ARTICLES

Where Two or More Are Gathered

How a Young Catholic Started an Independent Young Adults Group

BY FRANKLIN WAHL

Say you're 21 to 35, Catholic, single, and don't want to be part of the party, drink, and regret cycle that most of your peers have embraced as standard weekend procedure. What if you could go to learn more about your faith while meeting like-minded young Catholics?

Thanks to 27-year-old Ben Faulk of Allied Gardens, young Catholic adults have that option. Four years ago, Faulk founded Friday Night Fellowship, which he calls, "a place for young Catholics who have nowhere else to go."

Faulk attended San Diego State from 1995 to 1998. From the fall of 1998 to the fall of 2000 he studied with the Legionnaires of Christ in Connecticut; when he returned to San Diego in 2000, he was having trouble getting back with his old friends because they were as he says, "...on another page...."

He knew several, solid Catholic friends who attended the University of San Diego. They started getting together to have feast day celebrations and rosary-making parties. Faulk became involved at the Newman Center at San Diego State. "I wanted to start gathering these friends together by compiling e-mail addresses and contacts and then we just started getting together for parties."

These gatherings later evolved into a "Friday fellowship," Faulk says. "It was good but it was small." While continuing his French major and Spanish minor at SDSU in the spring of 2001, he officially started the Friday Night Fellowship group on August 10 of the same year at his parents' house in Allied Gardens. They have been congregating there, with a few breaks, at 7:00 p.m. every week since.

"The main reason," he explains, "was to establish some sort of fellowship for young adult Catholics."

Faulk's secondary purpose was to inspire a love for the Church and devotion to the Holy Father. "I had a very strong desire from being in the Legionnaires of Christ to promote and build up the Church. I could see that in the youth there was a desire there but a lot more nurturing that was needed."

On the first Friday of Lent in February of 2002, they had their first retreat (also held at his parents' house). "I started having them one or two times a year," he remarks, "then quarterly and then last year, monthly." The first retreat was divided into ladies and gentlemen. Father Thomas Maher (LC) gave meditations for the gentlemen and Magdalena Fianéé, a Regnum Christi consecrated woman, gave talks to the ladies. For the second retreat, Father Maher led both ladies and gentlemen. Father Stephanos Pedrano, OSB, led the biggest retreat in May of 2003. About seventy people attended. Fr. Thomas was also there hearing confessions. It was also in the same month that Faulk graduated from SDSU. The last big retreat to date was in June of 2004 followed by a smaller retreat six months later. The average attendance of these retreats ranged from thirty-five to seventy people.

Before every discussion the group opens with a prayer, usually the reading of the gospel of the upcoming Sunday. They discuss the reading and reflect upon the meaning. The evening's discussion is usually on a church issue, morality, or point of ethics. When the discussion has quieted down, they light a candle and begin the rosary.

Faulk prefers group discussions over speakers. "There is great value" he says, "in being able to discuss things instead of just being talked to."

A recent Friday night discussion topic has been Humanæ Vitæ, written in July of 1968 by Pope Paul VI, and Christopher West's Theology of the Body.

After the discussion, the attendees mingle and socialize. The socializing sometimes produces more than conversation and friendships. Since the group has started, there have been at least two marriages attributed to Friday Night Fellowship and, Faulk says, "We've had six people from the group who have left for different religious orders. One man in particular through nurturing and knowing about the group and our family and the Legionnaires of Christ, has recently taken his first vows."

Aside from the discussion and fellowship, Faulk and his group have also planned pilgrimages. One happened a few years ago around Good Friday when Faulk and his brothers had the idea of carrying a wooden cross up Cowles Mountain while doing the Stations of the Cross. At the top of the mountain they wedged the cross in between some rocks, focused their flashlights on the cross, and spent some time in quiet prayer. Faulk's group has also gone to Tijuana to work with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. The trips consisted of spending time in Adoration with the sisters and working in their soup kitchen.

Among participants in the Friday Night Fellowship, Faulk says there has been everyone from those who attend Tridentine Latin mass to members of the charismatic movement. "I guess you can say I have people from both ends of the spectrum," he says. "I've sometimes seen tensions between the traditional and charismatic. What I've tried to do is understand both sides, where each is coming from and rather than say, 'you're right' or 'you're wrong', I've tried to bring them together."

He adds, "Our job is to know, love, and serve God, not to judge where people are coming from."

Despite the effort to stress common ground, Faulk says the faith is never watered down at Friday Night Fellowship. "There have been individuals," he says, "who attended the group once then left because it seemed too much to them. They couldn't handle it."

Non-Catholics have also attended at times but Faulk doesn't change anything to accommodate them. "We are not sorry about being Catholic ... inexcusably Catholic."

Faulk has earned his teaching credential last May and is currently a substitute teacher in the San Diego area. However he plans to find work in Ventura County where his fiancée Theresa lives.

Ben Faulk can be reached at 619-265-0732.

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