Joel & Katie Cassady

Katie (Janssen) Cassady ’09 & Joel Cassady ‘10

Jesus tells us that by following Him and cooperating with the Spirit, we’ll accomplish even greater works than those He accomplished on this earth. In this sense, Jesus entrusted us to carry on His mission of revealing God to the world, and by going out into the world even further than He did during his earthly ministry, our cooperative works would stretch beyond the geographic area in which he worked. As followers of Christ, we bring His healing mission of love to a broken, suffering, and sick world.  

At face value, neither I nor Katie are strictly using the degrees we received from the SOT/Sem.

Katie currently supports our domestic church by day and moonlights in ministry. Like every parent, she practices daily the corporal works of mercy, while simultaneously revealing God to our daughters in the small, yet not insignificant encounters that occur in various ways throughout the day. During this unusual time, she put together a digital collection of practical ways to celebrate Sabbath during quarantine called  Sabbath Time of Faithful Families: Ideas, Activities & Scripture, available through Bayard Faith Resources. Because as helpful as it is having access to meetings and Masses online, our sense of time is blurring during this pandemic and needs to be sustained in a real way, we need more than time, we desire time to be nourishing—restoring.

For me, coronavirus means working more than a full-time job at a day shelter which has, in turn, seen constant change in demands and needs from both the hopeful people we serve and the sparkling staff offering their service. Like many front-line workers since mid-March, my schedule and time are not my own, and is often inconsistent; it means long hours, fitting in admin tasks between times of direct service on days and at other times I am not used to working, and being part of a decision-making team that has to determine daily whether exposing 1,000+ people to an invisible and unknown killer virus in a small space is more dangerous than leaving someone without a home and no other place to go in the cold and wet weather; and it means working to hold my tensions, fears, and anxieties while trying to create space to hold these same things for others. 

Though a case can be made that my work is a ministry, success in my administrative role at a nonprofit meeting the basic daily needs of individuals experiencing homelessness isn’t exactly directly dependent upon my knowledge of Church History. Digging a little deeper, my MA from Saint John’s School of Theology opened opportunities for me to pursue Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE naturally nurtures self-reflection and curiosity--two skills, I would argue, every leader should possess, particularly anyone in a leadership role in an organization that extends the loving hand of Christ to those in need while at the same time supporting those who work to offer dignity to those who society so easily dismisses. 

Of course, looking back a few months now after the start of the pandemic, it is obvious that neither of us could do it alone, but only in cooperation with God, calling upon skills garnered in the formation we received at Saint John’s. And as our society is now grappling and acknowledging racism in a more open and real way than probably ever seen in my lifetime, the need for cooperating with and being a witness to the love of God is higher than ever. We are continuously grateful for the education and formation we received at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary that have allowed us each the opportunity and creativity to serve in ways we never could have imagined while studying in Emmaus Hall. 

Find more Unexpected Honey on Katie's blog. It's like sugar for the soul!