Find Your People, Sooner than Later

Roxane Salonen shares how a recent CatholicMom contributing writers’ retreat illuminated the critical importance of connection.  

Earlier this month, I was among the first retreatants to arrive at the Holy Cross Family Ministries Retreat House in Easton, Massachusetts, for the inaugural CatholicMom.com “Digital Missionaries” gathering for contributing writers. As such, my Georgian counterpart, Jennifer Thomas, and I experienced the retreat house transform from quietly still to spilling over with joy-filled chatter.  

We were all fellow mothers and writers with a zeal to be lights to our families that we hope will, in time, radiate outward into the world, and we’d come to this beautiful place with the daring expectation of rest, respite, and revival.  

We got that and more.  

Delightedly, we learned more about Father Patrick Peyton, the priest who coined the phrase, “The family that prays together stays together.” In a world of godless encroachment, Father Peyton’s vision for Catholic families as transformative communities encourages the Catholic mother’s heart. We visited both his resting place on the grounds and a center set on memorializing and broadening his goals. 

I came away yearning to know more about this Irish priest with many gifts and a prophetic eye. Experiencing Mass at the place where he is honored, walking under the ceiling filled with dangling rosaries of every color and form, which represent the many places his ministry has touched others, helped me see how even my small part connects to a larger vision.   

The Gift of Hospitality 

I also came away feeling valued. The retreat house was filled with beautiful touches of charity and welcoming that seemed to beckon our presence and purpose. The meals, painstakingly put together, lovingly served family-style by cheerful volunteers, will long remain in my memory. 

But above all the treasures of the weekend, this message resounded most urgently: We need to find our people.  

Not everyone can go on a retreat halfway across the country. Finances, family constraints, and other considerations mean that for many, it’s just not possible — at least not now. Nevertheless, not one CatholicMom.com reader or writer is exempt from this: We were made for connection and community, and without it, we die.  

Community and Connection  

At times in my mothering, I’ve been in periods of isolation. Raising our young family as a mostly stay-at-home mother, perspective could be hard to come by. What saved me from dangerous desolation was community and connection.  

Finding my people provided the beautiful lift to keep going when life seemed impossible, bringing dynamic energy and support. Discovering sisters in Christ with whom I could journey turned into a beautiful reciprocity of us holding up lamps for one another along the often-murky path. Those lights brightened the walkway, illuminating the next step, road sign, and destination, despite all the uncertainties. 

Maybe you’ve already found your people. Perhaps you thought you had but they stayed only for a season. Be assured, God stands ready to supply fellow pilgrims to help light the way, no matter how many years of journeying. I’ve come to believe he greatly desires that we find one another — and delights in our crossings. 

On the way to this retreat, I finished Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home by Dr. Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley. The title points to an important need to understand our earthly vale as a worthy way to reach our true home, by God’s grace and through community.  

Moving Along the Path Together 

These wise authors helped me reimagine our lives here as pilgrimage, reminding me how we seekers of Christ are all moving along the path together, even if we cannot always see one another. When God does draw us near to each other, we gather courage for the next bold step. 

In a chapter, “The Long Game,” the authors liken our journeys to Frodo Baggins’ in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, pointing out that this earthly walk “can be overwhelming, even disheartening. But God knows the people he made and loves … He knows we would be reluctant to step outside our door and into His grace if we knew where providence would sweep us off to.” And so He “gives us a perfect example to follow,” leading us into the great adventure moment by moment. 

But we were not made to journey alone, any more than Frodo was. That’s where our fellow sisters and brothers in Christ can come in. Besides our families, they are our people we were meant to find, and mingle with, along the way. 

I don’t know where you’re at in the journey. Maybe you’ve already found your people. Maybe you haven’t. If not, I urge you, seek them out in whatever ways are possible. When you do find them, remember to thank God. They are beacons of light for you, as you are for them, placed upon your path by a loving Father who can’t wait to welcome us all into eternal glory someday soon. 

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Copyright 2025 Roxane Salonen
Images: (top, bottom) Canva; (center) Holy Cross Family Ministries, all rights reserved.