This article was originally published by Benedictine College Media & Culture and is reshared with permission.
Tory Baucum is the Director of the Center for Family Life at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, where he has left a legacy of formation of students and families on campus, in Atchison, throughout the Archdiocese of Kansas City-Kansas, at Family Week, at the United Nations, and in Poland and beyond. He has announced his retirement, and exciting plans are underway for the future of the center, which will be announced soon. This is his farewell column.
From Lambeth Palace to Atchison: A Catholic Journey
On November 19, 2019, I sat in Lambeth Palace and told my boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury, I was becoming a Catholic. The domestic church ministry Elizabeth and I had pioneered as Anglicans we were now taking back to the Catholic Church, its native home. I told him our hope and plan was to start a Center for the Family at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. I left with his blessing, though it was never public.
Fast forward into the following year, Elizabeth and I sat in our apartment on Commercial Avenue in Atchison while 15 Benedictine undergraduates gathered around us. I told them two things: 1) we would teach them St. John Paul II’s approach to the domestic church. 2) They, in turn, would teach us how to be Catholic.
Though it wasn’t heralded publicly, that was our deal with the St. John Paul II Fellowship as founders of the Benedictine College Center For Family Life.
Living the Domestic Church: The Two “Jesus Questions”
Our liturgy, our weekly ritual return, within the domestic church pivots around these two “Jesus Diagnostic Questions.”
1) What did Jesus do for you this week?
2) What did you do for Jesus?
The premise behind our Jesus Questions is that Jesus is more alive than we are. Thus, our work is always to align ourselves to Our Lord and Our Lady’s work. The domestic church liturgy realigns us every week to our Resurrected LORD and his Mother and their mission — in Atchison and the world.
Every Sunday for six years Elizabeth has cooked soup from scratch, never once repeating a recipe, and then she leads us in the liturgy. We all prefer her leading the group. She’s the Center’s maternal influence, echoing St. Mary the mother of our domestic Church.
I believe this incubator for contemplative mission is the secret behind why our John Paul II student fellows have been able to pioneer the Human Dignity Curriculum in the Atchison public schools. A recent graduate, Sarah Klosterman tells her experience of this outreach and its enduring effect in this article.
Like all Catholic families, our domestic church has an internal, maternal presence as well as an external, paternal mission. This is the nuptial rhythm of our Center: the family of God on mission in love for all families. Our signature event for teaching this to families is called Family Week, which has become significant to the dozens of families who have participated.
A Global Mission: From Kansas to Poland
Our mother-father/outward-facing model of domestic church is what we laid out to Polish families during their heroic response to Ukrainian refugees in 2022. Their response to us was extraordinary. In recognition of our teaching them what they first taught us — St. John Paul II’s Domestic Church, the family faced outward in love — they elected the Director of the Center to one of Poland’s most distinguished academies. Now our Senior Fellows go on pilgrimage every Spring Break through doors opened to them by the Polish academy relationships.
These are just a few examples of the many things we have learned together at the Center for Family Life and the John Paul II Fellowship over these past six-plus years.
I believe it is fitting that I conclude with the words we answer one another every week to the two Jesus Questions:
1) What we did for Jesus was come to Atchison to FOUND the Benedictine College Center for Family Life.
2) What Jesus did for us is you!
And we definitely got the better part of the deal.