Faith on CampusSteve Bye actively lives out his Christian faith on the UW Campus

Instead of joining the thousands of col-lege students in binge watching Netflix on Sundays, Steve Bye, Badger Catholic

President, spent his extra time at church, which naturally lead him down a path of leadership within his Catholic community. In amazement to many, Bye still manag-es to carve out time for prayer and charity throughout his day while working towards his electrical engineering and math de-grees, as well as his two certificate pro-grams in physics and engineering for en-ergy sustainability.

Before beginning the interview, Bye bowed his head and started with a prayer, asking God to work through him. “Pope Francis said ‘Contemplation is enriched through action.’ So I try to emulate that kind of mentality and that kind of ignatian spiri-tuality through the things I’m involved in” said Bye. Clearly a spiritual and faithful man, Bye says he tries to spend about 30 minutes each day in mental prayer.

Badger Catholic is a student organization here on campus that is affiliated with St.

Paul’s Catholic Church on State Street. Bye explains that rather than directly providing this spiritu-al development, Badger Catholic is meant to be an arm into the univer-sity by facilitating spiritual devel-opment through its campus-wide discussions of faith and other pro-grams and services.

Despite many students drifting away from their faith because of the freedoms college provides and the struggle to manage time, Bye explains how his faith has been very enriching to him and how it has brought a lot of joy to the college experience. “When things that are unexpected come up, or things that are undesirabwle come up, I know I can maintain peace though prayer and my relationship with God” Bye said.

Bye speculates that students may leave the faith due to the new independence they are granted upon entering college. Often time faith and religion are associated with some type of obligation parents impose. He also considers that a lot of people want

perpetual consolation and for each religious experience to be im-mediately uplifting. Bye admits that even he does not experi-ence this enlightened mentality every time he comes to mass, but he still attends be-cause he believes it is something good and true.

Within the campus community, Bye per-sonally feels that it is easier to see his fellow

Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ because everyone is around the same age and holds many of the same experiences. He explains that this gives him a greater opportunity to see Christ as a pure within them. He knows that he is part of a com-munity of people that share the same be-liefs and love for God and finds this inspir-ing and supportive.

Particularly on a university setting, Bye has found many different resources and op-portunities to live out his faith. Some of these opportunities include the service he has done for Badger Catholic, as well as the different Badger Catholic groups including Alpha Omega and his Catholic Fraternity, Phi Kappa Theta, where he is dubbed the “scribe,” which may be better known as the secretary. He explains that it is nice to do this work in a setting that is low risk and when he has a lot of time.

When asked if he had anything left to add, Bye continued to serve in the best way he knew by pouring out his love for others and pointing them towards his God. “For anybody who reads this, or for any student out there: I would just say that Christ is passing by and make sure you’re listening and looking for him,” Bye said.

By Joan Lawlor

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Photo Provided by Steve Bye

Photo Credit: Google Images Creative Commons