Christ Near And Far
By: Isabella Stankiewicz, B.S. in Biochemistry ‘28
Written on: March 12, 2026
From the beginning of my time at Georgia Tech, when I attended Sunday mass after moving into my freshman dorm, I could tell that the Catholic Center was a place of deep community and encounter with the Lord. Even before my first mass at the Catholic Center, I had been welcomed in by a student when I stopped by during a campus tour. I later found out that the girl who gave of her time to show me around was the President at the time, Ana. The summer before starting at Tech, I had the chance to get to know a graduating student, Lindsey, who lived her faith with a level of maturity and peace that I didn’t yet see in myself as a new college freshman.
Having attended Catholic school and being raised in the faith all my life, I entered the Georgia Tech Catholic community with a strong commitment to my faith, a desire to become involved in the community, and an openness to God’s plan for me at Georgia Tech and beyond. At eighteen years old, I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the Church’s teachings and Tradition. After all, I took a lot of religion classes growing up! What I didn’t realize, and the Catholic Center has helped me to understand, is how much more there is to learn about the faith. One of the beautiful mysteries of our Catholic faith is how you can always dig deeper into Scripture and Church teachings. This understanding is largely the result of my encounters with the people of the Georgia Tech Catholic Center. Being surrounded by students like myself who are striving to lead saintly lives in communion with Christ while simultaneously working to change the world through their studies and involvements is continually inspiring. The leadership of our priest, Father Branson, and the Focus missionaries is what keeps us all moving in the right direction, together towards Christ.
I have been blessed to encounter the Lord in a number of ways through my experiences with the Catholic Center. Some of my favorites include the Peru Mission Trip over Spring Break, my weekly Bible study led by Focus missionary Anne Marie, and Mass celebrated by our priests at the CC (Father Branson and Father John Klein regularly deliver the best homilies I have ever heard – packed with wisdom, insight, and clear applications to student life). Most recently, I have encountered the Lord through the small piece of the Catholic Center community that is studying abroad with me this semester on a Georgia Tech program in Australia and New Zealand. Out of a group of roughly fifty students, five of us are involved in the Catholic Center on campus. We began our time abroad each a bit unsure of how we would maintain our faith lives outside of the structure of the Catholic Center. During the first week of our program, three of us met up for a Bible study, and our community has since grown to about ten Christians who gather each week to thank God for this gift of traveling together to see His creation and to share our faith journeys with one another. This small community that we’ve grown Down Under speaks to the strength of the Catholic Center community, even when that Catholic community is as small as five people. The Catholic Center has shaped us as individuals growing our relationships with Jesus and has prepared us to form our own community with others walking life with the Lord. Sharing the truth, beauty, and goodness of my Catholic faith with our Christian Bible study friends has been rewarding, and I have learned much from my Christian friends in return. Living our faith openly together has also invited us to share our faith with friends on our study abroad program who are not religious or have fallen away from faith themselves. It’s exciting to think that God may be using me to reach others who do not know how much He loves them.
The support of parents, alumni, and other donors for our Catholic Center is making a direct impact on Georgia Tech students and shaping us to become leaders in our faith while we walk the path of college life, on campus in Atlanta and in places as far away as New Zealand. I have endless gratitude for the resources of the Catholic Center that have been shaping me along my college journey, and I am so grateful for the relationships I have formed, and grown, through my time thus far as a member of Georgia Tech’s Catholic community.
