Jul 24, 2020
2020-2021 Precious Blood Volunteer, Thomas Weiss
Thomas Weiss will be serving as a Precious Blood Volunteer at Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in the Program of Liberal Studies, Notre Dame’s Great Books education.
Why do you want to volunteer?
“The most formative experience of my education was the summer service program I completed after my sophomore year at Notre Dame. Living in intentional community at Hope House and serving at PBMR will hopefully be an equally illuminating and restorative experience for me.”
Why do you want to volunteer with Precious Blood Volunteers?
“The values of Precious Blood Volunteers outline the kind of life I hope to live. Commitment to serving those from suffering communities and a drive to redevelop often backward social systems resonate with the direction of my heart as I transition out of college and toward a career informed by Christ’s message of peace and compassion.”
What are you looking forward to about your volunteer experience?
“I am excited to step out of the classroom and into the real world. Having spent four years mostly reading books and writing essays, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to put my ideals into practice and to learn to sharpen my understanding of social realities through first-hand experience with those living on the south side of Chicago.”
Learn more about Precious Blood Volunteers at preciousbloodvolunteers.org.
Jul 22, 2020
2020-2021 Precious Blood Volunteer, Allison Spraul
Allison Spraul will serve at KC CARE Health Center in Kansas City, Missouri, and live in community at Jerusalem Farm. She grew up in the town of Effingham in central Illinois between St. Louis and Indianapolis. She attended the University of Notre Dame and graduated in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a minor in Catholic Social Tradition.
Why do you want to volunteer?
“I want to volunteer because I want a year of learning the kind of skills that I cannot learn in a classroom or from a textbook that will make me a more empathetic physician. Skills like connection, accompaniment, cultural competence, and sensitivity, in addition to clinical experience, will make me a better doctor going forward.”
Why do you want to volunteer with Precious Blood Volunteers?
“I want to volunteer with Precious Blood because of their focus on accompaniment and service alongside. I want to do what I can to help bring in those on the margins.”
What are you looking forward to about your volunteer experience?
“I am looking forward to building community with those I am working with and with my fellow volunteers, as well as the chance to put my faith into real-world practice.”
Learn more about Precious Blood Volunteers at preciousbloodvolunteers.org.
Jul 21, 2020
2020-2021 Volunteer, Mike Price
Mike Price will serve at Most Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco, California, and live in community with Father Matt Link, C.PP.S. at Most Holy Redeemer. Mike grew up in Granger, Indiana, and graduated in May 2017 from Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, Indiana with a Bachelor of Arts in Catholic theology and leadership management.
Why do you want to volunteer?
“I know volunteerism is something that people love to engage in to give part of themselves to the world, but I know this will also help form me in ways to encounter the Lord. I believe in the works of all religious orders, and I am excited to be part of this community for the coming year.”
Why do you want to volunteer with Precious Blood Volunteers?
“I’d met Fr. Matt Link C.PP.S. from Most Holy Redeemer a little over a year ago, we’ve remained in contact and he suggested I should pray about giving myself a year of service. I was inspired and encouraged by the ministry Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church was doing in their community which led me to take this next step as a Precious Blood Volunteer.”
What are you looking forward to about your volunteer experience?
“I look forward to the encounters I will have with the Most Holy Redeemer community in a parish setting. I am excited to learn more about parish life, but also about myself as I grow as an individual spiritually.”
Learn more about Precious Blood Volunteers at preciousbloodvolunteers.org.
Jul 20, 2020
Precious Blood Volunteers is excited to announce that four new volunteers will serve with us for the 2020-2021 volunteer cycle. We will again collaborate with Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation in Chicago with one volunteer and we will also continue our commitment to Kansas City with two volunteers. One of them will be serving at KC CARE Health Center, and another will be splitting his time between Cristo Rey and the Bishop Sullivan Center.
New for the program, our Kansas City volunteers will live in community at Jerusalem Farm in Northeast Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City Province and Jerusalem Farm have a longstanding relationship and this partnership will be deepened and strengthened because of this arrangement. In previous years, our volunteers lived in community at Gaspar Mission House in Kansas City. We decided to have them live in a different community setting to maintain a safer environment for the priests living at Gaspar Mission House since we are in the middle of a pandemic.
Also new for this year, we are thrilled to announce a new placement at Most Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco! Our volunteer at Most Holy Redeemer will be living in community with Father Matt Link, C.PP.S. Father Matt has been gracious in extending a welcome to our volunteer there.
We give thanks to God for this wonderful group of young people! Over the next few days, we will be introducing them on the Kansas City Province website and on social media. Orientation is starting this Saturday, July 25! Please keep them in your prayers throughout the year.
Jun 1, 2019
by Koby Buth, Precious Blood Volunteer at KC CARE Heath Center
Growing up, I regularly attended youth ministry events titled something along the lines of, “Be a Hero for Jesus!” The message I heard at those events usually went something like this: “Jesus calls us to be moral exemplars in society. We need to stand out from our peers in a way that points to Christ and brings others to Him. By performing extraordinary acts with extraordinary courage, we will gather attention from society that we will then be able to redirect to Jesus.”
Part of the use of the word “Hero” was, of course, a means of appealing to our ten-year-old imagination: we could be Superman or Wonder Woman. I did not consider, however, how this appeals to our modern obsession with individualism, until I first heard the song “Helplessness Blues” by the band Fleet Foxes. As I contemplated the lyrics over time, the first verse has always been the most striking to me:
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes,
unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
serving something beyond me
While that verse could be interpreted as critiquing the Participation Trophy Phenomenon, I think it more clearly speaks to the desire to contribute in small, cooperative ways to a larger, more meaningful society. Those youth ministry events encourage great individual acts, not small, perhaps menial, acts that add up to something greater than we could do individually. I think that our youth ministers did not want to encourage those particular acts, primarily because they can feel menial. An accountant for a homeless shelter may not feel like she’s contributing much to the world, but that shelter would not exist for very long without her, leading to fewer people getting the services they need.
This volunteer year, I have often felt like a “cog in some great machinery,” which has in some ways left me a little unsatisfied. I have felt the need to begin some great project which will overhaul the way the clinic works and drastically improve the care for our patients. I would love to say that desire comes solely from the care I feel for our patients, but I think some of it comes from a desire to stand out from the crowd—to be a Hero for Jesus. In college, we often had speakers from small organizations come and speak about what caused them to start a nonprofit that helps with human trafficking or world hunger. I often wondered if, instead of having many small organizations dedicated to eradicating a huge social issue like human trafficking, having a few large ones would be able to mobilize more people and more resources. I wondered if people’s desire to be a Hero for Jesus by starting their own organization was a less efficient way of decreasing hunger and slavery in our world than joining a pre- existing one and adding their skills and talents to an already established nonprofit.
People will often say that the desire to be a cog in a machine is fueled by complacency. But I am learning to see the benefits to it. It allows good, helpful organiations to function smoothly. It helps you make significant changes in the world without burning yourself out hunting for the next great idea.
A few months ago, some street evangelists stopped Brooke (my wife, also a Precious Blood Volunteer) and I on our walk home and asked when we were saved. I thought, I don’t think salvation is a one-time thing, I think it’s a process, which is why Paul tells us “work out your salvation.” But, because I knew I would make my wife uncomfortable confronting street evange- lists, I said, “When I was around six.” He then asked, “Does your salvation make you want to go out and evangelize?” My answer was something along the lines of, “Actually, I feel like I usually want to show people what Christ is like rather than telling them.” We then told each other to have a good day and parted ways. These people were looking for big ways to serve Christ, which is good, but I’m trying to find consolation in doing small things, routine things to serve Christ, other people, and the broader creation.
Koby is a current Precious Blood Volunteer serving at KC CARE Health Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
To learn more about becoming a Precious Blood Volunteer go to www.preciousbloodvolunteers.org
Koby Buth with a patient at KC CARE Health Center
This article originally appeared in the June 2019 edition of the New Wine Press.
