SERVICE TO THE CHURCH
Ministry as a Chris Calderone, SOT/Sem ’13, put out a call for cooks during his first semester at Saint John’s University’s School of Theology. The liturgical music student needed a hand preparing homemade pasta for the school’s weekly community lunch. His classmate – Rebecca (Spanier) Calderone, SOT/Sem ’14 – volunteered. Fourteen pounds of rigatoni, bowtie noodles and linguini later, the two became fast friends — and eventually, partners for life. “A lot of our early relationship focused
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around community life at the SOT/ Sem,” recalled Chris, who began dating Rebecca during their second semester of graduate school. “Our first date was making pasta for folks at the SOT/Sem for the Feast of Saint Joseph.” Rebecca and Chris kept hosting gettogethers and cooking for classmates as their partnership grew. “Hospitality was something the SOT/ Sem instilled deeply into each of us and into our relationship from the very start,” Rebecca said.
The couple married at the Saint John’s Abbey Church in October 2014 surrounded by Collegeville friends and professors. They came back to celebrate their first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife with a classic campus date: a walk to the Stella Maris Chapel and dinner at the Refectory. “We were still paying off graduate school, and Chris had a lot of punches left,” Rebecca said with a laugh. “He brought an electric candle, flower and tablecloth. We definitely got some looks.”
