Jeff Klucinec's Faith Story

As I write this story, Lynnette and I have been married for 6 weeks, 5 days, and 6 hours...give or take a couple of hours. This is, as a coarse approximation, about 0.4% of my life. So, please do consider these thoughts I share as something of a developing photograph: not entirely clear but with coarse "blobs" emerging from darkness.

Over the last 16 months, I have been given a wonderful gift: opportunities to glean some of the truth and wisdom of the Church about marriage through various preparation activities, faith sharing, and personal reflection. Within this time period, I have shared in a wonderful Engaged Encounter weekend, at which I learned more about communicating with Lynnette. More recently, I have shared a unique experience of participating in an STA group discussion of Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" while over the same time period attending a series of classes about Natural Family Planning. All of these experiences encouraged me to talk openly and frankly with Lynnette about how these messages spoke to me as an individual and, along with Lynnette, us as a couple. These experiences also challenged me to understand my faith in ways I had not really discussed or considered in much depth.

When it rains it pours. With these gifts, I am in awe of the beauty of what the Church offers me: Marriage as a sacrament and vocation, the beauty of life from conception to natural death, the magnificent glorious dignified creations that are woman and man, the family as a model of the Church, and the challenge of sharing my life with another as a holy act and a call to put my faith into practice.

So, where am I in all of this now? I'm completely overwhelmed; my cup isn't big enough for all of this and even if it was there is no way I could drink fast enough! Little pieces of truth present themselves, but the practice of this truth is very important. Every new day gives me new opportunities to live this new life. Thanks be to God that the Earth rotates and a year is full of so many new days.

At STA, we recognize those that celebrate an anniversary monthly. For those that have been married for 50 years, 25 years, 10 years, 5 years...even one year: thank you for the testament to the beauty and grace of Marriage.

-Jeff Klucinec
has been a parishioner since 2003 and is a team member with the RCIA program at STA. Jeff also participates in and sometimes leads weekly Young Adult faith sharing sessions. He works in Ames as a Field Analytics Manager for grain analysis with BASF Plant Science, housed in the Iowa State University Research Park. Jeff has lived in Boone, IA since 2005, married fellow parishioner Lynnette (Baumann) Klucinec on June 23, 2007, and (for those interested in checking his math) he is 34 years old.