When John Bolin arrived at the FOCUS SEEK conference last January, he did not expect that his life would be changed in five days’ time.
In high school, the University of Cincinnati freshman fell away from the faith completely.
So when a friend invited him to attend the five-day FOCUS SEEK conference in St. Louis, MO, he reluctantly agreed.
By the time he left the conference, something had changed.
He began attending Newman Center events regularly, launched a Bible study, and could not stop sharing his testimony with everybody he encountered.
When registration opened for SEEK 25 in Salt Lake City, Bolin knew that he had to return, even if that meant enduring a 24-hour bus ride with 104 other college students.
“I know the impact that SEEK had on me last year, and even though we had to take a 24-hour bus ride here, you just have to embrace the adventure and have that faith that he's going to encounter us all here,” Bolin told The Pillar.
This year, 17,000 participants - mostly college students and young adults - are gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the annual Fellowship of Catholic University Student’s SEEK Conference. Another 3,355 attendees are at a satellite conference being held simultaneously in Washington, D.C.
Year after year, thousands of college students who have previously attended the conference travel across the country to attend a second, a third, or even a fourth SEEK.
Each has their own reasons and motivations; some invited friends and want to accompany them throughout the week, while others are excited to see Catholic friends from across the country that they rarely see. Others hope that the conference will reignite or boost their spiritual life once again.
What they all agree on, though, is that they did not want to miss the conference.
“SEEK 24 surely got me on fire for the faith, so I thought, let's go back; let's bring as many people as possible,” Bolin said. “I wanted to hear the speakers, see old friends, and encounter the Lord. I would not have missed it.”
Encountering God
SEEK provides attendees with a plethora of opportunities to encounter the Lord through adoration, speakers, or talking with old and new friends.
For Bolin, SEEK 24 opened his eyes to the size and the grandeur of the Church.
“Seeing all of these people here is so inspiring, but to just hear these talks where the speakers share their fire and love for the Lord is so profound,” Bolin said. “Even more so, adoration and daily Mass provide those opportunities to pray and just encounter the Lord.”
The conference includes daily Mass, perpetual adoration and prayer teams. The climax event, however, is Friday night adoration, which is often cited as leaving a lasting impact on many attendees, and is enshrined as a core SEEK memory.
Rylee Lonnemann, a junior at the University of Nebraska in Kearney, fondly remembers adoration in St. Louis, watching the thousands of college students worship the Lord as the priest processed around the stadium, illuminated by the glow of the spotlight.
There, surrounded by thousands of other young adults, Lonneman encountered the Lord in a profound way.
“To be in a stadium full of 17,000 other Catholics when you're adoring the Blessed Sacrament, it is very powerful,” Lonnemann said. “It reminds you that, hey, this is real; Jesus is truly present here.”
“There are so many moments where you doubt in the True Presence, but when you are surrounded by so many people and the Holy Spirit is present, you know that this is truly real.”
That same hour of adoration proved to be the most impactful moment of Kevin Castaenda’s SEEK 24 experience, an experience that he hopes to have again this year.
“The most impactful thing that happened last year was when they revealed the Holy Sacrament, because you could really feel the excitement and reverence coming from everybody. It was something that was very beautiful, something that I loved to experience and cannot wait to experience again.”
This year, Lonnemann said he again is eager for Saturday night at SEEK. when the Eucharist will be processed around the Salt Lake City convention center as 17,000 Catholics worship the Lord.
“I cannot wait for adoration,” Lonnemann said. “It is what I am most looking forward to.”
Outside of adoration and Mass, the conference offers the opportunity to hear from a diverse set of presenters, from celebrity clerics like Fr. Mike Schmitz to academics like Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor dedicated to researching the science of happiness.
Lonnemann’s friend, Rachel Horner, also a junior at the University of Nebraska, is attending her third SEEK conference this year.
Even though she has been to the conference three times, each year the talks help Horner to recenter her spiritual life, reminding her that she is a beloved daughter of God, she said.
“Throughout the year, I easily forget that I am a daughter of God with all of the pressures and temptations of daily life,” Horner told The Pillar. “Every year, the talks at SEEK remind me of that reality, and it has impacted me.”
“The Lord desires me, and He uses the speakers here to remind me that I am loved. It is incredible to see how the Lord works through them.”
Now, SEEK has become an annual opportunity for Horner to be reminded of her identity as a daughter and to share that message with others.
“I want to come back to SEEK every year because it reminds me of who I am,” Horner said. “But also, it reminds me that these people love Christ as much as I do, and they want to share that with others.”
One big Catholic family
Seeing the thousands of other young Catholics on fire for the faith creates a deep sense of community for Horner. Attending SEEK is like coming home to family.
“On my college campus, people don't have the same beliefs as me because they have a different mindset in their life and have different priorities,” Horner said. “At SEEK though, I am comfortable and feel like I am surrounded by my friends. Returning to SEEK is like returning to my big, outgoing family.”
As thousands of Catholics descend upon a particular city each year, SEEK provides an opportunity for Catholics to connect with other young adults from across the country, providing a sense of community .
When Bolin attended SEEK 24, he knew very few people. But with the help of a few friends, he met a wide range of students and groups from the University of Cincinnati and across the country.
“At SEEK, I met a group of guys with the University of Cincinnati, and afterward we continued meeting every week. I started praying holy hours, going to daily Mass,” Bolin said. “I also met so many people from across the country and so I am excited to hopefully see them again here.”
Catholics from Utah, with SEEK in their backyard this year, told The Pillar they are excited for thousands of Catholics to flood Mormon country.
Castaenda, who lives an hour outside of Salt Lake City, cannot wait to see old friends but also welcome new friends to the local area.
“I get to see a lot of old friends at SEEK every year, which is exciting,” Castaenda said.
“Having SEEK in Salt Lake City is even more exciting because it means there are a bunch of Catholics that are here, which is unique because in Utah we see a lot of Mormons,” Castaenda said. “Seeing the huge number of Catholics here revives my faith, and it is that reminder that there are other Catholics who also love the faith.”
Attendees meet a diverse array of Catholics from across the country and many different Catholic organizations at the conference’s “Mission Way,” a large convention hall filled with vendor booths and religious orders from across the country.
Walking through Mission Way at SEEK 24 initially overwhelmed Castaenda.
By the end of the week, though, he found himself spending hours in Mission Way, meeting groups from across the country. This year, he is excited to meet even more groups and organizations.
“I think these conferences are important because a lot of people just know their parish; they do not know what the Church and faith really are about,” Casteanda said. “Coming to SEEK and experiencing Mission Way has helped me to really see how big the Church is and that I am not alone in this journey.”
Ten years later
Ten years ago, Liz Canto experienced that big Catholic family for the first time when she attended SEEK 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The conference was life-changing.
“SEEK 2015 fully inspired me to pursue a master's in theology and to take my faith more seriously,” Canto told The Pillar. “I joined the Echo program through the McGrath Institute at Notre Dame. Then I went into parish ministry.”
“It's because of the powerful experience that I had at SEEK that I started working for the Church, and here I am now, back at SEEK 10 years later.”
Canto works as the Director of Evangelization at St. John the Baptist parish in Draper, Utah. At the encouragement of her pastor, Canto and other staff members decided to attend the conference.
“When my pastor learned about SEEK, he thought that this would be a really beautiful opportunity for a bunch of parishioners and the office staff to come here to receive some sort of formation and to just dive off the deep end and explore theology so that we can be able to pass it on to our parish.”
When Canto learned that she would be returning to SEEK, she was elated.
“I am so excited to be back,” Canto said. “It's been about two years since I have had the opportunity to talk deep theology. SEEK provides that opportunity to have deep talks and to really just dive right back into the beauty of the faith.”
As Canto grew in her faith, so too did SEEK grow in its size.
The conference has expanded from a couple thousand students gathered in a hotel ballroom to 10,000 college students and 7,000 adults coming together at a massive convention center.
“There are 17,000 people here, and 10,000 of those people are college students; seeing the growth is incredible and inspiring,” Canto said.
Even though 10 years have passed since Canto was a college freshman walking into SEEK, she still brings intentions and the hope of encountering the Lord in a new way in Salt Lake City.
“For the past year or so, I have been praying for an increase in peace and trust,” Canto said. “I hope that SEEK helps me to understand and gain more peace and trust so that it can help me in my parish ministry.”
SEEKING more than a spiritual high
Canto and countless other SEEK attendees fondly recall the spiritual high that they received after leaving the conference.
For some, like Bolin, SEEK was a life-changing experience, and the spiritual momentum that SEEK kindled only grew.
“Last year, SEEK explained to me the basics of the faith,” Bolin said. “Over the year, I learned a lot more, but I think I got caught up in a lot of deep things in the faith. I am excited to be back and to return to the basics and be reminded that at the most basic level of the faith, I need to prioritize my relationship with Jesus.”
Other students found that over the past year, that spiritual high lessened and they fell back into old habits. Now, they hope for another opportunity to break those habits.
“You get a major retreat high from events like these,” Lonnemann said. “When you leave the conference, you think that I am going to do all the things to grow in my spiritual life. Then, two weeks later, it is like, dang, you are falling back into bad habits because it is hard to keep up with the discipline.”
Lonnemann, though, is trying not to set expectations as she prepares for the days ahead; instead, she is trying to trust that the Lord will do what He wants to do.
“I try not to set expectations because otherwise I know that I'm going to be disappointed. I know that SEEK will be a great experience and the Lord will pursue me in beautiful ways through this, and those will be revealed over the course of the conference.”
Horner too is not trying to set expectations; instead, she is focusing on her identity as a daughter of God.
“I'm not trying to expect anything from SEEK,” Horner said. “The one thing that I know is that the Lord is present and that the Lord is going to take care of me.”
“My phrase for this SEEK is to ‘let the father take care of me.’ When I go back to Kearney, Nebraska, I'll have that mindset that the Lord is going to take care of me.”
Even though both Horner and Lonnemann entered this week with no expectations, when they signed up, a part of them hoped to receive that spiritual high.
“This time, though, they hope that the momentum will not die.
“When I signed up for SEEK, I knew that I would probably have a spiritual high off of this,” Lonemann said.
“This year we are going to try and keep the high going more than last year. SEEK last year was a great experience, and that's why I signed up again. But also I went into it knowing it's not going to be the same as last year. It's going to be different because I am different, and the Lord is constantly doing something new.”
Editor’s note: As nearly 20,000 Catholics — mostly students — gather at SEEK, a massive conference sponsored by campus ministry apostolate FOCUS, The Pillar will feature reporting from Catholic student journalist Jack Figge, who is serving as a ground-level correspondent at the event.
