2024 Evangelization Supplement
An outreach of hope and love: Mother of three works to lead inner-city youths to Christ
During a recent weekend retreat at the archdiocese’s Catholic Youth Organization’s Camp Rancho Framasa in Brown County, the group from Vagabond Missions in Indianapolis also participated in a Saturday evening Mass at St. Agnes Church in Nashville. Here, the group poses for a photo outside the church. (Submitted photo)
By John Shaughnessy
Life is sometimes touched with moments that give us more than we hoped for.
Catherine Ord experienced such a moment as she led a group of teenagers and young adults from Vagabond Missions in Indianapolis on a camping trip to the Indiana Dunes National Park last summer.
For many of the teenagers, the trip gave them an up-close view of the wonders of nature that they hadn’t seen before, including the stunning sand dunes and the vastness of Lake Michigan. It was also a momentary escape from the reality of the struggles and challenges of their lives—of being from broken homes, of growing up poor, of living in neighborhoods marked by violence, of needing someone to believe in them.
Ord—a 41-year-old mother of three—also wanted to bring the youths closer to God on the trip, so she shared parts of her Catholic faith with them and gave them journals to write down their thoughts about life and God—which led to the moment that gave her more than she hoped for.
One of the youths approached Ord and asked if she could share her thoughts with the group.
“She reflected on how much she had doubted that God could love her or was present in her life,” Ord recalls. “Yet, just through this experience of being part of this group, she said she was able to see that God did love her and he was real.
“Those are big moments that you don’t normally get to hear young people articulate. She had been struggling and had a lot of different things going on in her home life. So, for her to be able to get away, have some silence and have some perspective was really a beautiful confirmation for me that the Lord is working through all the many people who are showing up to be there for her and the others.”
‘The way we live out our faith’
Ord has been leading that effort on the near east side of Indianapolis for the past two years as the area director of Vagabond Missions, a national Catholic organization that strives to “share the Gospel with inner-city teenagers,” to bring Christ to “people outside the walls of the Church.”
Working from the bases of St. Philip Neri Parish and Arsenal Technical High School, Ord primarily reaches out to students from the Indianapolis Public Schools.
“We’re here to serve a group of people who are in so much need of knowing Jesus is in their lives,” she says. “We want to create a pathway for those kids who might be more on the margins or who might be struggling and really need to know Jesus because they don’t have any family bringing that hope into their life.”
She shares the telling story of one of the youths in the group.
“I was driving her home,” Ord recalls. “She had just been kicked out of her house, so we were grabbing her stuff and trying to find her a new place to live. She said she keeps making the same mistakes over and over and everyone in her life has given up on her. She feels the only place she feels love is with this community that we’ve built up. As a mom, my heart just breaks for the experiences she’s had and also knowing she is still struggling.”
That leads to another story about the kind of challenges the youths in the group face—and Ord’s commitment to them.
“Over Thanksgiving break, one of the houses of the girls didn’t have heat, and none of the shelters were open,” she says. “There was a baby in the family. They ended up coming and staying at my family’s house for three days while we were working with social services to get the heat back.”
During that weekend, the readings for Mass included Matthew 25: 35-40, the Gospel reading in which Christ shares that when people feed the hungry and clothe the naked, they’re doing these acts for him as well.
“My daughter who is 11 squeezed my hand and said, ‘That’s what we’re doing this weekend.’ It’s so nice for her to see that what we’re doing as a family is saying yes to God,” Ord says. “That’s made a big difference for me. You want your kids to be in heaven and love God.”
Ord’s husband Chris and their three children—11, 9 and 6—are integral parts of her efforts, too.
“The only reason I’m able to say ‘yes’ and continue to do well in this mission is it’s really a whole family mission,” Ord says. “My husband volunteers with me, my kids are very active. They prepare events and attend events. They know the teens I work with by name, and they’re praying for them. Everyone has bought into this idea that the way we live out our faith is loving our neighbor.
“I feel my kids are seeing their faith alive and active in our home. They’re also getting a chance of evangelizing at a young age.”
Trying to follow in Christ’s footsteps
One overriding goal connects everything Ord is trying to do with the group—including her family’s commitment, the camping trip to Indiana Dunes, and a recent retreat at the archdiocese’s Catholic Youth Organization’s Camp Rancho Framasa in Brown County—a weekend that included archery, canoeing and exploring the topic of “who Jesus is in our lives.”
“My biggest goal is that we’re able to provide a safe place for young people to discover who God is in their lives and to re-discover their own dignity as a child of God,” she says.
Egypt Moorehead, a member of the group, knows the difference that Ord and Vagabond Missions have made in her life, from providing experiences like the recent camp retreat to sharing her faith.
“The weekend was a great experience,” says Moorehead, who just turned 20. “I loved it. We did archery, canoeing and the high ropes. We went to Mass, and we did prayer through the weekend. Every night ended with our main focus on Jesus, on God.
“I’m in the process of being accepted into the Church, thanks to Miss Catherine. I love the fact that she’s working with teenagers and young adults to get us closer to God and to help us try to find who we truly are. She got me to get closer to God.”
Toward that hope, Ord has also worked to establish a permanent place for the group to meet, a goal that is in the process of being achieved with the Vagabond Mission Youth Center on Indianapolis’ near east side, which was blessed by Archbishop Charles C. Thompson on May 13.
Ord views it as another step forward in following the path of Christ’s life on Earth.
“The way that Jesus ministered to people was he went out and met them where they were and loved them and walked with them and showed truth into their lives,” Ord says.
“Very few of these young people have an adult in their lives that’s listening to them, that’s present to them, that’s showing them the unconditional love that God has for them. A lot of them have never heard that or felt the love of God in their life. When we’re able to show that in big ways and be that consistent adult in their life, it’s really rewarding for both of us.”
(For more information about Vagabond Missions in Indianapolis or to offer assistance in any way, visit the website, www.vagabondmissions.com/indy.) †
