May 16, 2026 // Bishop

M.Div. Program Connects Students with Real-World Ministry

Paula Lent

After arriving in South Bend before beginning the University of Notre Dame’s Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program, Donny Robbins began to experience God calling him toward pro-life ministry. Through the local Catholic young adult community, he learned about a Voices for Life outreach event, then fortuitously ran into Melanie Lyon, the organization’s executive director and co-founder, when she was speaking at a diocesan Theology on Tap event. Her witness to being merciful in the face of persecution while ministering at an abortion clinic inspired Robbins to begin volunteering, and he discerned that God was calling him to stay with VFL for his first-year ministry placement.

“I especially admire that Donny, as a first-year student, was able to suggest VFL as a new placement opportunity, demonstrating the program’s respect for student ideas and passions,” Lyon told Today’s Catholic. “This ministry placement requirement of the M.Div. program is a testament to Notre Dame’s commitment to our wider community.”

Robbins’ experience is but one of many that occur annually through the partnership between the M.Div. program and the broader South Bend community. Notre Dame’s program is notable for its holistic formation approach, integrating intellectual, pastoral, human and spiritual formative dimensions within a community environment. Ministry placements are a key component of this, allowing students to combine their classroom learning with practical ministry experience while becoming part of the local community. These placements connect students with a variety of organizations, including Our Lady of the Road, St. Margaret’s House, hospitals, schools and parishes.

“It’s wonderful to [receive] academic training, especially at such a prestigious university, where you have just the top-notch theologians forming you and teaching you,” said Becky Ruvalcaba, an alum of the M.Div. program and its director of pastoral formation. “But then to have top-notch formators actually guiding you and reflecting with you on the world of ministry — experts who are in the thick of it — for me, it makes it even more real; it makes it richer formation.”

Recent graduate Logan Edwards told Today’s Catholic that as an undergrad, he knew he loved studying theology, “yet I also knew that simply knowing a lot of theology wouldn’t necessarily equip me to serve the People of God,” he said. “Knowing that the Notre Dame M.Div. is based explicitly on ‘Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord’ [the document on lay ecclesial ministry from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops] and that it would form me not only intellectually but personally, spiritually and pastorally made it the right place for me.”

M.Div. students, who form cohorts composed of lay ministers, religious brothers and sisters, and seminarians, complete between six to 10 hours of weekly service at a ministerial site during each of the program’s three years. They choose sites based on their interests, experiences and abilities, as well as ministerial areas for growth and the year’s pastoral theme — ministry of presence (first year), articulation of the Faith (second), or ministerial leadership and authority (third year).

For Congregation of Holy Cross seminarian Eric Washkewicz, each placement drew upon his naval experiences while also honing his ministerial skills. He became an assistant university ROTC chaplain for his first placement as a way to discern military chaplaincy post-ordination while growing in a ministry of presence.

“I went to the Naval Academy for my undergrad, so working with cadets again was a really meaningful experience because I was able to give back from a perspective of ‘I’ve been in your shoes,’” he told Today’s Catholic.

Washkewicz embraced the second-year theme of articulating the Faith through Notre Dame’s OCIA program.

“I had zero experience with OCIA,” he recalled. But once again, his naval experience helped him. “As eager as I was to jump in, I had to encourage them to walk with and not lead by the hand or push from the back,” he said of how he guided sponsors in accompanying their candidates. “I picked [that approach] up in the Navy as a division officer. As an officer in charge of different divisions, I realized that if I tried to do my men’s work for them, then why were they there?” This translated to OCIA, where he recognized, “It’s on God’s time. It’s God who’s doing the work,” he said.

Stretching himself again, Washkewicz took a leadership role helping with marriage preparation at Christ the King Parish in South Bend during his final placement, because he “felt that if my identity as a priest is deeply rooted in the sacraments, I would need an intentional way of sitting down with marriage prep.”

While working with couples, he found himself drawing upon a skill he had used in his previous placements — namely, “just sitting and receiving someone’s story.” Washkewicz also introduced theological nuance. “The real thing I focused on was leading with covenant and what it means to be married in the Church,” he said. “I wanted to hear their stories — how they met, why they were engaged, how the proposal happened. I wanted them to be excited to tell their own story and then to offer them an invitation to see that God is at work in that story, too, and that God is drawing them farther along in that story.”

Rising third-year student Chika Anyanwu entered with a wealth of experiences, which included work with NET ministries, LifeTeen, Notre Dame Vision and the National Eucharistic Congress. An internationally known public speaker, she felt a need for what the M.Div. provides.

“When it comes to looking at my pastoral ministry and theological studies, they shouldn’t be separate; they’re integral,” Anyanwu said. “It’s integrating both of them to work together in support of one another, and being holistic in that way helps form me as a better disciple.”

Through their Field Education class, students reflect communally on the work they’re doing and those they’re serving.

“Each semester, every student constructs a case study based on their field placement or other ministerial experience,” Edwards said. “While observing proper confidentiality, they articulate the narrative. Then, they analyze the scenario through different lenses and lead a discussion with their cohort — not to derive straight answers or get told they did something wrong but to grow as ministers together.”

Of this experience of being Church, Washkewicz said, “It’s important to understand the perspective of people who are going to be going back out and doing ministry maybe beyond the walls of a parish or beyond the uniform of a collar. … I would actually say it’s necessary for somebody who’s going to be in [ordained] ministry to work alongside laypeople during their formation.”

Ministry site supervisors also play an important role, providing mentorship and space for reflection during their biweekly meetings with students.

“I think that the best thing about supervisors is they always understand that I am here for formation,” Washkewicz said. “They always kept formation at the forefront because they want to ensure that — whether lay or [with the Congregation of Holy Cross], whoever is undergoing supervision — they can be better prepared as ministers to serve the Church in the future.”

Ruvalcaba echoed this, saying: “They’re an extension of our program. We cannot do what we’re doing here in the M.Div. program without them. Their practical theology, experiences and reflection with our students is critical.”

As Voice’s Outreach Associate, Robbins spent five hours a week doing door-to-door outreach and sidewalk advocacy. Knocking on doors to initiate pro-life conversations with strangers, he learned to have meaningful conversations with a wide variety of people who hold different opinions.

“One of the most important lessons that I learned was prioritizing the person over the conversation,” Robbins told Today’s Catholic. “It’s so important to be listening to the other person and pastorally caring for them, because if you’re not doing that, then you can’t have a fruitful conversation. It’s a foundational skill to ministry that I think all lay ministers are going to have in their ministry jobs.”

Robbins also related the experience to St. Paul’s example of tailored messaging, saying: “It’s shown me where I need to grow in ministry. … You might know what to say, but the pastoral [involves discerning] how you actually say that. … I see this door-to-door experience as very helpful in the art of conversation and to help me talk about Jesus with people.”

Another vital takeaway: “Doing pastoral ministry isn’t just about the skills; you need to have a relationship with Jesus,” Robbins said.

Washkewicz agreed, saying: “The best thing that the Field Ed. classes do is they encourage us to reflect theologically on ministry, because it can be very easy to assume that ministry can become just a job or can become a substitute for prayer. … We need time with prayer. … It’s sort of like an ebb and flow where we work in the world in ministry and then we’re drawn back to prayer. We need to be refreshed, and then we are ready to go, and we are put back out with zeal.”

This truth was underscored during the annual Mass of Blessing and Sending for graduating M.Div. students, held on Thursday, May 7, at Moreau Seminary and Scholasticate and officiated by Bishop Rhoades.

Drawing from the Gospel reading that followed Jesus’ analogy of the vine and branches, Bishop Rhoades said: “There’s nothing more important in our life than this: remaining in Christ’s love. This is not something abstract and theoretical. … I can’t think of any better exhortation to you than the exhortation of Jesus Himself to remain in His love in whatever path you follow with your M.Div. degree. I hope and pray that you will be witnesses and missionaries of joy, the joy that is the fruit of your friendship with the Lord, your closeness to Him. This will require you to persevere in your prayer so that your relationship with the Lord grows closer.”