BELLINGHAM – An emphasis on helping young people learn about religious life and discern their vocations is bearing fruit at the Newman Center at Western Washington University and nearby Sacred Heart Parish.

“The focus for us with students is to take away any preconceived notions of religious life and make it more accessible,” said Emma Fisher, director of the WWU Newman Center. When students encounter someone in religious life, a recurring comment Fisher hears is, “I never expected them to be normal.”

Thanks in part to the interaction with religious people and a prayerful environment, four men from the community have become priests in recent years, another is a brother and a woman recently became a novice in a religious community. Another woman is discerning a vocation to religious life, while another man is in the seminary.

At nearby Sacred Heart Parish, where the priest administrator, Father Cody Ross, is also chaplain for the Newman Center, members of the parish’s Serra Club foster vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life.

The members pray for vocations, host discernment dinners — where a bishop and priests meet with men considering the priesthood — several times a year and raise money to help support seminarians and people considering vocations.

Sister Maura Clare, a WWU graduate who became a novice with the Sisters of Mercy in July, said Sacred Heart’s Serra Club provided financial support during her discernment. In addition, members sent her care packages and provided financial support to pay for visits to the motherhouse.

“We kind of have fingers in lots of pies,” said Serra Club member Philip Gubbins. “We can always pray for vocations, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The Newman Center encourages vocations by organizing retreats every quarter to bring priests, brothers and sisters to campus to interact with the students. In spring of 2019, the center organized the Newman Cup, a weekend event that gathered Catholics from other colleges on the WWU campus. A highlight was a kickball tournament with students, priests, brothers and sisters participating (this year’s event was canceled due to COVID-19).

The Newman Center has relationships with several communities of women religious, including the Sisters of Mercy on Shaw Island, the Dominican sisters at Our Lady Star of the Sea School in Bremerton and the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity sisters at St. Alphonsus Parish in Seattle, who have visited the Newman Center in Bellingham.

Priests are available to speak with men considering the priesthood, including Father Ross and Father Bryan Dolejsi, vocations director for the Archdiocese of Seattle, who visits several times a year.

“The more those faces are around, the more likely the guys are going to ask questions,” Fisher said.

In about six years, Western Washington University graduate Brandon Rappuhn went from becoming Catholic to taking his first vows as Benedictine Brother Damien-Joseph Rappuhn at St. Martin’s Abbey in Lacey. Photo: Courtesy St. Martin’s Abbey