By Marisa Young | Reporter
Baylor’s Catholic Student Association will host their annual Dia Del Catholic celebration this Thursday. The event, hosted at the Baylor Marina, will be full of fellowship and water activities such as kayaking and paddle boarding.
Waco senior and president of CSA James Foley said that Dia Del Catholic, just like all other CSA events, is open to students of any faith background.
“The goal is mostly to build an environment of Catholic fellowship,” Foley said. “But I think it’s particularly beneficial to bring in people who are not already familiar with our community.”
Foley said through Dia Del Catholic, he hopes CSA is “fulfilling our students’ social needs,” which is a part of the organization’s mission at large.
“The main mission of CSA is to provide for the spiritual, social, moral and intellectual formation of our students,” Foley said.
While the event is geared toward “fostering the existing fellowship” of the Catholic community at Baylor, Foley said it often serves as a big point of outreach too.
“There’s a great spirit of evangelism that’s in our students, even if our organization is not primarily focused on that,” Foley said.
Mansfield freshman and Spiritual Life Officer Mauricio Menchaca said he felt the effects of this outreach very powerfully his fall semester.
“It’s a place where I can be with others whose minds and hearts are on fire,” Menchaca said. “It was only after one semester where I felt like, ‘This is a community that I love, and I want to be able to serve that community.’”
Menchaca said he hopes Dia Del Catholic will allow more students to encounter the support and passion from this organization that he did, whether or not they are Catholic.
“When I see other people in CSA or at St. Peter’s, I’m all the more inspired when they are taking time out of their day to practice their faith because they are doing it purposely,” Menchaca said. “It’s very inspiring to see other people go to Eucharistic Adoration on a Tuesday evening or through a walking rosary in the middle of their day. It’s a witness to the word Christ is doing through them, and it allows me to know Christ.”
To students who are considering attending an event or curious about CSA, Menchaca said he would encourage them to come whether or not they are Catholic. He recounted a recent time he was notified that a new student joined the organization who was not traditionally Catholic.
“I knew that they were down the hallway, so I went up to them and I was like, ‘Welcome to CSA!’” Menchaca said. “It’s very welcoming, and it’s easy to get involved.”
