The SPIRITUS Impact

When asked the question of how SPIRITUS has impacted my life and the lives of youth everywhere in Wisconsin, I can’t help but think of St. John Paul II’s words at World Youth Day in 2000. He said, “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise.”It is precisely the mission of SPIRITUS to ignite the Catholic faith and to awaken a sense of joy and peace that can only be found through a genuine encounter of Jesus Christ himself.






Everyday I get the chance to awaken my faith and meet Christ through the gift of Mass, Adoration, and communal prayer with my team. I can’t stress how much this can transform a person as it deepened my commitment in not finding my worth in people or things but rather through a deep intimacy with my God who is closer than my own heartbeat. SPIRITUS has shown me that less truly is more, for the more time I give to God and others the more I truly receive. The more I let go of my wants and desires, the more freedom I experience in being the woman who God has created me to be.





By interacting with the youth on retreats and in the parish of St. Therese I get to see students experiencing the peace that God so longs to show them especially through one on one prayer. Many of the students are hungering for that peace in their busy schedules and are looking for that intimacy. By taking the time to reflect and hear witnesses they themselves are being ignited to seek and knock on the doors of their hearts which God so lovingly resides in. It is through the knock of SPIRITUS that a simple note of an instrument can become a grand symphony of divine mercy.






-Christen Sheffer