Laura Angle leads young adult ministry at Holy Cross Pastorate in Middleton and the surrounding area.
Holy Cross Pastorate, formerly Pastorate 19, consists of St. Bernard Parish in Middleton, St. Francis Xavier Parish in Cross Plains, St. Martin of Tours Parish in Martinsville, St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff, and St. Peter Parish in Ashton.
As a part of her role as Director of Evangelization, Angle ministers to young adults throughout the pastorate’s geographic boundaries.
In her ministry, Angle tries “to meet the needs of where young adults are” and is focused on providing content that helps grow the faithfulness of people in their 20s and 30s.
As a young adult herself, Angle has an idea of what’s appealing to this age group, and she added that what is offered “evolves based on what’s needed and what’s desired from the community that’s here.”
What’s offered
On Thursday nights, the group regularly meets.
Angle said, “We have a regular series that goes on twice a month, on a Thursday night, where we get together for Catholic content.”
Throughout the fall of last year, Angle led the group through Sanctuary, a Catholic mental health course.
Sanctuary, which is specifically designed for small groups, is an eight-session short course that presents the Church’s teachings on mental health through coursework, video content, and small group discussion.
Right now, the group is discussing The Wild Goose, a series on forming a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The series features Fr. Dave Pivonka, the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville, as the main presenter, and both The Wild Goose and Sanctuary are available on FORMED, a Catholic content resource website.
Angle said she chose the Sanctuary series because of a broader cultural shift of focusing on mental health.
She said, “Mental health had come up a lot in the past year, not necessarily from young adults but from all over the place, that people who go through mental health struggles are not supported well or not understood well.
“I wanted to help our young adults, some who I knew had family members who had gone through struggles, or were struggling themselves, to help them have a forum to learn and grow.”
On The Wild Goose, Angle said, “We have a number of young adults from different stages of faith development. So, the Holy Spirit is a good way to help them understand that they’re uniquely loved, known, and called. It’s a very powerful series.”
When choosing study group material, Angle is “trying to find things that I’ve heard of from other people in the diocese or contacts that I have across the country.”
Angle also coordinates a book group, which meets on Sunday afternoons.
The group recently finished The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and “it sounds like the next book they want to read is Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton,” said Angle.
During the summer, the group takes a bit of a hiatus, opting for fun social outings in Madison and the surrounding area.
In the two summers Angle has been leading Holy Cross young adults, she’s coordinated outings to a Madison Mallards baseball game, Concerts on the Square, and day-trips like hiking and kayaking.
One parish family
Pertaining to the young adult group, Angle said that many are “transplants who came [to Madison] to work for Epic or PPD — those are the two big ones — or those who are right out of college and trying to look for community, trying to make their own way and find an anchor and a compass in life. So, they end up here and want to learn and have community”.
Angle added that “It’s interesting, we are urban here at St. Bernard, Cross Plains is a suburb, but then the other three parishes are rural. We have farmers and professionals and anything in between. We also have the Latin Mass community at St. Mary’s, and we have people from father away.”
Balancing those demographics is challenging, but Angle is working out ways to integrate everyone and build the mentality that, come July, they will be together as one parish.
She said, “Most of our young adult events are here in Middleton and that’s most of who’s coming right now, but I’m trying to do more outreach to the other communities to see who’s there and what they’re looking for and how to engage them.”
“Some of the events we’ve done [include when] we went to Nineteen09 wine bar in Cross Plains, which helped get our Middleton folks used to going to Cross Plains. Then, we went to an apple orchard last fall in Cross Plains, as well,” Angle added.
In general, Angle is trying to “find more out-of-the-city things to do”.
For this summer, that might include a trip to Indian Lake County Park to hike and visit the St. Mary of the Oaks Shrine, built in 1857 by the Endres family.
Before joining St. Bernard Parish in Middleton in October of 2021, Angle “was volunteering to run young adult ministry for a different parish”.
When the opportunity to minister to young adults in a full-time capacity presented itself, Angle decided that leaving her secular job and working for the Church was the right thing to do.
Now, two-and-a-half years later, Angle is the Director of Evangelization for the pastorate, a role that she stepped into when the pastorate came together through Into the Deep.
When reflecting on her role in young adult ministry, Angle said, “I saw a need for community, not just for the people around me but for myself too.
“I wanted to be around others who were like minded, who wanted to grow in faith, and who were getting together regularly to have a spiritual life.
“In this role, it was very natural for me to continue [ministering to young adults] because I had been doing it in the past and wanted to continue working with the age group I was familiar with.”
Young adults, ages 21 to 39, who want to receive communications from Angle about what’s going on in the Holy Cross Pastorate, should sign up on Flocknote. To do so, visit pastorate19.flocknote.com/ParishYoungAdult. Alternatively, you may email Laura Angle at [email protected].