BY KELSEY PORTER

Five years ago, thanks to God’s grace and divine providence, I chose to make some drastic changes in my life to pursue the Lord.

Like many friends in our Catholic Challenge Sports (CCS) apostolate, before getting involved in City on a Hill, my soul longed for community and Christ-centered friendship. Thanks to the example of our Blessed Mother Mary, I opened this longing to our Lord and He provided in ways that exceeded my expectations. I only needed to give Him my “yes”. Thanks to the launching pad of CCS, I have gained virtuous friendships, deeper connections, and a sense of belonging over the years.

How did I get here? I saw a post for a Catholic Challenge Sports group who were watching the Superbowl together. Desiring a community that had Christ as the top priority in their lives, I gathered all the courage I could muster to attend the event by myself. Thanks to divine providence, I was graciously welcomed by a generous and welcoming soul who served on the CCS board. We spent the evening chatting, and by the end of the night I had said “yes” to sub for their dodgeball team that weekend. The rest is history!

Flash forward five years later, it has been an honor to witness many people use their gifts and talents of hospitality and generosity of time to invite and invest in their peers who have a similar longing for community and connection in their hearts. I have seen captains go out of their way to make their teams feel cared for by bringing water and snacks, planning team socials, and writing handwritten thank-you notes for joining our community. Sometimes it is the small acts, done with great love, that help us feel seen. When teammates, over the course of the season, feel seen, it often happens that these teams form a deep bond and members start courageously making personal invites to breakfast or lunch, dancing, yard games, socials, and housewarming events, further investing and extending that bond.

“This is our opportunity to build something greater than ourselves, for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

— Kelsey Porter

These connections and bonds are only fruitful when built on solid ground, on God. It is a poignant and profound moment to behold a group of 21-39 year-old young adults, together in unison, hit their knees and give thanks and praise to God before they take the field or court. It’s a witness to prioritizing God and living out our faith boldly—not just in word, but in action. This is what we were made for; this is our opportunity to build something greater than ourselves, for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, living “in this world, but not of it”. Teams and friends celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass together: the best thing we can do with our day! Holy hours, rosaries, and prayer groups have all been born, thanks to the connections made through CCS!

I often hear “how can I pray for you” and “how is your prayer life”? These questions, often heard among our community, are the doors that allow brief connections to develop into deeper friendships that go beyond the surface and allow for authentic vulnerability to be shared.

I have been reflecting on Saint John Paul II’s meditation on givenness. In the reflection, he says:

“The world, the very world in which we live, the human world… is the setting of an ongoing exchange of gifts—gifts given and received in many different ways. People live not only alongside one another but also in manifold relationships. They live for each other, relating to one another; they are brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, friends, teachers, students. It may seem that there is nothing extraordinary in this; it is just the normal pattern of human life. In certain places, this pattern intensifies, and it is there, at those points of “intensification”, that this gift of one person for another becomes most real.”

Through the years, I have witnessed the givenness that JPII speaks of in our CCS community: people who truly desire to give themselves, their time, talent, and treasure, through acts of service. As young adults prepare for their vocations, I have been in awe of the creativity and leadership that commissioners and captains have shown to take away the barriers and rally teams to help serve our brothers and sisters in need: people showing up to our Lady of Good Counsel with their personal trailers, trucks, and equipment to clean up the parish grounds, captains providing water for their teams on the day we helped Father Mattingly move offices, friends gathering to pack food at harvesters for our brothers in sisters in need, young adults making rosaries and care-packages for families that have little ones being treated in hospitals, and much more. “To love our neighbor in charity is to love God in man. You learn to love by loving.” Saint Francis de Sales.

I write this in hopes of encouraging and uplifting souls who are longing for more, who courageously give their “yes” to God. It has been a gift to watch our community grow in holiness, hospitality, genuine friendship, and community. CCS has been an integral and pivotal group that has exponentially changed my life. I cherish our time together CCS, it is an honor, and our time together will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Love beyond limits,

Kelsey Porter