This weekend, I will leave Rochester, embarking on a journey across the country and beginning the next stage of my life.
I was born and raised in Rochester and have never lived anywhere else. I’ve been a parishioner at St. Andrew Church, now St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, all my life and made my sacraments there. I received my Catholic education from kindergarten through high school at St. Philip Neri, St. Andrew, Northeastern and Bishop Kearney schools. After graduating from RIT, I was hired at the Catholic Courier and have worked there ever since.
Growing up in the diocese where I worked helped me appreciate it. I’ve experienced the beauty and diversity of our diocese as a whole in each church, parish, school and community that I’ve visited.
From the city to the suburbs, from the cathedral to the Finger Lakes, through the snow, rain, wind and sun (sometimes all in one day!), in the schools with our youths, in the fields with migrant farmworkers, at baptisms and funerals, in every hand that I’ve shaken and every person that I’ve met along the way, I have seen the glory of God. My faith has grown and has been strengthened.
No matter where life takes me, I can rest assured knowing that I am not alone because I am Catholic. I am part of a community and a family that has no one specific geographic location it calls home, but is boundless and its love is limitless. I am grateful to the diocese that has shaped me into the person I am today. That person looks toward the future full of hope.
