
At Saint Meinrad, the summer season is when the youth
conferences called "One Bread, One Cup" are in full swing. Now that
it's fall, it's the season for applications from those interested
in being college interns next summer.
In this blog post, we "borrowed" some content from an interview
done in 2017 by two former college interns, Olivia Snyder of Floyds
Knobs, IN, and Luke Messmer of Jasper, IN. They offer insights into
what a college internship is like for the youth liturgical
leadership conferences.
What is the conference like for the
interns?
Olivia: Something that I really enjoy
about "One Bread, One Cup," as an internship program and as the
conferences, is that everything is scheduled. Everything is very
balanced in how it's scheduled. That's very reflective of the
Benedictine way in monastic life. There's a good balance of prayer,
and socializing, and learning.
What's the internship like when the conference is not
going on?
Luke: That's kind of the hidden thing
that nobody gets to see until they've been in the internship. So,
it would be a formation week, a conference, a formation week, two
conferences, and then a formation week. But, essentially those
formation weeks look like: We're taking classes. We are going on
community outings; we're doing community-building activities. We're
praying Liturgy of the Hours every day; we're going to Mass every
day.
Olivia: What I really appreciate about
the formation weeks, as part of the internship program, is that
we're growing as individuals, but we're also growing together as a
community. So there's time for learning while we're taking classes.
And there's time for personal growth and prayer. We have a quiet
hour every day where we practicelectioand things like that that
build up the internal. But we're also building a community of faith
and living authentically with one another.
What do you enjoy about "One Bread, One
Cup"?
Olivia: One thing specifically that I
love about "One Bread, One Cup" is that it takes place in the space
of Saint Meinrad, and Saint Meinrad is such a metaphor for so many
things. But I love that it's just slightly removed from the rest of
the world, and a quiet place where you connect with your
spirituality and with God. It gives youth that experience to kind
of quiet themselves, so that they can hear the voice of God. It
gives the interns that same experience.
Do you feel like each summer you've taken away something
different?
Luke: I think of my first summer. I
learned how to be comfortable with myself and interact with other
people, and being open to growing. Then, my second summer, I had to
learn a little bit about how to lead the youth and be a bridge
between the coordination team and the other interns.
Then, this summer, being the RA for interns, I really learned
how to foster a community. And learn how to both be in a community
and also enable that community to happen kind of distinct from
myself.
(Applications for the 2019 internship can be found
here: OBOC College
Internships)