It is June and my mind has wandered to GIVEN. Yes, it is the month of the Sacred Heart, my birthday month, and the start of summer, but GIVEN is on my mind and I am filled with gratitude when I think of the gift that GIVEN is to young Catholic women and the greater Church. While some of you may know my GIVEN story, I wanted to share some reflections with you that I formed last year as I headed out to accompany the next cohort of women as one of their action plan strategists.
That girl that you see, second to the left. You know, the one showing some attitude at her birthday party. That is me.
I look at that girl and see someone who would much rather spend time with her grandparents than with her classmates. I see a girl who knew from a young age whom God created her to be and become. But not exactly sure what the road would look like.
The GIVEN Forum is a journey through three elements of exploring the gifts that women are to the Church and the world. The first is, “Receive the gift you are.” That part has always been easy for me. “I just be Katie” is the phrase frequently brought up in my family, and it remains true today. I am a gift, created by God. I have unique talents, skills, temperament, and experiences, that, when enacted help bring God’s great plan for this world to life. I have what I need to do my part to serve God in the way I was uniquely created to live.
The problem has come into how I put that gift, who I am, into the vocations in which God is calling me to live. It has been a slow process to receive the gift that I am in the professional world. I have resisted and questioned.
While at the Forum and during my Year of Accompaniment, I found new ways to receive the gift that I am. I have discovered facets of myself that I didn’t know existed. By putting a magnifying glass on the gift that women are in the Church today doors opened for personal growth, professional development, and spiritual enrichment. It allowed me to see, in a focused and intentional way, the gift that all women are to the Church, not only in a surface-level comprehension. It showed me a new way to fit into God’s divine plan.
In 2009 I studied abroad in Rome, taking classes in painting, art history, and Roman history at the American University of Rome. It was my first time abroad, but far from the first time I traveled. It was a great experience, a gift.
The second call of GIVEN is to “Realize the gifts you’ve been given.” This can be easy to do when we look at our faith, family, education, and the material gifts of life, but it can be difficult to realize the gifts we have been given that makeup who we are and have been created to be.
While at the GIVEN Forum, I had time to see the gifts that makeup who I am, my quirks, my personality, the things that come easy to me, even that which is difficult for me. It can be hard to see my daydreaming as a gift. It can feel impossible to accept the gift of being loyal and hopeful to a fault. Every aspect of our lives have been given to us by God so that we might enact those gifts, use them, and share them.
Here I am at last year’s GIVEN Forum, having been caught in the rain, exhausted from the intensity of the previous days, yet not wanting to go home later that afternoon, I was feeling full. GIVEN for me was not about discovering how to be a Catholic Professional, or how to honor and live my faith in the workplace. It was about magnifying what deep down I already knew about myself, and my place in this world. It was about learning new ways to invite God and others into my life to help me enact the unique purpose for my life. GIVEN showed me how to look at my life, not from a new perspective, but with a brighter light, able to better see the gifts that I have, that I am, that I can give, and that I am called to give. I was already responding with the gifts only I can give, but I can now do it with great intention, with a community of amazing women behind, alongside, and in front of me.
The Hem of Christ was started before GIVEN, but they helped me pick up the frying pan the Holy Spirit threw at me a few years ago and make something new out of my life’s work.