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Mary Bubb

Shuv Raj Rana Bhat

Introductory Composition: Writing as Inquiry 005

26 September 2023

TCU Catholic as My Discourse Community

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My Catholic faith is very important to me, so I knew that I wanted to continue to be

involved with it in college. One of the reasons I wanted to come to TCU was because I knew that

they had a well-developed Catholic student group. So, I decided to join TCU Catholic here, so

that I could find a good Catholic community and to continue practicing my faith. My freshman

year of college I went to the religious luncheon event that they had at TCU Catholic in the

Newman center during Frogs First, where I got added to the Groupme. After that I learned about

different events via Groupme and I attended and that is how I became a part of the community.

At TCU Catholic, they have a lot of events specifically for freshmen so that they can meet each

other and some of the older students who are a part of the community. The first freshmen event

that they held was an ice cream social, where we all ate ice cream and played games. It was a lot

of fun and was a great introduction to TCU Catholic. Eventually as I got welcomed into the

community, I made a lot of friends there and got to become a part of the Student Leadership

Council there my sophomore year.

TCU Catholic’s common goals are to grow closer to God, create a Catholic community

of college students, and to share our faith with others. Since we are a religious community,

obviously our primary goal is to grow in our faith. Some of the ways TCU Catholic helps us to

do that is by encouraging us to go to Mass every Sunday, making adoration and other prayer

events easily available to us, and bringing in people who are more educated in the faith to give

lectures on specific faith-related topics. TCU Catholic also makes it easy for us to be excited

about and to share our faith, since we are surrounded by a community that is passionate about it

as well. It does a really great job of making people feel welcomed and that creates a great

environment for growing in our faith.

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Groupme is an important aspect of communication in this community. We use it to let all

of the members in the community know about all of the events that are happening or when the

Newman center is closing for the day. Most of our information concerning events, Mass,

confession, etc. is all relayed through Groupme. Members of the community will often send

reminders for event times, ask questions, or just send encouraging messages. Sometimes we will

also get emails for more big-scale events that not everyone in the community will participate in-

like retreats or our Rome pilgrimage.

Through things like Newman Nights, members of the community share important

information or provide feedback to others. We have a guest speaker come to TCU Catholic to

teach us important aspects that they’ve learned about the faith, and then we have small groups to

discuss and communicate our thoughts to each other. During this time, we often receive feedback

on how to grow closer to God, which can be achieved in a variety of ways: more continuous

prayer, attending religious events frequently, conversing with others who share the faith, learning

more about the saints, etc. The TCU Catholic community also discusses our prayer lives, and we

give each other feedback on how we can prioritize and make the most of our time spent in

prayer. Prayer is often very specific to the individual, but it’s nice to hear advice on how we can

better use that prayer time or different ways that we could pray. We also typically use Groupme

and text to inform each other of different Newman events like saying the rosary, a Christmas

party, Friendsgiving, praise and worship, etc.

The Bible is used heavily in our discourse community. It is read during Mass and retreats,

often referenced in lectures, and members are encouraged to read it when developing their own

faith and prayer life. Adoration is another heavily used genre, where we kneel and pray in front

of the Eucharist (which we believe to be the actual Body of Christ) and pay reverence to Him.
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Sometimes this is accompanied by music, and sometimes it’s a silent prayer. At TCU Catholic,

we have a mostly silent Adoration every Sunday night where we sing songs in Latin. Psalms are

prayers from the Bible often read during Mass or in our personal prayer time, and are a great

reference for Catholics when they need guidance during a rough period of their life.

For someone who’s not Catholic, a lot of our lexis can seem confusing due to some of the

complicated theological words used. Sacraments, parts of Mass, words like reconciliation, etc.

can all sound foreign to a newcomer. Reconciliation is another word for confession, where we go

in front of a priest and confess our sins to him. Sacraments are important religious events in

one’s life such as receiving holy communion, marriage, baptism, etc. The Eucharist is the center

of our faith, and we believe that, once consecrated during Mass, it is the actual body and blood of

Christ. Fiat is a term to describe when Mary, the Mother of God, said yes to God and agreed to

become the mother of Jesus. A lot of things in Mass, like the Nicene Creed prayer that we recite,

would be unknown to anyone participating in Mass for the first time. We kneel in front of the

Eucharist to be reverent to God, the readings that are read by different members of our

community are excerpts from the Bible, and the homily is a lecture given by the priest after the

readings where he comments on and explains them.

We have and accept a lot of different types of people in our discourse community. All of

us are Catholic, but we also have an RCIA program (which is made for non-Catholic adults who

are wanting to become Catholic). Anyone who is not Catholic is always welcome at any of our

events, and are actually encouraged to do so. We love sharing our faith with people who are not

Catholic! There are a lot of Catholic people who are in very different places in their faith, and

some are more involved or know more than others. We still all join together to share in our faith.

We have several expert members who are well-versed in the faith and can help guide us in our
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faith. Our expert members include two priests who hold Mass and confession, and also are there

to answer any faith-based questions we have. The priests are almost always at the Newman

center, so they’re very accessible for anyone who needs any guidance in their faith life. We also

have a faculty advisor since we are a TCU organization, who accompanies us on retreats and

other important events and is also there to answer questions over the faith. Our president and

vice president are also a great resource for other members in the community. They’re also in

college just like us, but are more knowledgeable in the faith. These expert members are there to

guide some of the new members in their faith journey and to share the wealth of information that

they have acquired from their own faith lives.

TCU Catholic is a discourse community because we all share a set of goals, have several

methods of communication that we use, have multiple ways that we give each other feedback

and information, we have different genres, we have a lexis, and we have expert members to help

guide us. I love being a part of this discourse community because it allows me to grow in my

faith with a group of people who not only share that goal, but are willing to help me reach it. I

love going to Mass there, and I really love the group of people there. This is by far my favorite

discourse community that I am a part of.