What does it mean to be a missionary today? At its most basic, it still means what it has always meant: a radical willingness to go wherever you are needed, to do whatever is needed, for as long as it is needed. It still means a radical openness to foreign peoples, languages, and cultures. It still means a radical love of the poor, even if the poverty is no longer that of the village.

Speaking to her, I learned that she was fighting leukemia. It was a good reminder, before the Trail even began. There are no extras. Everyone has a story. Everyone is a hero, just in stories we don’t know.

As a Christian, I have always been curious about those who went before us. We wouldn’t be Christians if those who went before us weren’t Christians, if they didn’t live and die as Christians and leave us the witness of their faith. And now, as a seminarian in the Congregation of Holy Cross, I find the same to be true.

My grandmother, Sue Dominick, showed up for her freshman year of college and registered for French, Italian, and Spanish. She wanted to be in the foreign service and travel overseas, seeing the beauty and diversity this great world has to offer, but her life did not follow the trajectory she envisioned at the beginning of college.

My host parents are a force of wisdom, intellect, and tireless work. With their credentials and connections, they would have no problem establishing an easier, more convenient life in a Western country. But they have no interest in doing so.

There are two parts to the story of how God has transformed my life. The first part has been allowing Jesus to heal me. The second part has been for me to accept my brokenness as a place where I can find and live the mission that God has given to me.

To me, Francis is the embodiment of a trailblazer. For as much as I admired his unabashed and unashamed joy, when I dug deeper to learn about and understand his other qualities and anecdotes, the more sacred depth I discovered about him.

I, too, had wrestled with those questions. Like Mev, I had wondered what it meant to grow up in a community where I had access to so much, while others had so little. I had found exactly what I was seeking—an American Catholic prophet of my own in the witness of Mev Puleo.

Trailblazers are oftentimes mentors, colleagues, or idols. They light the way for us and clear a path so we can confidently and faithfully follow a call. They can also be spouses, friends, and classmates, whose self-sacrifice and support make the trail more meaningful and clear.

Perhaps in the years to come the crosses I carry will grow heavier. Perhaps I will be called to forge a bold new path like so many of the Saints did. Or perhaps I will continue to be called to slip quietly in and out of the stories of others in the manner of Simon of Cyrene, with my own story never in the spotlight.

Most of my work in Park City, Utah, is with immigrants—many without documentation. They found jobs, they are raising families, and now they are living in the fog of uncertainty as they experience a change in our national culture. They do not feel welcome.

As I walked out of my “A Faith to Die For” class in O’Shag Hall my senior year at Notre Dame, I knew my life was about to take a dramatic turn away from Main Street USA onto a more remote path much less traveled.

As the old saying goes, when we’re driving at night, we can only see as far as our headlights, but we can make the whole journey that way.

It was certainly frustrating for me to try and hear the voice of God when God seemed so silent and elusive in my daily experience. But as Joey developed over the years—and certainly as I developed alongside him as a mother—he became Christ to me.