While I know a lot of people come to college and think “Yes! I’m finally away from my parents, I can do whatever I want! I don’t have to clean my room, eat healthy, go to bed early and most of all not go to church EVERY week!” Let me tell you, those people won’t do as well as those who kept with their faith, and did things like sleep and eat some salad every once and awhile. I kept with my faith my freshman year, and here are 5 reasons why you should too.
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With all the change coming your way as you come to college, church can be the constant and familiar thing that you might crave after packing up all your stuff and leaving everything you know behind. For me, being catholic, I feel at home right when I walk into a church; during my freshman year if I felt homesick I would go to the cathedral and instantly feel better. As a college student your schedule will be changing everyday, but for me Sunday was the one day that didn’t; I slept in, did some school work, then went to church and after had dinner with the people who went to mass.
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Going to church and religious clubs are a good way to meet like minded people. College is filled with people who just want to drink and party their way through their next four, or five, years, but most likely the ones you meet at church are a little more calm, and if you’re still with me, I have a feeling that’s what you’re looking for. Don’t get me wrong, churchgoers still like to party, but they probably prefer the weekend party scene and not want to be hungover in their 8 am bio the next morning. Most campuses have faith groups and this can be the best place to meet friends who have the same morals and believes as you, friends who can hold you accountable.
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It will get you through hard things you’ll face in college. In my second month of my freshman year of college, my boyfriend of a year broke up with me unexpectedly and my faith is what got me through. Every night from then on I prayed, even if I was “too tired,” a little drunk, or seemingly had nothing to pray for. My faith got me through normal hard weeks of college too, when I had a lot of exams or had conflict with people around me. Holding on to faith gave me something to rely on, something that would always be there no matter what.
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Connect you with an adult who can sometimes serve as a mentor. While you’ll have amazing professors and counselors who will want to help you through your journey, they are not the same as a person who feels a call from the church to help young people. People like professors and counselors will never tell you to pray about it and have faith, which can a lot of times be the best thing you can do. Faith groups on campus have a leader who is not a student or a faculty member of the school, and from what I have met, they are amazing people doing amazing things.
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Keeping a connection with your parents. Most people go to church because it’s what their parents did, and their grandparents, and their great grandparents and so on; so it’s not unlikely that continuing going to church would keep you connected with your parents. Every Sunday before mass, my dad will text me and ask me if I’m on my way to the church. Every Sunday after mass, my mom will text me and ask me what I thought of the gospel and readings today, because in the catholic church the same gospel and reading are read on the same day all over the world. I like knowing that my parents know where to find me every Sunday evening.