Awakening is a 3-day college retreat loosely based on Cursillo and Search, which are retreats for women and men on Catholic teachings. For many college students, Awakening is an opportunity for a real, genuine encounter with God. Maybe even for the first time.What also makes Awakening great is the tight-knit community that develops during the retreat and how it even continues even past the retreat.
I made Aggie Awakening #75 in the Fall of 2005, and then staffed Aggie Awakening #85 as a Table Gopher in the Spring of 2009 (I think, if I did my math correctly, with 3 Awakenings a year). See, the problem with being an engineering major involved in other organizations at Texas A&M makes it difficult to spend entire weekends on retreats. I wish I could have staffed more but...alas, I did not.
But either way! I'm attending Aggie Awakening #100! ...the conference part of it, anyway!
I'm pretty excited because any legit excuse I can find to return to my other home is a good enough reason for me! In true Aggie Catholic fashion, it'll be a wonderful time coming together as family in Christ and as Aggies.
I'm also pretty excited about the speaker lineup! Which you can see here.
I mean, Fr. Mike, Fr. Brian, and Fr. David? A great trifecta of the priests I had while I was in college! Shawn Carney?! Duuude, he freakin' help start 40 Days for Life! And then Marcel LeJeune?! We're social media friends, and I'm a follower of his blog, lol.
I was scouring Facebook timelines from 2005 to find a cool retro picture to post on here...but no such luck. But I realized that both my table dads for #75 and #85 are now seminarians...no big.
Anyway! Other fun facts about Awakening:
Aggie Awakening History - A memoir from one of the first staffers of AA #1
Awakening Retreats - A website with a schedule of all the Awakening retreats throughout the country
There's something about being an Aggie Catholic that just makes...being an Aggie... more importantly, being a Catholic...mutually awesome. I should (eventually) blog about that and how my Awakening retreat impacted me.
I made Aggie Awakening #75 in the Fall of 2005, and then staffed Aggie Awakening #85 as a Table Gopher in the Spring of 2009 (I think, if I did my math correctly, with 3 Awakenings a year). See, the problem with being an engineering major involved in other organizations at Texas A&M makes it difficult to spend entire weekends on retreats. I wish I could have staffed more but...alas, I did not.
But either way! I'm attending Aggie Awakening #100! ...the conference part of it, anyway!
I'm pretty excited because any legit excuse I can find to return to my other home is a good enough reason for me! In true Aggie Catholic fashion, it'll be a wonderful time coming together as family in Christ and as Aggies.
I'm also pretty excited about the speaker lineup! Which you can see here.
I mean, Fr. Mike, Fr. Brian, and Fr. David? A great trifecta of the priests I had while I was in college! Shawn Carney?! Duuude, he freakin' help start 40 Days for Life! And then Marcel LeJeune?! We're social media friends, and I'm a follower of his blog, lol.
I was scouring Facebook timelines from 2005 to find a cool retro picture to post on here...but no such luck. But I realized that both my table dads for #75 and #85 are now seminarians...no big.
Anyway! Other fun facts about Awakening:
Aggie Awakening History - A memoir from one of the first staffers of AA #1
Awakening Retreats - A website with a schedule of all the Awakening retreats throughout the country
There's something about being an Aggie Catholic that just makes...being an Aggie... more importantly, being a Catholic...mutually awesome. I should (eventually) blog about that and how my Awakening retreat impacted me.
If you've made an Aggie Awakening, I highly encourage you to register!
Look, I'll even put the link right here: http://aa100.aggiecatholic.org/
I look forward to March!
- JD
