When Words Fail, and Love Overwhelms Us

As I wade into the trenches of perhaps the most intense parting of my life - rivaled only by leaving Notre Dame and beginning the long distance chapter of my relationship with my girlfriend - I find emotion and insight swirling about me. I remain grounded in my contextualized perspective that leaving  must involve carrying what you've found and who've you become with you as you move on. However, the emotions power through that truism to demand a deeper perspective.

Allow me to muddle through it all with you.

The relationships I have formed with these students are of a flavor I have yet to experience. I focus so intently on these students that I often neglect to build relationships with colleagues. I leave behind a few dear friends who happen to also be co-workers, but on a larger scale, my impact was quite minimal in the landscape of the staff. This is an added wrinkle I must develop as I mature because quality campus ministry depends so heavily on collegiality. I just freeloaded on the pre-existing teamwork in my current job whereas in future endeavors I will have to be more proactive about cultivating such a community to support the work I'll shepherd.

In terms of the students, the kind of presence I am for and with them is mostly new for me. It was hinted at by my experience as Mentor-in-Faith with Notre Dame Vision, when the age difference was similar. However, it takes that paradigm and blows it up to massive proportion, from a five-day intensive course to a year-long journey together.

The relationships are given fuller term to develop and grow, so they take on such nuance and particularity. I get to become the go-to for different people for different things. I can wander the grounds of our campus, encounter different students, and be excited for their various entreaties. I become the big brother to dozens upon dozens of beloved little brothers and sisters.

At first, the jokes about leaving were easy to deflect - "You're leaving me!?" or "How can you leave us?!", often emoted in artificially dramatic exclamations. However, as the reality of parting creeps nearer, the comments have taken deeper root and a profound personal character - congratulations for my new job and my scholarship, authentic excitement that my girlfriend and I get to live near each other finally, actual tears of disbelief that I won't be back, heartfelt affirmations that I'm one of their favorites, notes and unsolicited exclamations of joy about the connections we've forged or the way their faith has grown this year, and kids' even saying "I love you" straight up.

This is when is gets real. That's when I can't just smile and laugh and say someone else will come and make a new difference or that I'm not worth it. That's when I just want to hug my students and never let go. That's when words fail, and love overwhelms us. This is what Christ meant when He reassured that where two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst of them.

I had the thought that this must be how priests and celibate religious are sustained. I remember asking a priest at my high school how he goes on without a wife or kids, and he told me and my fellow students that he looks at us as his children. Now I really understand what he meant. We didn't just fill in a gap for him; we really were his kids. The love that can be shared when a priest or nun or even a Dan invests his/herself completely into a community abounds and overflows one's cup through the quality and depth of relationships that can form.

These relationships aren't just the means to fulfilling one's vocation or paying the bills; they are the fuel that keep the heart pumping to give and receive the love of God constantly. For me, I need the sustenance of an exclusive human relationship, of someone who gets me better than anyone else, who prioritizes me highly in her life, and gives me the love of God first so I may return it and pass it on. But in the midst of this sea of love, I see how the priest or sister, who embraces this different challenge, can navigate the celibate life and carry on in joy.

This reality recontextualizes my emotional state beautifully. As I sign yearbooks, pose for and take pictures, and share my email address with my dear teenage friends, I can't help but feel like I would at the end of a retreat. The retreat high carries you through the final day, the partings, and the shock of reentry to life, but it is sure to fade. Currently, I'm riding the high.

I'm delighting in the pictures. I'm laughing at the texts. I'm basking in the love of emails and notes. And I, a self-proclaimed retreat junkie, know better than most that it will most certainly fade.

Yet I also know better than most that just because the high fades doesn't mean that the faith and love within me have to fade, too.

The greatest way to sustain the good feelings of happiness is through the relationships that created those good feelings. Happiness is fleeting and surface-level; joy is deep-seated in the heart and lasting. These young men and women are the smile on my face, the love in my heart, the confirmation that my gifts and passions are serving the needs of God's world. I cannot force them to text, call, email, Facebook message, or even to remember me, but I can invite them to maintain our connection with deep gratitude for what has been.

And that is just what I will do. True, beneath the too-often flimsy promises lies the reality that we all won't keep in touch perfectly. However, I find solace in the fact that a few will.

Every community and job and person that touches our hearts forever owns a piece of it. Thank God, love is not supplied finitely, and that these pieces of our heart are not limited edition. Those few who stay connected with me will remind me of the whole and keep alive the part of my heart that is forever theirs.

And as life and love carry me and you and all of us on the sea of life, our sacramental lives are the ebb and flow of the waves that carry us toward love and good and God. The Eucharist brings us the nourishment and renewal of the God who became man and remains close to us always. The reach of Jesus Christ transcends time and space to reinforce and sustain those relationships, in that Something and Someone who is bigger than any one of us, so that no matter how far and wide we may spread, or how many years elapse between our meetings, we remain ever intimately connected.