My friend Julia Oseka is one of the most extraordinary young Catholics I know. Scratch that: She’s one of the most extraordinary Catholics I know. No: She is one of the most extraordinary people I know.
High praise, I know, but when I met her first as a fellow delegate to the Synod of Bishops in October 2023 in Rome, I was floored by her faith, her presence and her articulate way of expressing herself (in both Polish and English; Julia is Polish-born).
As a 22-year-old undergraduate at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia—we quickly bonded over our shared love of Philly—she was the second-youngest delegate at the synod. (The youngest was 19-year-old Wyatt Olivas, an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming and another remarkable young person. Wyatt garnered no little media attention when he asked Pope Francis to sign a note asking his professors to excuse him from his classes during the synod. Francis signed a note in which Wyatt “pinky promised” to complete his classwork.)
What impressed (and impresses) me most about Julia was not only the depth of her faith but the way that she was able to more than hold her own in conversations with patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, lay men and women theologians—really anyone at the synod, and do so with grit and grace. As is well known by now, at the roundtable discussions at the synod, everyone had to listen to everyone else, which meant that the cardinal-patriarch of some ancient see had to listen to an undergrad from St. Joe’s.
Julia was also just a lot of fun to be with. I enjoyed together debriefing the always-interesting goings-on in the Paul VI aula—our meeting hall—during the synod’s two-month-long sessions in 2023 and 2024.
In our lively conversation on “The Spiritual Life,” Julia talks about growing up Catholic in Poland and how, while her faith was strong, she began to sense some of the cultural religious practices she was participating in felt like a “checklist.” A key moment came when she learned that faith was also about relationships, not only with other people but with God.
Julia also shared how anxious and fearful she was when first encountering hundreds of bishops at the synod. (She wasn’t alone in that: I was also a little intimidated by so many pectoral crosses and zucchetti.) But inspired by the synod retreat leader Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. (the first guest on this podcast), Julia worked to be open and become friends with other delegates—something that profoundly shaped the synod for her.
At the same time, she talked about feeling deeply frustrated when bishops would speak in “dehumanizing” ways about other people or when it seemed like there was resistance to the Holy Spirit. (She wasn’t alone in that either. As I’ve written, I was stunned by how some delegates spoke about L.G.B.T.Q. people, especially during the first session.) But through it all, she found consolation in the friendships she made and remains hopeful about the future of the church.
For me, however, the most provocative part of our conversation is her observation that in the spiritual life, God always continues to be revealed to us.
“I’m glad to say that I don’t know God,” Julia told me. “God is someone who keeps revealing themselves to me, still in new contexts and in new ways, and through people and nature and situations I find myself in.”
To hear her say, “I’m glad to say that I don’t know God,” reminded me of the need to resist the temptation to feel like one knows God fully. Of course, intellectually we (or at least most of those reading this) would say, “Yes, of course, I can’t know God fully.” Most would agree with what many Catholic theologians say (paraphrasing St. Augustine): “If you’ve defined God, then it’s not God.” God is semper major, always greater than what we can know.
But Julia’s comment also reminds us about something in our spiritual lives. God is not semper major simply in an intellectual sense but in an experiential sense. God’s ways of being revealed to us change over time, depending on what we are going through and even related to where we might be physically. Thus, we can never “box in” God and say that God relates to me only in this one particular way. Or if we do, we are bound to be surprised.
A few years ago, at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Mass., my retreat director suggested that I pray in a way that I initially resisted. Imagine yourself, he said, walking down the blacktop lane outside the retreat house and speaking with Jesus. Immediately, I said: “Oh no, I can’t do that. I’ve tried that many times. I have to pray in the chapel or in my room, and it has to be completely quiet. I get too distracted doing that outside.” Of course, he replied with a classic retreat director response: “Why not just try it?”
As you probably expect from my teeing up this story, I had a powerful prayer experience once I set aside my ideas of how God would be revealed and once I imagined, with as much vividness as I could, Jesus walking beside me. At one point, Jesus even embraced me, which was something new for me. As the Jesuit Carlos Valles once wrote, “If you always imagine God in the same way, no matter how true and beautiful it may be, you will not be ready to receive the gift of the new ways he has ready for you.”
With Julia Oseka, who is now studying theology at the University of Leuven, I can say that I’m glad I don’t know God fully. And I’m glad we’re on that journey together. And I hope you are charmed, challenged and delighted by my conversation with my remarkable friend.
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