A university is a crossroads--a place where many different people, ideas, and values meet and merge, interact, intersect and sometimes collide with one another. A crossroads is a bustling place, brimming over with chaos and confusion--and also with unique opportunities to lear, to grow and to experience conversion.
This is not just another parish history book. Christ Church Newman Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota, grew into its own during a crossroads time in Church history. Its story has been shaped powerfully not only by the spirit of Vatican II but also by the many and varied converting encounters that have been a part of its life at the crossroads. In the fall of 1923, a small group of Catholic college students gathered together for the very first meeting of the St. Cloud Newman Club. Three-quarters of a century later, Christ Church Newman Center stands proudly as their legacy, a vibrant Catholic parish made up of student members from St. Cloud State University and permanent members from the surrounding St. Cloud community.
The story of that seventy-five-year transformation from club to parish is a fascinating one, and its details are chronicled with care in the over 300 pages and more than 350 photos. More an anything else, the story is about encounters, conversations, and discoveries. Young and old, lay and cleric, certain and searching, prophet and prelate, believer and dissenter have all crossed paths over the years at the Newman Center. These crossings and the new insights they made possible have allowed new dimensions of the light of Christ to be revealed--to the Catholic Christian community gathered at the Newman Center in St. Cloud and to the whole Church as well.
A History of the
Newman Center at
St. Cloud State
University
Book review by George Garrelts, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Mercyhurst College
Erie, PA
Purchase your own copy of "Where Paths Cross" for $19.45 through the Newman Center office at 396 First Avenue South, St. Cloud, MN 56301 or by calling 320-251-3260 during regular office hours.
