2
In Their Own Words
it hardly seems pos-
sible
that my time at Stan-
ford is done. I still remem-
ber contacting the Catholic
Community at Stanford
(
CC@S) the summer before
my freshman year and ask-
ing how I could become
involved. After going to an
all-boys Jesuit high school
where I had been involved in
service and campus ministry, I was excited at the chance to
be similarly involved at Stanford.
Upon arrival, I did get involved in the community,
becoming a Eucharistic Minister. As a sophomore, I joined
what was known as the Catholics Next Door at the time,
the Catholic student leadership group. In addition, I was a
member of the team of students and staff that helped make
the idea of going to Central America on a mission trip a
reality. On the surface, I was as involved and as committed
as any Catholic student at Stanford.
Internally, however, I was not finding the type of fulfill-
ment and connection that I had hoped for. This was mainly
due to my busy schedule: I was a member of a sports team,
started dating someone early in my Stanford career, and
as double major in pre-med and history, I was continually
behind on work. At some point during my sophomore year,
I stopped going to Mass. It was not some sort of big, monu-
mental decision—one week I was just too busy with one
midterm, and then another midterm the next week, and so
on until it had been a few months since I had gone to Mass.
While I still prayed and talked to God on my own, my lack
of community began to show in my own faith.
All of this changed my junior year, when my relation-
ship with my girlfriend of two years ended. At the time,
this was a devastating experience: most of the friendships
I had at the time were mutual friends, and so these groups
became fractured. Having come from a large family, miss-
ing home was a major difficulty for me, and I had thought
of transferring in my first few years not because I did not
love Stanford, but because it was so far from home. This
relationship was a major reason why I had chosen to stay.
Now, I felt completely alone.
However, looking back I can see how God works all
things for His good. Once, when discussing this situation, I
had a friend say to me, “Wow you really had your entire re-
lationship structure come crashing down,” to which I made
an off-the-cuff response that, “Yeah, but I guess sometimes
God needs to break your life down completely before He
can rebuild it the way it is intended to be.” It was not until
after I spoke those words that I realized how true that
statement was. After our break-up, I began attending Mass
again—more out of a need for some community and some
solace at first than anything else. I started to meet weekly
with people like Fr. Nathan, Fr. Isaiah, and Lourdes Alonso,
who were instrumental in my recovery from the pain I was
in. Most of all, I began to attend events outside of Mass that
I had previously been “too busy with work” to attend. Fel-
lowship events such as broomball and ice skating, service
events such as cooking breakfast for the homeless, and faith
events such as the living rosary: I had previously never
taken the time to go to any of these events, and yet I found
myself making it a point to attend them.
Through all of these events, God took me in and put
me in the care of wonderful friends. I would sit in Old
Union at night, studying in the company of fellow Catho-
lics, or go get lunch with a newfound CC@S friend. Even-
tually, my involvement culminated in me being a student
leader for the CC@S spring retreat, where I gave the final
talk.
I will always be able to look back at my time at Stanford
and be incredibly thankful for all of the blessings that were
placed in my life there. At my hour of greatest need, the
CC@S was a place that cared for me and made sure I was
more than just “fine.” I made so many wonderful friends
and learned so much about my own faith through the
many conversations I had with others. It is a community
that I feel blessed to have been a part of during my time
at Stanford. Most of all, it is a community in which I hope
to invest my future time and talents, as a way of somehow
repaying the CC@S for all of the lessons I learned and the
love I was shown.
Bart Thompson ‘12, pictured above, with three of his six
siblings: Peter, Charlie and Grace.
Senior Reflection
MY TIME AT CC@s
