attention, a lot of other, sometimes more attractive, options for how to spend your time.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:But the fact that my peers, who are so inspiring to me, were choosing to be at STM and doing these things and being in these Zoom rooms and then, thanks be to God, eventually in the actual Golden Center, going to Mass every day and planning these awesome events and doing just what you said, trying to engage the STM community and reach out and try to get more people in that was just, I think, the coolest thing. Having this like shared enthusiasm and feeling that inspiration of my peers is something that I am very grateful for and I think that I feed off of every single day. When I'm walking through the halls of the Golden Center and just see people walking around, I'm like gosh, like this is so cool. UGC is just the most fun thing ever. We share a lot of laughs, we get very competitive with each other. We recently had some musical chairs competitions, which was fun. We've been getting into that. I'd say overall, it's just been one of my very favorite things at Yale.
Katie Painter:Yeah, I loved my time on UGC as well. I never thought this was something that I'd be really involved with in high school, but I just had a really wonderful Big Sib that I was paired with my first semester and during that time I was feeling pretty lost. I remember just not sure about what my purpose would be. I thought it might be in music and I had thought about sort of a classics major, but I was having trouble sort of making friends and connecting with a lot of the students and just finding my voice in the classroom was proving more difficult than I had anticipated. And so I remember just feeling sort of like I don't know where my place on this campus is and how I'm going to make it through these next four years and what's my grounding going to be.
Katie Painter:And I started going to Women's Spirituality meetings that first semester and was invited to apply for the Undergrad Council, and I just remember a similar experience that you described, Mary Margaret, where just to meet so many people who had such a clear understanding of what the ultimate important thing was, and that thing was really a person who would become someone that I try to encounter every day in as many ways as I can, and that person is Jesus. And I think being able to surround yourself with so many students who share that understanding of what imitating him really means and what trying to conform yourself to his image really means, and in doing that in so many different ways I think that's one of the things that I love about our Catholic faith is that we have prayer, we have service, we have so many different ways of engaging, and so UGC really reflects that, with the different committees that we bring together and all kind of oriented towards this common goal but manifesting in different ways.
Katie Painter:And so I think, being able to-- I was on Study, I think was on Prayer actually my very first semester and then I was on Study and Act and I think I've done sort of a little bit of everything-- and have really gotten to, yeah, connect with so many people that I wouldn't have expected would become really good friends and again, just very different backgrounds and perspectives and interests on campus, but our common commitment to these kinds of pillars of our faith has really brought us together in a way that I'm so infinitely grateful for.
Grace Klise:Yeah, you've hit them all, Katie. We just need to make you a member of Outreach for a bit to check off all four. What have been some of the most meaningful or transformative experiences or communities within STM for you in your four years at Yale?
Katie Painter:So I think Women's Spirituality was sort of the first one that I joined and it was one where I really just met other women who were grappling with similar questions about what it means to be a woman in the Church and I learned from them about the female Doctors of the Church that were so blessed to have. I learned about sort of what it means to have Mary as our model in faith and to just really be animated with that joy of being a woman of the Gospel and of the faith. And I think being able to gather over a dinner and conversation every few weeks was just, it was something that I would look forward to and I really have since that first semester. But beyond Women's Spirituality, I think I've also really loved being a part of the ASB trips.
Katie Painter:I've been on two and I think again, yeah, you're just surrounded in those contexts with people who are so passionate about making their faith something that's active and engaging with the world in a variety of different ways. So both of the trips that I went to, I went to California in my junior year and I just went to Navajo Nation in Arizona in senior year, and I think both trips are really different but the commitment that both our hosts showed to serving the people that we were working with and also learning and growing along with them, and then kind of bringing us into that experience and just welcoming us wholeheartedly into every aspect of life in both of the places that we visited was just really life-giving again and just such a blessing that I would never have expected to have found my way into, I think, first year, but it's also one that I'm just really glad that I got into.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:Gosh, that's great Katie. And I know a couple of weeks ago at Adoration you gave such a beautiful reflection on your time at Yale and what it has meant to be a Catholic on this campus. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about what you shared so beautifully with us that night.
Katie Painter:Oh sure, yeah, so on that night I talked a little bit about the way that I found my way into kind of daily rhythms of worship. And that really began, actually kind of unexpectedly, during COVID, because I was in my room a lot of the time and I kind of wanted to find a place to just take some space and be out of my academic bubble. And that ended up being Daily Mass at St Mary's. STM was closed at the time so this was the only place that I could go and it was right across from my dorm and I think I thought of going to one or two Daily Masses a week and I just found myself continually pulled back and I started going to Adoration, to Rosaries, and there were just more and more elements of life there that I just couldn't really articulate why, but I knew that I had to keep going and there was just this sense of peace and joy and real strength that I found in continuing to go back. And so to this day I'm just still kind of pulled into those daily rhythms and I think it's one of those things that it affects you so deeply but you don't necessarily notice it. So I know a lot of the days maybe I'm at Daily Mass, I'm not as present as I should be, but still there's just this real strong sense of I need to be here and I know that if I'm not enough, he is enough and he will make me enough. And I think so
Katie Painter:to be able to share that with STM was really special and to just kind of have that moment of vulnerability that I talked about finding in Augustine.
Katie Painter:I think it's not again something that probably my first year self would have been way too terrified really to even contemplate sharing a lot of those things.
Katie Painter:But being able to just say this is how deeply emotionally connected I am to the Church and what it means to me was, I think, a really special thing to do. And I talked about just this moment in COVID when I realized that churches would be closing again, I would have to not go to Mass for a while in person, and just how much that struck me in the moment. I just found myself crying like so hard at home and I didn't realize how much it meant to me to be able to meet Jesus every day at the foot of the Cross and to meditate on that image in person and to receive the Eucharist. And I think I know that those things mean so much to me, but in the moment it just that sense of loss, I think was a real gift in knowing that I really really do need this and this is my ultimate reality and this is all of our ultimate realities, and so I think to share that with the community was a real blessing and I'm glad that I was able to do that.
Grace Klise:Yeah, it was a beautiful way to kick off that series. We started this semester of seniors offering reflections on how they've experienced God at Yale before Adoration. Katie, I'd love hearing your perspective on finding God at Yale and growing in faith at Yale, because I feel like the stereotype is that Yale or schools like Yale could be very hostile environments to the faith or to growth in faith, and both of you have alluded to the vibrancy of St Thomas More and the number of young Catholics who are really engaged in their faith. And I know, Katie, for you that the last four years have been a time of real growth in coming to know God's love more intimately. And I would love to hear how that has been cultivated here and why you think that a place like Yale, with the support of the Catholic communities here in New Haven, why it, is a place where young people actually can really grow in their faith.
Katie Painter:Yeah, those are great questions. I think for me it really was just encountering a whole constellation of role models and of people who, on this campus, are just so strong and are each doing it in their own way of living this life of faith. It kind of started probably with my Big Sib Marlena, and then at the time, the women who were in Women's Spirituality at that time, each of them were just again so different but clearly drew such strength from this grounding that they had in their faith and in each other. And so I think that having the space at STM for us to draw that strength and to really connect with each other in so many different ways has been kind of the main way that I've been able to, I think, grow and to really know God's love as it is enacted by so many people in so many different ways through our service, through our soup kitchens, through our ASB trips and also through our prayer and through our liturgies.
Katie Painter:I think coming to know the Triduum and sort of to start really understanding the depth of what it means to be an Easter people and to live a Resurrection mindset has been also just a real blessing, and I think that with the opportunity that STM gives for students to really immerse themselves in those liturgies and in liturgies throughout the world and throughout the year and to really just come to know so much more deeply than I had known before those elements of our tradition was just yeah.
Katie Painter:I think it just gives you so much strength to keep going and, despite the challenges that are on this campus and the different perspectives and the arguments that you inevitably encounter, whether it's suitemates or classmates, I think you're really prepared, if you're immersed in the STM community, to kind of take those on and to do it from a perspective of love and faith and to know that the peace that you have from your Christ cannot be taken away, even if you do encounter opposition, which inevitably you can and will on Yale's campus where people are very convicted about certain things and will definitely oppose the arguments that you put forward or even just the things that you do on your daily life. I think it gives you such strength to be able to know that there's a community behind you who believes in what you believe and who knows that that peace that you want to carry with you and that you want to transmit to others is something that's worth fighting for.
Grace Klise:I'm constantly amazed and inspired by the witness of you two and our students, who bring their faith with them to every facet of life here on campus. So thank you.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:So, Katie, you told us some exciting news about what you'll be doing next year going over to Oxford and doing your Master's over there. Can you tell us a little bit about what that discernment process was like when you were trying to figure out what your next steps were, and was that always the thing that you were looking toward, or did that kind of change over the last year or so when you were thinking about post-grad plans?
Katie Painter:Sure, yeah. So definitely has been a very interesting and complex year of figuring out what the next step will look like. I always have sort of thought, since I arrived at all, that I would want to keep studying because I do love research and writing. And then I've been sort of thinking about trying to make an academic career for a while, but I wasn't sure exactly if I would go right into a graduate degree or if I would do maybe some post-grad service. I thought about JVC for a little bit, but I knew that I did want to keep studying at some point. And then, as I was kind of being pulled in like the classics versus religious studies question, I definitely went back and forth a few times and had some different conversations with different peers on campus and kind of just came to the decision that I really wanted to find a place where I could bring those two interests together and where I could study early Christian thinking in the context of the classical world where it was born, and so there are only so many places that I felt like would really allow me to do that in a way that I was sure would be faithful and also life-giving, intellectually challenging. So I kind of came to my list and have looked around a few places.
Katie Painter:But I think there's a really vibrant Catholic community at Oxford. So I'm actually going to Black Friars College, which is the college run by Dominicans, and there's an Institute for Social Justice there which focuses on dignity in the religious traditions and peacebuilding efforts and draws on the tradition of Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic intellectual tradition to really activate these social justice issues and initiatives in the Oxford community and beyond. So I'm really excited hopefully to pair kind of the research that I've been doing the work on Ambrose and poetry and early Christian thinking and engagement with other intellectual traditions, to pair that with then this active component of service which I think will be really well supported at Oxford.
Grace Klise:Very exciting, exciting next steps, especially when you talk so passionately about the questions that you continue to raise. When it comes to this intersection of classics and religious studies, I have thought, Katie, when we have our Riggs Teas on Fridays and we invite a scholar or professor to come in, I thought one day this could be Katie in here leading this conversation as a beloved Catholic faculty member.
Katie Painter:I don't know about that. I've definitely been very inspired at the Riggs Teas and I'm not sure if I will ever find my place amongst the lofty faculty that we have here. But yeah, I think it's great to have amazing Catholic role models in the faculty. We do have a few who have talked at the Riggs Teas, and I think that's been a real blessing to be able to connect with them and to learn from just what it means for them to bring their Catholic faith into their daily lives. Carlos Eire is one example, and then Rosalie Stoner in classics actually was just here a few weeks ago in talking about how to engage with arguments that we might face on campus and what does it mean to defend the faith and do it from a posture of love and faith yourself?
Grace Klise:How about in terms of your spiritual life? What are you looking forward to as you look to the future, in leaving this community that has become a spiritual home for you over the last four years? As you said, you'll be amidst a great Catholic community over there. What do you look forward to?
Katie Painter:Yeah, I think I really just look forward to kind of drawing on this strength that I found and this love, this person of Jesus that I've come to know so deeply, into encountering new people from all around the world who will be in my program and learning from them sort of about this global element to our church and what it means to be Catholic in places like Uganda and other parts of the world that I've never been to but I know have very vibrant and dynamic Catholic spaces. So I'm really excited to just connect with a greater variety of people and to encounter this global context where I can talk about the faith and what it means to me and also learn from others who may not be coming from my same background.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:Grace, do you have any leaving advice for Katie and all of our other 2023 graduates?
Grace Klise:I think I would just say keep your eyes set on Christ, because there'll be a lot of challenges post-graduation, in that transition, whether it's to a new job or to post-grad service or to a graduate program.
Grace Klise:But it's the one and same God who has been with you since the very beginning and he will remain with you. And so, continuing to keep our gaze on him, hopefully we'll inspire that interior piece that then we can carry with us into any challenging environments or settings or personal difficulties as we are transitioning to life after Yale, and also just know that myself and the other chaplains, we are always here. We continue to pray for you, pray for all of our graduates, and are just an email, text, phone call, FaceTime away. So the end of the year is, as we've said before, it's such a bittersweet time because it's so exciting to celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates and at the same time, it's so hard to imagine not having you all in the community, and then the Center gets very quiet over the summer. So we'd love to hear from our graduates and to keep tabs on what's happening, but I'll be right there alongside you, trying to keep my gaze on Christ too.
Mary Margaret Schroeder:That's beautiful. Thanks, Grace. Katie, we'd like to ask one question to all of our guests at the end of each podcast, and that is where have you been finding God recently?
Katie Painter:That's a good question.
Katie Painter:I think every year with springtime coming around, the time of Easter and our celebration of the Resurrection, we do feel like the sense of new life.
Katie Painter:But I think for me this year has been particularly just prominent to know that God is our God, is one who is continually alive and that these days of rebirth and renewal are possible.
Katie Painter:That I think we just had a really beautiful reflection by Noah, who I went on an ASB trip with, at Mass this past Sunday, and he talked about just the idea that, because we believe in a risen Lord, that none of the goodbyes that we say are really final, and so for me to just sort of walk through campus and see all the blooming flowers and to know that this is a world of Resurrection that we live in, and that, even though I am saying goodbye to a lot of things and people that I really do deeply love on this campus, that that goodbye as well is not really final because of the Resurrection and because of this idea that we're continually reborn in Christ and that this is our Heaven, starts now. And so I think, just to be able to really to see that in nature and to be able to walk with friends around campus and just appreciate how beautiful this season has been. A real gift this year
Mary Margaret Schroeder:Thanks Katie, it's been such a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and for all that you've done for the two of us and for the STM community. I know that all of the love that you have poured out will definitely stay within the walls of the Golden Center in each of our hearts. So thank you so much for your witness and everything that you've brought to us.
Katie Painter:Thank you, Mary Margaret. You both are such powerful witnesses and role models for me too, and I'm really excited that I was able to talk with you today. And thank you, yeah, for your presence on STM as well.
Grace Klise:I'm glad our goodbyes don't have to be final. Okay, and to all our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to Finding God on Park Street. Please share this episode and leave us a rating and review. Robin McShane, director of communications at STM, is the producer of this podcast. Sound mixing and editing are by Ryan McAvoy of Yale Broadcast Studio and graphics are by Mary Lou Cadwell of Cadwell Art Direction. We hope this podcast encourages you to seek God's presence in your everyday life. Thanks for listening and be assured of our prayers.
