Dearest Ursuline Families,

I hope your Welcome Back (or Welcome To, for our new families) has been as joyful for you as it has been for us. The beginning of this year has been dazzling. Maybe it’s the thrill that my path has crossed with some amazing new employees, or seeing Ursuline anew through the eyes of my freshman advisory, or starting faculty meetings with “Good Things,” or maybe it’s just Ursuline’s hallways in full revival after the slower quietness of summer, but whatever it is, people showed up to campus this year on theme.

This is our third year to discern a schoolwide theme, and interestingly enough, joy has made the list every year. Originally, when the word Rejoice/Joy was offered, we considered the sentiment might get lost in connotations of Christmas carols and Jolly Ol’ St. Nicholas. And then there is Joy, the Inside Out character, who was drafted into Intramurals season 2024. The theme of Joy resurfaced though, and this time through Psalm 16:11: “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.”

These moments are not housed in an Outlook calendar. But they are holy. They are joyful. And God is there.

As I discerned taking a role in ministry, I started a mental inventory of the big moments where the truth of Psalm 16:11 flooded our Ursuline experiences, and there were many. I remembered the “Christian Rave” during Catholic Schools Week – a moment where you could see and feel the school come alive. There was the gift of attending a Kairos retreat with eight of our peer ministers at Ursuline St. Louis as they opened their hearts in a depth of prayer and friendship. I pictured our students fully alive with hands freely raised in worship at Steubenville, and being moved by our girls pouring their hearts out in self-giving, relational service on a mission trip in Costa Rica. In moments like these, the transformation is so visible and audible and contagious. It’s an awakening in the Church. I’ve witnessed our teens realize that faith is personal, and engaging, and not something reserved for tomorrow but something joyfully alive in them today. I’ve seen what fullness of joy in His presence looks like.

Each year, there are big moments of joy in ministry, which is why we continue to pour into programming and opportunities for our students to have those meaningful, fullness of joy experiences. But the ministry that radically changed my life as a teenager was less often a retreat high or a perfectly planned prayer service. It was the million, smaller, in-between interactions that were unexpected but invitational and relational. What does ministry look like? It’s cradling a squishy baby at cross country practice, it’s an encouraging post-it note left on a desk, it’s a senior showing off photos of her dachshund in pajamas (naturally, that is important pastoral information), it’s reassuring a new student who went to the wrong lunch, it’s a freshman advisory beginning to feel more like home, and it’s even a sudden shared appreciation for the squirrels in the courtyard. These moments are not housed in an Outlook calendar. But they are holy. They are joyful. And God is there.

Joy is not the product of a perfect event or powerful experience. Joy is not a guarantee that everything will go our way, that we will bypass all troubles, or that we will be spared the stress of college applications or 107-degree days or learning to drive (sophomore parents, I see you!). Joy is not dependent on circumstances. Joy is the fruit of an awareness of God’s presence and an abiding trust that all life is in good hands.

Presence and joy go together, not just in the words of Psalm 16:11, but in lived reality. We show up. We notice. We listen. We encourage. We invite. We allow ourselves to be surprised. We appreciate. We trust in an eternal goodness. Joy pushes me to look beyond the carefully curated moments to the ordinary opportunities to be present. They too become holy because God is there. And for us, that is the invitation of joy: to notice where God is already present and let it become holy ground.

In His presence, in the extraordinary moments and the nearly unnoticeable ones, there is fullness of joy.

Praying for a year of presence, gratitude, and joy for your families,

Mandy Briones

Campus Minister