Mt. Irenaus: A Gateway to Service

SBU grad Hannah McGrath reflects on how the Mountain influenced her decision to serve for a year with the Franciscan Volunteer Ministry.

I often say that my time involved with the Mountain was the best thing about my four years at St. Bonaventure. The Mountain was where I first heard about Franciscan Volunteer Ministry (FVM).

I remember being at a women's overnight during my junior year, sitting by the fire eating Mountain dip, when I heard Sr. Suzanne Kush, O.S.F., (who at the time was in charge of some of the service trips at Bonaventure) talking about a Franciscan volunteer program that emphasized community, simple living and spiritual growth. Although I knew virtually nothing about the program, I felt called to it in a way that I've almost never felt.

 

I quickly found out as much as I could about the FVM program and its different sites, and I started the application process as soon as I could. I'm currently two-and-a-half months into the program and I could not be more sure of my decision to follow that calling.

 

I probably would never have heard about FVM if it weren’t for my time spent with the Mountain, or even if I had heard of it, I might not have felt called to it in that way if I hadn’t been at the Mountain. So it seems only fitting that the FVM program provides two retreats at the Mountain. We just returned from our fall retreat at the Mountain, the main theme of which was our Myers-Briggs results.

One of the incredible things that I associate with both the Mountain and FVM is the importance of recognizing God’s presence in yourself and sharing that presence with others. The Myers-Briggs test is based around eight different “gifts,” and over the retreat we discussed which gifts we had, how we could share those gifts, how we could appreciate the gifts of others, and how we could grow in some of the areas that we might not have developed quite yet.

The Mountain taught me the phrase, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive,” and I think that is what FVM tries to provide for its volunteers—the opportunity to use our gifts to fully live out God’s call to us. We are each gifted in different ways, and can use all of those gifts for our ministry. In a similar way, we are called to recognize the gifts of those we serve and to bring them fully to life.

I will always be so grateful for my experience with the Mountain—both during my time at Bonaventure and the retreats provided through FVM. The Mountain is where the Franciscan message of the school felt most real, and it will always be a home to me.