SEEK: ‘A place where you can have a real encounter with the Lord’

“The main point of SEEK is to seek the person who seeks you, who is Christ,” said South Dakota School of Mines junior Jacob Schwab. “Whether you have a mustard seed’s faith or a mountainous faith, you’re going to get something out of it and you’re going to walk a better person.”

“SEEK is a place where the faith will become your faith,” agreed junior Vincent Benzmiller. “It is a place where you can have a real encounter with the Lord and for the first time in your life, know what his voice sounds like and know how much you mean to him.”

Father Mark McCormick, the chaplain of the SDSM&T Newman Center, joined 40 students (including the FOCUS Missionaries) in St. Louis, Mo., in early January for SEEK 2024 sponsored by Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). The conference features Mass, Adoration, keynote speakers, prayer, fellowship, concerts, and different tracks to pick from, including a parish track for those attending the conference who aren’t college-age students. FOCUS missionaries help students fundraise to attend the conference with little or no cost to the student. “Anybody that wants to go to SEEK can through fundraising,” he explained. “The missionaries help us narrow down a ‘Circle of Influence,’ and we send out letters asking for help.” According to FOCUS missionary Tanner Hoerter, “SEEK is an opportunity to let the Lord meet you where you are. It just happens to be in the form of a ‘choose your own adventure,’” he explained. “Some students go to encounter the Lord in a real way for the first time in Adoration while being surrounded by thousands of others that give them courage to do so. Others go to learn about the Catholic faith more as they search for truth.”

This wasn’t the first SEEK conference for Schwab and Benzmiller. Both first attended the conference as high school students and used those experiences to promote the five-day conference to fellow students. “Just hearing other people’s experience in the faith and getting different perspectives on how people view the faith. See the community, thousands of people in location with the same goal in mind,” explain Schwab. “Especially in the Mass. Seeing all the priests and bishops, even though you’re kneeling for 45 minutes, is inspirational.”

According to Benzmiller, most people have a real encounter with the Lord at these conferences. “He’s real, and he actually loves me,” he explained. “But what happened for me, is last year, the Lord affirmed our relationship. It was me and the Lord, growing together in intimacy and love.”

“It’s the kick in the pants that you need to start the year,” Benzmiller explained. “You feel more invigorated to start the year well.”