Students on the trip to St. Francis Inn in the fall semester.
Photo courtesy of Alice Miller Nation
BY: CASSIDEY KAVATHAS, ADVISORY EDITOR
Spring break has often been looped in with vacations and beaches but a group of Bonnies will be taking a different route by devoting themselves to a week of service, faith and reflection.
Four students along with Fr. Dan Reily O.F.M. will participate in Mountain on the Road and 10 students with Alice Miller Nation will travel to Philadelphia to serve at St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen, over mid-term break, which runs from Feb. 25 to March 5. Both of these experiences have been long standing traditions of 15 and 10 years and provide students and the people they interact with moments of growth and reflection.
“I can promise that it will get you out of your comfort zone. I promise there’ll be a lot of laughter and a lot of fun,” said Miller Nation, director of the franciscan center for social concern, regarding the St. Francis Inn trip. “I promise that people will be exhausted at the end of the day. I can promise that you will start to see life from a perspective you might have never thought before.”
While both trips are vastly different they share a core set of values and connection with people.
Mountain on the Road features the experience of Mt. Irenaeus taken to the masses. This semester the group will travel to Albany, Long Island and Connecticut.
“What we’re doing is taking the spirit and the life of the mountain on the road with students who’ve experienced it here along with the couple of us as friars,” said Reily. We meet on the road alums who are looking forward to that experience some who have been here at the mountain and some bring friends who have no part of St. Bonaventure University and never seen bonnies but have heard about this or want to participate.”
The gathering forms a circle around the room with no clear person lecturing the experience. People of all faiths and backgrounds are welcome to join. The circle shape allows members of the group to look at eachother and share a human connection. Conor Amendola, freshman media studies major who traveled with Mountain on the Road last semester, described the experience as open.
“It was really fulfilling because before coming to Bonaventure, all of my church has been like institutional … we didn’t talk about faith in this way. So coming to the mountain when I was even before moving in [to Bonaventure] helped warm me up into this idea of a bit of openness in sharing my faith, and now getting to go out and do it for others,” He said, “It lets people think about their religion and their faith in a different way than if you just go to your regular Sunday Mass … It lets you have a more open perspective.”
Human experience and connection is found at the core of this experience.
“I expect a lot of laughs and good company but I hope to meet new people,” said Kylee Leonard, a freshman biology major who also joined the experience last semester. “I’m really excited about that and just to tell more people about the mountain because it’s a really special place and if you can’t go there it’s hard to understand it. I want to spread the news.”
Riley finds that this experience allows him to connect with the Franciscan tradition as early Franciscans were itinerant preachers who traveled to people instead of having people come to them.
“They would get together in piazzas and fields and all sorts of places along with chapels and churches. We believe God is present everywhere, God’s throughout all creation and these are times where we were able to pause and feel that,” Riley said.
Similarly, the group of students and Miller Nation traveling to the St. Francis Inn, which is run by the Holy Name Providence, will use their week of service to reflect on themselves and the world around them.
“For one week I ask our students to enter into that lifestyle of serving what’s available, necessarily what we want. What does it teach us? There’s lots to learn from those kinds of things that help us understand a different perspective of life,” said Miller Nation. “That’s what I like the most about the Inn. It just offers us a completely different perspective on life that is very different from what we experienced up until now.”
The group will gather with the friars and other workers for a morning prayer before serving the community of mainly homeless people. After the day, the group will come together in their apartment to journal and reflect together. Friday, Saturday and Sunday the Inn serves an earlier meal which allows for excursions in the afternoon and evening.
They will go to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell to reflect on what freedom means as well as the Rocky steps and the Philadelphia Art Museum to contemplate the true meaning of beauty.
“It’s inspiring. I love to take students to St. Francis Inn,” said Miller Nation
kavathcj20@bonaventure.edu
