Man, Woman of the Year

Joe Caceres

Taylor Gudenkauf

MADISON  Diocesan Catholic Campus Ministry here presented its annual Man of the Year and Woman of the Year awards to Joe Caceres, a leader in CCM at FDU, and Taylor Gudenkauf, president of CCM at FDU, during a Mass recently at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard here. The liturgy marked the end of the 2017-18 academic year.

Brian Honsberger, diocesan assistant director of evangelization, and Eric Munoz, campus minister at FDU and Drew University, Madison, selected the award winners Honsberger and Munoz picked Caceres and Gudenkauf from among 5,000 students from colleges around Madison. The two recipients did not know that they would be presented with the awards prior to the Mass at St. Paul’s, which houses diocesan Catholic Campus Ministry, Munoz said.

“These two award winners embody what being campus ministers is all about. Both of them are hands-on with every aspect of the ministry and reach out to their peers and younger students,” Munoz said. In addition, Honsberger praised Munoz for “his great work of evangelization on campus.”

“He has successfully reached out to some of the most popular students on the campuses, especially athletes, which has made campus ministry and St. Paul Inside the Walls a desirable thing to be a part of,” Honsberger said.

Following are profiles on the award winners:

Man of the Year

Joe Caceres, a junior at Fairleigh Dickenson University (FDU) and a leader in its Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM), got a later start than other people as a football player — first taking the field as a sophomore in high school — and in his faith — having been received fully into the Church two years ago. But the 20-year-old wasted no time making his mark on the gridiron — as a player at FDU and as a stand-out in high school — and in CCM — a participant in Athletes’ Bible Study and social-justice outreaches. Caceres also encourages his friends and fellow FDU students and players to get to know more about or get more involved in the Catholic faith through CCM.

Today in CCM at the university, Caceres has been active in Athletes Bible Study — a Scripture study geared toward athletes — and has participated in trips for Habitat for Humanity to build houses for poor people and “Jesus Runs,” monthly treks into New York City at night to hand out food to the homeless and engage in conversation. He also encouraged people he knows to check out CCM’s spiritual and social activities. Caceres has even brought one of his fellow football players to Athletes Bible Study and a retreat earlier this year at St. Joseph Shrine in Stirling, with students at FDU; Drew University, Madison; William Paterson University, Wayne; and the College of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station. He belongs to a 15-member student leadership team from FDU and Drew. He expressed surprise over winning Man of the Year.

“I felt honored. It was a phenomenal feeling,” said Caceres, who described to The Beacon his style of evangelizing the Gospel. “I start with the people close to me. They will listen. I invite people to events personally, not by text message. I try to influence the people closest to me in a positive way,” he said.

In a short time Caceres has become a powerful evangelizer — this after having grown up with no religious formation or practice. A while back, his grandparents had arrived from Dominican Republic but here in the U.S., did not practice the Christian beliefs with which they were raised, he said.

“Growing up, I believed in God — nothing formal. I prayed, but not in a church,” said Caceres, whose parents, two sisters and two brothers are not particularly religious. Then, between his junior year of high school and freshman year of college, he had been dating a Catholic woman, who introduced him to the faith and brought him to Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Perth Amboy. On his own, he attended Mass at Holy Trinity Parish, also in Perth Amboy. “I saw how she lived her faith. I was inspired to get involved,” he said.

But sessions for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) conflicted with Caceres’ schedule at Perth Amboy High School. His faith blossomed more fully at FDU, where the university’s former football head coach — who knew Eric Munoz, head of Catholic Campus Ministry at FDU and Drew — sent out notices about the weekly Athletes’ Bible Study sessions. After considering it for some time, Caceres finally attended.

“I enjoyed it. Before I went, I didn’t know the historical context of the faith — why things are they that they are in the Church. It also helps athletes on the field and in their faith. One week, we talked about if we ever felt like quitting sports. In the faith too, some people are weak. The Bible study gives us lessons and insights to help strengthen our playing and our faith,” said Caceres, who has been pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

The sessions for RCIA at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard in Madison fit into Caceres’ schedule of classes and football practices at FDU.

In RCIA sessions, Brian Honsberger, diocesan assistant director of evangelization, explained the faith in an easy-to-understand way, said Caceres, who also credited his greater maturity in college for helping him understand some of Catholicism’s deep concepts. He remembered Father Paul Manning, St. Paul’s executive director and diocesan vicar for evangelization, answering his question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Caceres said that the priest told him that “God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us but we gave us freewill. He leaves it up to us to love him back,” he said.

During his freshman year at FDU, Caceres was received fully into the Church at St. Paul’s, starting with Father Manning baptizing him in the center’s chapel. He told The Beacon, “I felt like I had become a new person at Baptism. I was reborn,” he said.

“Jose has invested in reaching out to his fellow students and teammates and he is willing to help out with everything,” Munoz said.

Woman of the Year

Each year, Taylor Gudenkauf, president of Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM) at Fairleigh Dickenson University (FDU), keeps broadening her reach of loving God and neighbor through a lived faith that first took hold in youth ministry at Our Lady of the Lake (OLL) Parish, Sparta, and later took her to FDU and then to minister to the poor in New York City and far way on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

In CCM, Gudenkauf, a junior, who has been studying for a bachelor’s degree in hotel and restaurant management at FDU, started to co-lead a women’s Bible study and Athletes’ Bible Study — a Scripture study geared toward athletes — during the last academic year. The 20-year-old also participated with other CCM members on “Jesus Runs,” monthly treks into New York City at night to hand out food to the homeless and engage them in conversation. In May, Gudenkauf’s faith and compassion took a leap off the U.S. coast, when she and a friend traveled to St. Lucia to minister to poor senior citizens and children — a mission trip coordinated by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), a national organization. She also belongs to a 15-member student leadership team at FDU and Drew University, Madison. She expressed joy in receiving Woman of the Year in April.

“I was shocked. I was not expecting it,” said Gudenkauf, also an honors student, of the award. “Through CCM, I’ve made many friends. FDU is a small school and is not religiously affiliated. All the temptations of college life are here. It’s such a blessing to find people who believe what I believe to help me with the college experience — people, who will stand beside me and back me up,” she said.

With a friend, Gudenkauf traveled to St. Lucia, an island paradise that suffers from extreme economic disparity — a divide between the very poor and the very wealthy. The FOCUS group visited a senior citizen home for the homeless and mentally ill. There, the young people spent time with the clients, often singing songs, such as “You Are My Sunshine,” with them or feeding those with physical limitations. Gudenkauf called the visit an “eye-opening experience.”

During the trip, the group spent another day visiting a school, where members went from class to class, telling the poor students about the importance of getting an education. Many teachers do not show up for classes, so group members taught subjects — such history, science and math — on the fly and wrote on a board with tiny pieces of chalk. The young people also went from class to class, talking about God. Each day, the group participated in Mass and Adoration, followed at night by a session of spirit-filled reflection, she said.

During high school, Gudenkauf’s faith took root in youth ministry OLL, where she joined a team that coordinates the parish’s Confirmation retreats. When she returns to Sparta, she attends its Monday night meetings. When she was young, she had been an altar server but once she got busy playing softball in town, church attendance by her family had waned. For her, that was until Gudenkauf attended a Confirmation retreat, during her sophomore year in high school, where she prayed at Adoration for the first time — a powerful experience that caused her to “break down and cry.” Later, she joined OLL’s youth ministry, which she also credited with giving her a sense of family.

Later, Gudenkauf attended a campus club fair at FDU, during her freshman year, visiting CCM’s booth there. A friend had invited her on the “Jesus Run,” which included students of CCMs of other local colleges. The group whipped together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, traveled to the Big Apple at night and gave them to homeless people. More importantly, the young people talked with them, she said.

“I was hooked,” Gudenkauf said of the experience. “A friend and I went up to this homeless woman and offered her some water. She told us to go around the corner and help some other homeless people. I was so touched that she cared more about the other people,” she said.

Earlier, Gudenkauf experienced an ever-deepening of her faith, when she returned to the area, after a semester of studies in Vancouver, Canada, to find her father battling a serious illness in the hospital. She said, “It was then that I turned to God instead of turning away from him.”

Occasionally, Gudenkauf speaks, during the women’s Bible studies that she co-leads, about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault by a young man on a date, when she was a sophomore in high school. She said she “felt disgusting and dirty in my own body” and did not tell her parents until months later, when she was inspired by another young woman’s faith testimony, during a Confirmation retreat at OLL. Soon after that, she sought help at Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Intervention Services (DASI), Newton, which presented her with its Full Circle Award in 2016. She also spoken about her experience and about sexual violence at various awareness events and has helped raise funds for DASI, she said.

“Taylor has done a great job bringing more people into Catholic Campus Ministry at FDU, especially for women’s Bible study,” Eric Munoz, campus minister at FDU and Drew University, Madison.