Your gifts to the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries are helping to ensure a robust College Campus Ministry at Towson University, drawing University students into a growing relationship with Jesus at a time when the vast majority of young people leave the Church.With Father Matthew Buening as its fulltime chaplain, Towson’s College Campus Ministry seeks to strengthen the bond between young people and their faith. “We want to keep them, obviously,” Father Buening says, “but that’s not enough. We want to make them flourish. We want to help these students not to just stay Catholic, but to grow in their faith and go back into their parishes able to transform and truly be, as what our Archbishop is talking about, ‘missionary disciples.’ That’s what we’re really striving to do.”
The Newman Center at Towson University and the Appeal funds that help maintain it, are critical to this mission. Weekday and weekend Masses are celebrated at the Newman Center, and students can have their confessions heard here too. The Center also acts as the venue for catechetical events, hosting guest speakers, prayer groups, and other opportunities that encourage young people in their faith.
The vast majority of Towson University’s students will remain in the area, and Father Buening views each and every one as “future family parishioners.” Notably, at least three married couples met through Campus Ministry at the Newman Center, and three seminarians discerned their priestly vocations there. All, as Father Buening puts it, are “going back to their parishes alive and on fire in our faith.”
Ultimately, though, for many Catholic students at Towson, the Newman Center becomes simply their home away from home, a place where they can study, take a break, pray, gather with friends, and grow in their trust in the Lord and His Gospels.
Resembling an old farmhouse and situated on York Road, the Newman Center receives funds from the Annual Appeal each year to help with its maintenance and upkeep. Appeal dollars help keep the heat running in the cold months and aid with any serious repair issues that arise throughout the year.
Father Buening, grateful for the help the Newman Center and College Campus Ministry at Towson receives due to generous Appeal donors, says, “The Annual Appeal funds really help us to make it [the Newman Center] feel like a place where students can feel at home, an oasis away from the craziness of college life. What a gift it is to have.”
