January 10, 2026

College students, young adults go ‘to the heights’ at SEEK 2026

REGIONAL
By Carolee McGrath

SPRINGFIELD – More than 70 college students and young adults from the Diocese of Springfield attended the annual SEEK conference, Jan. 1-5, in Columbus, Ohio. SEEK is run by FOCUS missionaries, or Fellowship of Catholic University Students. The local groups joined more than 16,000 other young people in Columbus. SEEK conferences were also held in Fort Worth and Denver. 

A group of 35 left from the Newman Catholic Center at UMass in Amherst. Western Mass College Catholics had 37 leaving from the Springfield area. Four seminarians also attended, in addition to priests from the Diocese of Springfield.

The conference had a theme of “To the Heights,” inspired by newly canonized St. Pier Giorgio Frassati.

“As St. Pier Giorgio reminds us, we are called to the heights — to live lives of holiness, joy, and mission. SEEK is a time for renewal, for community, and for reigniting our passion to share Christ with the world,” said FOCUS founder Curtis Martin in an interview with Catholic News Agency.

The conference included talks by renowned Catholic speakers including Matt Fradd, a former atheist originally from Australia; podcaster Father Mike Schmitz and chaplain at the University of Minnesota Duluth; Sister Mary Grace of the Sisters of Life; and EWTN’s Dr. Edward Sri.

“I think we started off the conference talking about what it means to be Catholic in a way, what it means to be a woman. They had men’s and women’s talks. By the end, they were teaching us how to set the world on fire,” said Lindsay Allard, a student at UMass.

In addition to talks and praise and worship music, SEEK held social events, such as speed dating. But Mass and Eucharistic Adoration were the highlight for many.

“The music coming in when the priests were processing in and out with the Agnus Dei and Salve Regina, I was just amazed and started tearing up a lot,” said UMass junior Matthew Jamrozek.

Father Valentine Nworah is the director of the Newman Catholic Center and pastor of St. Brigid Parish in Amherst.

“To go to SEEK and see 16,000 people running around from one place to another, to see the number of conferences that were organized and the number of confessions heard, it is amazing. God is alive. God is at work and it has never stopped,” he said.

This was a record breaking year for attendance with close to  27,000 people at the three conferences. More than 16,000 attended Columbus.

“Last year we brought 10 kids to Salt Lake City. This year had a 400 percent increase in the number of kids,” said Joe Austin, the director of the Office of Missionary Discipleship, which oversees youth, college, young adult and family ministry.

“A lot of those kids went last year. In fact, they registered for this year’s conference at last year’s conference. A lot of them were talking about registering for SEEK 2027. So we have a high retention rate of kids that come back every single year.”

Austin said his group included graduates of the youth ambassador program, Young and Catholic and Western Mass College Catholics.

“I came out of that with three main takeaways – the first one that God is real, Jesus is King and sainthood is possible. For the first one with God is real, they wrestle with believing if God is real, a real supreme being with control over their life. Just across the board, the kids had encounters with God,” Austin said. “The second point that Jesus is King, you see 17,000 kids in this arena and you see the cross processing in and you can see the cross rising above the crowd, that’s just the thought that came to me that Jesus is king.”

Father David Aufiero, the pastor of St. Patrick Parish in South Hadley and chaplain at Pope Francis Preparatory School in Springfield, also attended.

Father Aufiero is also the director of recruiting for the Vocations Office.

“On the night of Adoration and confession, we prayed as priests inside dinner, we prayed intentionally for all the participants. And one of the things the chaplain for FOCUS said was that the college students maybe are going to forget the speakers in a year, but they’re always going to remember Adoration and confession,” said Father Aufiero.

Jack Day, a junior at Thomas Aquinas College in Northfield, attended with the Western Mass College Catholics group.

“I guess I always knew that in my generation that church is having a revival right now. I guess I didn’t understand the scale of it until I was able to see just how many people were really into their faith, thousands of people just like me,” Day said.

A video version of this story will air tonight on “Real to Reel” at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22 NEWS.