Religious Group Tackles Lent

By Maya Moore | News, Copy Editor

This Lent, Rev. Seth Arnold has brought a new opportunity, God Squad, to KMC for students to develop their faith. The idea came from Fr. Seth’s own experience with building his prayer life through God Squad in high school. It was created by Rev. Jarrod Lies at Bishop Carroll and at the time had around 250 members.
“I wanted to start God Squad because I wanted to give a concrete opportunity for students to practice building the habit of prayer,” Fr. Seth said. “The Kairos retreat awakens and sets a fire. But, then it’s our daily prayer life that keeps that fire going.”
Until the end of Lent, God Squad is taking place every morning in the chapel at 7 a.m. The group has approximately 45 members and is split into small groups, each led by peer minister team captains.
On Mondays, students pray the rosary within their groups. Mass is said on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Students pray Lectio Divina or do a spiritual reading with their groups on Wednesdays, and Stations of the Cross is on Fridays.
“It gives you new ways to pray because, a lot of times, you get stuck just doing the same type of prayers,” said senior Ella Moore, one of the team captains. “So, when we give you a different way to pray every single day, it kind of just helps expand that horizon.”
The structure of God Squad relates to sports, as Fr. Seth encourages students to practice their faith with the same drive that they do for sports or other extracurricular activities. Each day is compared to athletic training with the names Ropes and Sprints for Mondays, Scrimmages for Tuesdays and Thursdays, Playbook for Wednesdays and Laps and Lunges for Fridays.
“I hope that it makes the spiritual life something a little more tangible,” Fr. Seth said. “A lot of Catholics, we know in our head that we should pray, but we might not necessarily know how or have an idea of what prayer should look like. So, just using the analogy of an athlete training, I think helps us give direction to our prayer.”
Senior Ella Truong, another team captain of God Squad, thinks the accountability of the group will help students commit to developing their spiritual life.
“I’m really hoping that if they have people that they can be accountable with and just go to Mass and pray together and do things like that, then they’ll want to have a deeper faith with their relationship with God, and just, like, a sense of comfort knowing that there’s people who want to do it with them,” Truong said.
God Squad also creates a community where students can see that others are striving for God as well.
“And we don’t want to admit it, but we all have preconceived notions of other people and maybe their desire to grow closer to the Lord,” Fr. Seth said. “… Maybe some juniors see someone else in their class. They’re like, ‘I had no idea that they cared about God as well.’”
The eight objectives of God Squad are spiritual discipline, the double precept of charity, spiritual friendship, dying-to-self/rising-to-Christ, spiritual consciousness, liturgical formation, sacrifice and living an indulgent life. With these objectives in mind, a student’s relationship with God may flourish and bring them joy, according to the God Squad Playbook.
“Our relationship with God should bring us joy,” Fr. Seth said. “It’s easy to equate Lent with being serious and being, like, stoic, because we’re giving things up, but our relationship with God should bring us joy. So, that’s really, ultimately what I want to see more of. If there’s more joy, then it means people have encountered God.”