Katie Fallon Clymer was a Seton Teaching Fellow in the South Bronx in Cohorts 6 and 7. After her second year as a Fellow, she worked full-time as a Learning Specialist at Brilla Schools for three years. For the last few years, she has also worked as Character Liaison for the El Camino Catholic faith formation program. In July 2024, she married her husband Michael, and they now live in Philadelphia.
In one of his most popular works, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis speaks of the way God prepares our hearts for His call. Lewis compares us to a “living house.” He describes the way God comes in to renovate the “house.” At first, the renovations are small and predictable, like fixing a leaking sink. Next thing you know, He is knocking down walls and building towers, and these drastic changes make our heads spin. At the end, Lewis reveals that, while we imagined ourselves and the space in our hearts as a “decent little cottage,” God was preparing us to be a palace that God would live in Himself.
Whenever I think about my time as a Seton Teaching Fellow, as well as my time in the Bronx, Lewis’ analogy comes to mind. While being a Fellow and working in the Bronx was very helpful in my vocational discernment to marriage, my discernment was truly step-by-step. I was presented with the opportunity to become a Fellow while I was studying Spanish Education in graduate school. God’s timing in presenting the program to me was perfect. I was very involved in extracurriculars while an undergrad student, but I was intentionally taking time to discern the next steps, not only in my career, but also in my Vocation, while in graduate school. When I looked into the Fellow program, it seemed like it was made for me: I wanted to continue developing my teaching skills in a structured program; I wanted to teach about the faith; and I wanted to serve in a community where my skills in Spanish and education would be most useful. I was immediately drawn to this opportunity, and after an interview and demo lesson in the South Bronx, I enthusiastically accepted and spent the remainder of my time in graduate school imagining what the day-to-day would look like.
While I was imagining my Fellow year— which, at that moment, I thought would only be one year, I was also prayerfully discerning the next steps in my vocation. As a teenager, I felt drawn to both religious life (as a Dominican Sister) and married life. At the age of twenty-one, in graduate school, I did not feel as strong of a pull to religious life. Still, I went to a Come and See retreat to confirm this su[picion. While at the retreat, I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the sisters and admired their life, charism, and virtue! Yet, I knew the door was closed and that God was showing me another way. As I prepared to live in New York, I wondered to myself how God would prepare me, through this work, for my vocation.
Little did I know that big renovations were in store for my heart! Yet the Lord moved step-by-step. In retrospect, I feel like I arrived in New York with a studio-apartment-sized heart, and God took whatever building materials I had and stretched my heart to hold, through His power, hundreds of His children. This process took years of intense labor. He began His heavy construction when I began community life in the Bronx. Responsibilities such as organizing community dinners, outings, and chores, required constant practice in communication, patience, and humility. I had never lived in such an intentional environment, and yet the intentionality of it is what made me love my community even more. Even with differences in temperament, habits, and interests, we sought to be our best selves— not only for the Lord, but also for our household. This required sacrifice, discussions, and again, humility. But these efforts were not made in vain. Through community life, I learned how to communicate in a variety of ways. I also learned how to anticipate another person’s needs, and show appreciation when they anticipated my needs. My studio-apartment-sized heart added another floor.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the significance of working with children in my preparation for marriage. After five years of working in a middle school, I am thoroughly convinced that working in a middle school can prepare you for anything! But I’m sure any teacher in any environment would say the same thing. While in school, students grow and mature so much. One of the biggest challenges in working in a school is learning how to nurture the students in a way that helps them be at ease, but not complacent. I would often reflect on the difference between supporting students and enabling them, as well as the difference between correcting them and criticizing them. I learned that worrying whether or not I “got it exactly right” was not as important as identifying the difference in the first place. Upon further reflection, I realized that what would help me the most was aiming to be loving and humble above all. If my goal is to truly love my students, let them know I love them, and do all this with humility, the Lord will help with the rest. On my walk to work, I often reflected on the growth that was happening within me: it seemed as if God partnered with my students to help make my heart into a palace.
After years of deliberate and sometimes painful construction in my heart, I’m happy to announce that the Lord might be almost a quarter of the way done! There is still so much work left to do, but for now, I am so grateful for the communities that taught me not to have such a tight grip on who I think I am, and to let the Lord build me into the humble and loving person He calls me to be. I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve been given to practice virtue in concrete ways through love, communication, and responsibility. I’m also grateful for one of my best friends, a fellow STF alum who introduced me to my husband as I navigated life after being a Fellow. Now, through the virtues I grew in as a Fellow, I can work with my husband to build a living palace in which the Lord can dwell.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.
He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”
John 14:2
