“SEEK23: You Are Called” conference, held Jan. 2-6 at the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, brought together souls from throughout the world seeking Him, including groups from Ireland, Austria, Germany, Mexico and other countries.
Of the nearly 19,000 people registered for SEEK23, about 8,800 college students participated in the Collegiate Track. FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) took 65 participants to SEEK23 from Ohio State University.
Bishop Earl Fernandes attended and celebrated Mass with hundreds of priests. His homily is on the FOCUS Catholic YouTube page bit.ly/3wiOWn7.
SEEK is a time that brings great hope to many people. Seeing the many young Catholics and non-Catholics who are hungry to know the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his holy Church and sitting in the convention center’s domed area amid flags representing campuses from New York City to southern California, from Oregon to Miami, Florida, are evidence that the Church is alive.
“SEEK was very inspiring to me,” said Stephen, a fourth-year engineering student set to graduate in May. “To see all those young people striving to know Jesus gives me hope for the future. I also enjoyed seeing the army of priests process into Mass every day. It was an amazing sight. We are so blessed to have so many great spiritual fathers.”
Jonathan Roumie, the actor who portrays Jesus in the television series The Chosen, surprised the SEEK23 audience by playing trivia with students and speakers onstage and then sharing his testimony:
“If you feel like you need some sort of breakthrough in your life, if you need some sort of opportunity to go further and something’s holding you back, ask yourself: Have you completely surrendered to God?”
SEEK23 included tributes to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, including a memorial at the Adoration Chapel all week and a Requiem Mass on Thursday, Jan. 5. FOCUS founder and CEO Curtis Martin led a rosary before the Mass in honor of Benedict, who in 2011 appointed Martin as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.
More than 50 SEEK23 speakers, such as Father Josh Johnson; Sister Bethany Madonna, SV; Chika Anyanwu; Jason Evert; Paul J. Kim; and Dr. Edward Sri encouraged attendees to heed the call of the Gospel and make disciples of all nations.
After morning Mass, the men and women were split into concurrent sessions where each group could be addressed specifically. One of the favorite lines from the talks to the men came from Father Agustino Torres, CFR.
Father Torres frequently celebrates Mass at a men’s maximum-security prison, and before coming to the conference he asked the inmates what they wanted to tell the men at SEEK. One inmate said, “Tell them that we are redeemable.”
That was a theme of the men’s talks: That although as men we have made mistakes, and society has written us off, we are redeemable.
People encountered the Lord in deeper ways throughout SEEK23 during daily Mass, confession and Eucharistic Adoration. At Wednesday evening Eucharistic Adoration, more than 500 priests heard more than 3,000 confessions in two hours, along with thousands more throughout the event.
Jocelyn, a second-year student from Cleveland, said, “The beauty of offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass with 17,000 other Catholics, the keynote speakers, impact sessions and even (singer-songwriter) Ben Rector were all blessings I could not have encountered without the SEEK conference.
“However, if I were to be honest, those things matter less when you consider the true impact of the week resided in the silence of a convention center ballroom. Spending a week with Jesus is never a week wasted, and for that I am thankful.”
During Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the national chaplains of FOCUS and other university chaplains processed with Jesus in the Eucharist around the domed area of the convention center. All the servers who were assisting with the procession were seminarians and former FOCUS missionaries.
FOCUS will return to St. Louis for SEEK24, set for Jan 1-5, 2024. Registration is open at seek.focus.org/seek24.
Patrick Towles is a FOCUS missionary at Ohio State University.