For as long as she can remember, Katia Rubio, 19, has put her faith into action through serving others, whether by cleaning St. Albert Church with her mother, teaching parish youth or being an altar server at Mass.
“I was really involved with our youth group too,” she said. “We set out this little pantry for our community; our youth group helped design it, and then the Knights of Columbus built it for us.
“We’re in a very low-income community and a lot of people do not have much access to food. There was nothing like that around town, so we tried to build it.”
Rubio’s desire to serve comes from her parents, who brought her to the U.S. from Mexico when she was just a toddler. Since then, she’s seen many good examples from them of what it means to be a faithful member of one’s parish. Still, it took some time for those lessons to sink in.
“I didn’t get that strong into my faith until confirmation when I fully learned what the Church is about and what my faith is about,” said the sophomore at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. “I always thought, ‘Oh, I have to constantly be this perfect person.’ But it’s completely the other way around: He accepts us as sinners, and I don’t have to be perfect in his eyes.
“When we first moved here, we were definitely a very low-income family. We did not have that much, and there were so many people from our Church who reached out to us and helped us, and that’s why I tend to do a lot of service. I try to give back as much as I can to others because I know what it is like to be in that position.”
