As an underclassman at the University of Maryland, Kayla Cartagirone often felt lost in the sea of 30,000 students. 

Then, she started spiritual direction with Father Conrad Murphy at the college’s Newman Center, and she began to see her life and experiences through the lens of faith. 

Now, she looks forward to the monthly meetings with Father Murphy, where she can share her heart and receive spiritual guidance concerning the daily struggles that college brings. 

“Spiritual direction has helped me a lot in my spiritual growth and has helped me to hear God’s voice better and to also redirect my gaze on what is important and how God is working in my daily life,” Cartagirone told the Register. “It’s just really helpful to have someone to talk to about life and help put it in that lens of faith.”

Through spiritual direction, she has become confident in her faith and found refuge from the temptations and secular nature of college. 

“The biggest thing that I struggled with, and that I’ve seen my peers struggle with, is being confident in our faith and talking about it with other people, especially when we’re not in the bubble, that Catholic student center,” Cartagirone said. “When we’re on different parts of campus, there are times where I’ve stayed away from talking about my faith because it is scary and frightening to be authentic in your faith.” 

Cartagirone is far from alone in these struggles in living out the Catholic faith on college campuses. Across the country, chaplains and campus ministers seek to help college students not just encounter the Lord but feel equipped to live out the call of authentic discipleship in their daily lives. 

Last year, Father Andrew Auer began serving as the associate pastor at St. Thomas More Newman Center at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). Even though he has been a college chaplain for only a year, Father Auer has come to recognize the importance of this ministry.

“When I look at the Catholic Church in America, I think the most fruit is truly being born in the four years on a college campus,” Father Auer told the Register. “The battlefield for minds and hearts is happening on a college campus, and hearts are being won over for Christ so that after graduation they can enter into their family life, enter into their parish life, already formed as disciples of Jesus and prepare to be leaders in their local churches.” 

For the past year, Alex Mittendorf, a junior at Mizzou, has been going to spiritual direction. Over the course of spiritual direction, Mittendorf has begun to see the ways the Lord works in his life and develop strategies on how he can keep Christ at the center of his daily life. 

“So far, spiritual direction has helped me learn how to put the Lord at the center of everything I do in college and really focus my day around him,” Mittendorf told the Register. 

Every day, Father Auer meets with various students for spiritual direction or just conversations about the faith. While they all carry different burdens and crosses, he has noticed a similar theme: They are all struggling with the transition period that college entails. 

“Spiritual direction is especially useful for anyone going through a transition in life and college. The experience of those four years is a huge life transition, probably the biggest of your life,” Father Auer said. “It’s often helpful to have a counselor, an advocate, a mentor or director who has been there before — somebody who can see a situation from a third-party perspective.” 

Through spiritual direction, Mittendorf has received guidance on how to live out the faith on campus. Mittendorf also appreciates that, in spiritual direction, he is able to assess how he handles college life. 

“There are so many vices and temptations in college, and it’s so easy to fall into them,” Mittendorf said. “Receiving guidance from someone who has lived through them and can help call us out of them in spiritual direction is so helpful.”

For most of Father Murphy’s nine years of priestly ministry, he has served college students in some capacity. Though the East Coast-situated University of Maryland is a far cultural cry from the Midwest-located University of Missouri, Father Murphy sees students struggling with many of the same things. 

“College is a really crucial turning point … for people going through their faith,” Father Murphy told the Register. “This is a moment where society has kind of told students that this is the time for you to decide for yourself, to become an adult, to grow up, to figure out how you’re going to live your life and what you’re going to do in your life, and it’s a crucial kind of moment.” 

Thus, offering spiritual direction has become one of Father Murphy’s favorite aspects of his ministry. 

“I love accompanying students in spiritual direction because you see firsthand how these students are responding to the Lord and choosing the faith,” Father Murphy said. “Beautiful things start to happen when they choose the faith. I have seen many people become on fire for the faith; and then, through that, we’ve had a lot of people go and follow the Lord in a vocation or as a missionary.” 

Spiritual direction is not just beneficial for students at large state schools, however. Smaller Catholic colleges such as those in the Register’s annual “Catholic Identity College Guide,” including the University of Dallas (UDallas), have many students seeking spiritual direction. For the University of Dallas, the demand is so strong that more spiritual directors are needed. 

“There’s certainly a growing desire for spiritual direction here,” Deacon Ryan Sales, director of campus ministry at UDallas, told the Register. “We don’t have enough staff to meet the desire that’s growing for spiritual direction. Part of our challenge is just triaging those who are approaching us and trying to ensure that we can provide spiritual direction to those who need it and to be available for those in emergency situations who need access to spiritual direction.” 

Deacon Sales explained that the need for spiritual direction pairs with “a ridiculously healthy confession culture here. Students regularly take advantage of the sacrament. Rarely is the priest sitting in the box with nobody waiting to go into the confessional. If anything, folks will show up 30 to 40 minutes before confessions to get a decent spot in line.”

Even though the University of Dallas is recognized by the Register as an authentically Catholic institution, its students still struggle with the temptations and crises that all college students face, meaning that this ministry is still critical to students’ formation. 

“One of the challenges of doing ministry at a very Catholic university is that there can sometimes be an overreliance on the fact that it’s a Catholic university. We still need to be doing outreach, because not all of our students are Catholic, and of those students who are Catholic, not all of them are on fire with their faith. Not all of them have an authentic, deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” 

Across the board, college chaplains also say regularly offering the sacraments is critical. 

At the St. Thomas More Newman Center, Father Auer hears confessions daily. 

“We offer confessions every day of the week for an hour. I am seldom in there by myself,” Father Auer said. “On Monday nights from 9:05 p.m. to 10:05 p.m., we have an hour of adoration, and we have two confessors, and we each hear probably 20 confessions, 25 confessions each time. The goal is that people would be living the life of grace and repenting regularly so that they can come to the Lord and enter more fully into a relationship with him.” 

Every day, Father Murphy dons his confessional stole to hear confessions, so that students can receive the Lord’s mercy and know that the Lord welcomes them back with open arms.

“College students tend to get in trouble. We mess up a lot, and God, in his mercy, wants to meet us there, to see us and tell us that even when we’ve made huge mistakes, he chooses us; he welcomes us back,” Father Murphy said. “Messing up is part of growing up. The key, though, is not that we have a perfect track record, but rather that we have a perfect record of returning to him in the sacrament of reconciliation when we have failed.” 

Like many college students, Cartagirone has found refuge in the confessional. 

“I used to take the sacrament of reconciliation for granted, often, because it’s scary, but I think it’s important because it allows us to just hold ourselves accountable and to reconcile with God and really strengthen that relationship with him,” Cartagirone said. “He’s always welcoming us back. Every time that I go to confession, there is such a weight that has been lifted off of my shoulders, and the sacrament really shows God’s mercy and his love for us.”