This is Michelle Drennan, and I'm very happy to introduce Christa Corbello, one of our masters in psychology graduates.
And she's gonna tell you a little bit about her journey.
So I'm gonna ask her a few questions, and I'm sure you'll get to know her her journey a little better.
So tell me what you're doing now.
Where are you working, and how do you think you're changing the world, Christa?
How do I think I'm changing the world?
Well, this morning at the National Eucharist of Congress, I heard someone say that at the International Eucharist of Congress, mother Teresa was there, and she said, if you wanna change the world, go home and love your family.
So I love that quote.
I didn't know it was at a Eucharist of Congress that she said that.
I've known that quote for many years so I would say first and foremost there that's where the vocation is is in the family.
But in other small ways as I learned at Divine Mercy University there's other ways or other layers to the vocation.
So there's the the call to to personal holiness and relationship with Jesus Christ, the call to committed state of life, which I'm discerning right now, and the call to good work in the world.
Right now, I run Newman Center Pasadena in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
I work with young adults and college students, so, definitely using my degree from Divine Mercy University there, in my free time, which is limited because I work with young adults and college students, but I actually am implementing kind of the action plan that was associated with my capstone project.
So, it was titled Even This Way, which is also now the nonprofit.
I think after I graduated, it became a nonprofit.
And I'm I I actually created the grief intervention program at Divine Mercy University through my research, and it was I I kind of created it as a retreat, almost like Rachel's Vineyard because my my target audience is for people whose siblings died by abortion.
But I actually had to kind of modify it because I don't think I I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that retreat format.
So I've modified it into a a small group setting.
And right now I'm working with two siblings, sibling survivors is what I call us, And, I'm working with them and I'm walking with them in their grief.
I've only done two weeks.
Actually, this coming Monday will be my third week that I do it.
What a great, great opportunity for people to use what you've learned.
I, also like to say or ask what were the main things that attracted you to Divine Mercy University, Krista?
So I was actually, introduced to Divine Mercy University from a friend who was looking at the counseling program and I kind of had an attitude of I might as well just try it for a semester.
And it was when I talked to you, miss Michelle, I remember pretty distinctly because you were telling me the differences between the counseling program and the psychology program, and I really kind of had the feeling that I didn't want to be a psychology program.
And I really kind of had the feeling that I I didn't want to be a therapist necessarily, but that I wanted to help people.
And and the psychology program, you kind of mentioned, like, job job fields that would be good for someone with an MSP.
And the first one was, like, nonprofit pro life organization, which I I knew that would be me.
I I just from an instant of you saying that, it was almost prophetic that it felt like, oh, that makes sense because I wanted to research the effect of abortion on siblings, really the effect of abortion on the family, but really from my personal experience and testimony, the grief that I felt was so profound and having having had many other griefs in life by the way, but the sibling loss to abortion was so so profound that I wanted to know more information about that and I I wanted to have a language for it I suppose and having gone to Rachel's Vineyard which I mentioned earlier and feeling like you know this is a hole that I see in the church like I want to go to Rachel's Vineyard and I have and I and I experienced some healing there and it was God given and God ordained but that hey you know what there might be a setting that might be better suited for siblings that because I didn't have abortion I was not involved in the abortion process and that's what Rachel's Vineyard is for but I needed I needed a space for sibling survivors like me and and going in and researching that through a Catholic lens looking at the that integrated model that's so, kind of foundational to the any all the programs at Divine Mercy University, I wanted to be able to integrate that spirituality aspect of psychology of the family in in the realm of abortion, especially, and I didn't feel like I could do that anywhere else but a Catholic university.
How much that is.
So when you think, because you're in so many different areas, talk to me about how you feel the types of bridges that can be built between science, religion, health care, pastoral care, because you have your fingers in a lot of those pots.
It's true.
Yeah.
And, running a Newman Center, for instance, like, these are college students, graduate students, young adults who are wanting that integration of faith and science.
And, of course, it used to be called, Institute of the Psychological Sciences, right, and it is an MSP so, just kind of being able to like use those methodologies is was very helpful in in making this a, like, kind of formidable program to go into because it wasn't of course, I was drawn by the the spiritual aspect, and my heart led me to it.
But that I had, like, actual psychological research and literature on what I was studying and what I was researching that it I mean, I don't necessarily think that, you know, truth only comes from research because I think the Holy Spirit might draw it out even before the research is there.
And psychology particularly is kind of an what I see as a new science, we still are learning so much.
And even only twenty years ago, like, things like mental health weren't talked about.
So, you know, in the in the lens of mental health, like, it is an element of the person.
It is an integrated element of the person.
And so when there are things in the media, like the new Inside Out movie, for instance, that are kind of illustrating these these beautiful elements of mental health and and the to me, graduate level psychology, graduate level research at the level that kind of any man can understand.
It's very beautiful and needed, and it starts conversations.
And especially if it's in the Catholic lens, to be able to integrate the faith into that it can attract people kind of in those peripheries, right?
It's people searching for truth and to me if if you're searching for truth you're gonna find the truth and so that integration has to be needed and that truth has to be communicated with love.
And that's what DMU does.
That's what I feel I learned from my professors.
And, of course, I had my, what is it called?
My adviser, for instance, is a is very Thomistic.
Okay.
So very intellectual and and obviously and helped me he he kind of steered me in my in my capstone project I had a lot of trouble kind of taking all the research and making it kind of easy to read and understand and and my capstone project was difficult for me to put together especially because there's not a lot of literature on abortion.
Right?
But he's Thomistic, so he was, doctor Christopher Gross.
So he was helping me and guiding me along the way.
But, of course, it was there's the relationship that we had.
It was that he loved the research.
It's that he loved, you know, me enough to help me make that a successful project.
So it it's truly the integration of the faith and the reason that I think is able to birth so many beautiful apostolates from this from this university.
Yeah.
So if you were I know it was challenging, like you just said, but if you were to say the three takeaways that you have, like, for somebody who's looking at Divine Mercy University or wanting that experience, what are your three quick takeaways on what worked because you were diligent and completed the program?
Three takeaways from Divine Mercy University.
Man, it's so hard to kind of boil down to all three.
I I think I mentioned already the integration of the person.
I I think I already before coming to DMU, I already had an interest in psychology.
But being able to kind of, like, really see it from the philosophical lens, from the theological lens, from the psychological lens, and the spiritual lens, all of those all of those elements integrated into one.
I just, like, I can I felt the wholeness the wholeness and that integration and how, fulfilling being able to take these many elements of life, which for me, I felt, I guess I felt like I well, all the research that I was doing or all the searching and all the, what I call truth seekers?
Like, how like, it's good to be a truth seeker, but I didn't feel like all those branches on that tree connected until I went to DMU.
And also this given institute was around the same time.
It was DC based, so not far from Sterling, Virginia.
But at this at that time, I felt like the many different parts of my life were integrating.
And and so reading about the integration of the human person and being able to apply that into a setting like ministry or nonprofit work, like, it was just so it was so healing.
Integration, vocation, the as I mentioned earlier too, the the the three kind of tiers of vocation, it helped me on a personal level understand my own life, I guess.
Like, I I think a lot of people boil vocation down to if you're gonna be married or religious, And those are beautiful, and that's necessary, and it's an essential role of vocation.
But for me as a single woman in the church, you know, and feeling like, oh, you have to find your vocation as if it could ever be lost or that you're you're you're trying to attain a vocation as if it's something you don't already have within you.
And so that was a personally very, again, healing, and it was a very beautiful thing for me to encounter, and it's something about that, call that Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with you, that he wants you to have a committed state of life, that he wants you to make good work in the world, that all three of those are part of it.
And that's so good.
So good.
And the third one I would say is identity.
Like, I just feel like the integration part really helped me, seal my identity as a beloved daughter.
That's beautiful.
I can't thank you enough for your gift of time.
We've become good friends and mentors, as life has gone on, and thank you so much for talking on this wonderful YouTube today.
Thank you so much, miss Michelle.
Thank you, dear.