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March 29, 2021In high school when my parents split up was around the time when I received the sacrament of Confirmation. It was pretty rough, but outside of that life was great. I had a blast in high school – my friend group was a lot of fun, I played some sports, was in a few clubs. My teachers were so passionate- in fact, one of my only regrets from that time was not appreciating them more. However, the one flaw in my experience was that my friendships did not feel very deep to me. Don’t get me wrong, they were all great guys, and I loved every minute I spent with them, but I never felt comfortable enough to talk about the deep stuff with them. Stuff like my home life, my dreams, and my faith, which I had just started to understand. I didn’t realize what I was missing out on until my lifelong friend Jack invited me to join the Teen Leadership Team for Life Teen at my parish, a group of juniors and seniors that helped alongside the adults.
The Teen Leadership Team, which we called TLT for short, gave me the deepest friendships I have ever experienced. They showed me love and compassion in ways I never felt from “the boys” back in high school. No matter the rough patches I had been through, I knew that I could always fall back on my TLT friends for support. Most importantly though, they helped me grow tremendously in my faith. My only family for 400 miles that could help me along in my faith was my grandparents, who lived about 15 minutes from me. Even my parents, when I asked them what confirmation was, would just tell me to ask my grandparents. With my TLT friends, I always had people to sit with at Mass, which being 17 was pretty huge for me. When you’re the only one in your family who goes to Mass, you can feel like such a stranger there. These friends were such a blessing that I never felt like a stranger at Mass again for the rest of high school.
When I got to college, I tried to keep the ball rolling with my faith, but instead found myself drawn to the other allures of college life. My first couple years here I was in a men’s small group for Catholic Hoos which was wonderful, however, I made the bone-headed decision in the Fall of my second year to take four upper-level math classes. The schoolwork left me going to my small group less and less, the stress led me to those other allures more and more, and then by spring of my second year, I hardly went to my small group all. Not only that, but I stopped going to Mass. Without the anchor of my small group or those TLT friends from high school, I was swept far from the faith. Luckily, all was not lost. I still prayed every now and then, still had lingering guilt over being so far from the Faith. So, then I thought I could just come back to the Church after college. However, later after my third year, some pretty awful stuff that was out of my control happened that led to a falling out with most of the crowd that I fell in with the spring of my second year. I found out that just like in high school, a lot of the friendships I made here weren’t that deep. I don’t hold anything against anybody though, it just be like that sometimes. I took a good long look at myself, swore off those other allures for good, and decided to rededicate myself to my faith.
Fortunately, I spent the summer many hours away from home, so I had space to get away from things. Mass was off the table since I did not have access to a car, so I downloaded an app to pray the Divine Office and did that as often as I could. At the start of the new school year, I walked into Confession for the first time in years and met Father David. I met with him a few times in the following weeks and told him I wanted to go big – daily Mass as often as I could, Sunday Mass for sure, and as much prayer as I had time for in between. Coming back to Mass was nice, but with all the social distancing stuff and with only really knowing a handful of Catholics still here, just like in my first half of high school I felt like a stranger at Mass again. Doing a 180 from high school to college and then another 180 coming into my fourth year gave me a pretty wild 360 for these past few years. I persisted though, and while I still feel like a bit of a stranger at Mass since I still don’t know almost anyone, I’ve felt better over time. My faith helped me so much through the isolation of the pandemic and of losing many friends. Without those friends from TLT way back then and without the help of Father David this year, who knows how I would have handled those rough patches in my life.
The Faith can be a solitary journey at times, but if you’re in the midst of an absence or just want to dive deeper, know that you’ll have a friend in me. These days you can find me at Mass a few times a week, and truly content and happy for the first time since my TLT days.
I’m Kyle Hoffmann, a 4th year from Richmond, Virginia. I like math, fantasy football, and the outdoors.