Losing their religious faith at college, where new freedoms abound and old habits may easily be abandoned, is an outcome that Sister Christina Chavez is trying hard to help young Catholics avoid.
As the San Angelo Diocese’s campus minister at the University of Texas Permian Basin and Midland College, Sister Christina is working to establish a Catholic Students Association and find a faculty sponsor at Odessa College so she can do the same there.
“Young adults are an under-served population in the church and it can be hard to find a place where they can serve,” she said. “They sometimes leave their faith when they leave home, but it can grow and become stronger if they are around others whose faith is important in their lives.”
Chavez is a native of Crane and a 1970 CHS graduate who earned a degree at Texas Tech University. A member of the Congregation of Divine Providence, she previously served in campus ministry at the University of Texas at Austin and Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.
Presiding over weekly meetings since early last year, she serves groups of eight, mostly young men, at UTPB and 12 Midland College Early High School students and five MC students, most of them young women.
Without their Catholic Students Association, Chavez said, the students would pass one another on campus without knowing about their common beliefs, but with it there is a connection and the community develops.
“The world opens up as you meet people from different parts of the state and country and you see different lifestyles,” she said. “You learn how big the world is and you find new ways of living your faith.
“It makes me laugh, being an old lady,” Chavez said. “Young adults are full of energy and enthusiasm. It’s one of the best things to be around.”
She may reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
Bishop Michael Sis said Chavez “learned some effective tools for campus ministry at the University of Texas and Our Lady of the Lake University and she is putting them to good use here in our area.
“She works directly with students, faculty and staff,” Bishop Sis said. “We are so excited about the new life and energy that Sister Christina brings to the campus ministries in Odessa and Midland.”
