When I was a senior at Villanova University, I “came alive” in the City of Philadelphia! It was a Saturday night in November 1998, two days after my mother’s birthday. I was agonizing over eighteen credits that semester, sad about having to leave all my friends in a few months, and in a few days – on Tuesday, November 10^th – I would be taking an actuarial exam in nearby Philadelphia. My father, a former Marine, was excited because the Marine Corps was born in Philadelphia on November 10^th, so he considered that good luck. I was studying for the test while waiting to do gown to Corr Chapel on Main Campus to help out with the SEARCH Retreat taking place at Camp Newmann. All of a sudden, I realized that after years of living just to work hard and get awesome grades, I was tired of the lack of balance I had.

During the prayer service in Corr Chapel, I felt myself glowing. We drove over to Camp Newmann to give palancas to the team leaders so that they could distribute them to the retreatants. It was a dark and dreary night outside, but inside, a fresh new light was shining. Michael Vassallo was reborn! From that night on, I wanted to keep people like my fellow SEARCH friends in my life no matter how busy I was. I was determined to hold on to this newfound sense of balance.

What joy I felt to arrive at the camp and bond with the retreat leaders! My schoolwork and upcoming actuarial exam were crushing me, but I insisted on focusing on the warm circle of love, even though I was not a retreatant that weekend. My time for that had already come, but that Saturday night in November 1998, I felt more elated than I did when I was on my own SEARCH weekend in October 1997. I felt liberated.

That night, I went to bed feeling peaceful – still worried about the other stuff, but happier.

The next day, we had a welcoming mass in Corr Chapel for the retreatants once they got back to the campus. That added to my happiness, and if that weren’t enough, after that, a bunch of us were taking my friend Will’s mother out to dinner off campus for her birthday! Once again, I felt a sense of belonging and acceptance unlike any other I’d ever had!

A few days later, when I took the R5 train from Villanova (conveniently right outside my dorm) into Suburban Station in Center City, I had another epiphany. I had ventured into Philadelphia by train all alone before – mainly to take this same exam or to get home or come back to school by Amtrak – but for some reason, as I emerged from Suburban Station and set foot in Center City that morning, I felt something different in the air, and it was not because of the rain. In fact, despite the rainy day, my heart radiated with sunshine! My life was still changed from the other night, but the feeling was magnified – as if the spirit of the City of Brotherly Love was reinforcing the love I felt from over the weekend. I had never realized how beautiful Philadelphia was until that morning. It was breathtaking, and I carried this magnified feeling with me as I walked a few blocks over to the test center on Walnut Street – the same street where I would one day enjoy going to dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse and Moriarity’s Pub!

I wound up failing that test in this city in which the Marine Corps was born on this day over two centuries ago, but I still felt that peace, that spirit, that love. Our country earned its freedom from Great Britain in Philadelphia, and, in a sense, I earned my freedom there – from the “tyranny” of my own self-imposed workaholism. I had been thinking of relocating to the area around my school, and these epiphanies I’d been having over the past few days solidified that desire. This city which I had taken for granted for so long now struck me as a magical place of love, beauty and hope where I could start my life over.

Later that same day back at school, we had another SEARCH function in Corr Chapel. This was a renewal for all veteran SEARCHERS.

Coincidentally, I retook the exam again the following February in Center City – only to have a SEARCH renewal that night in Corr Chapel again!  That chapel will always remind me of Philadelphia and my epiphany related to it, especially since I was in both places in one day – more than once! Could that have been a sign?

© Copyright 2024 by Michael Vassallo

Featured Image by Bruce Emmerling from Pixabay