“For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
Jacqueline Marie & Ryan Factura | April 23, 2025
Astrid and Tiphaine laugh as they switch between English and French on the Zoom call. It’s Holy Thursday. Before heading off to Mass, they are sharing what God is doing in their lives through the Paroisse Etudiante de Toulouse (Student Parish of Toulouse).
This isn’t your typical parish. Spread across multiple churches, it serves the spiritual needs of France’s largest concentration of university students — an astounding 140,000 students in the city of Toulouse.
But what truly sets it apart is not just its scale. It’s the openness of its people to the Holy Spirit.
Crucial to this mission is Fr. Antoine Laviale, assistant priest of the parish and a former intern at Saint Benedict Parish in Halifax, Canada — the birthplace of Divine Renovation.
Ordained in 2023, he now ministers in a parish experiencing an intense evangelistic renewal — and not just among the clergy. It’s the students, especially the Gen Z, who are leading the charge.
“I met someone at the beginning of the year who asked: 'Who is Jesus for you?' I said nothing. Now I know He is everything…it was not the case before.”
The parish is unique, yet Divine Renovation’s overarching principles of parish renewal are at work. Their leadership structure reflects this vitality: a central Leadership Team supports smaller teams representing four fraternities made up of priests, young families, and students — a structure tailored for a transient, student population.
The primacy of evangelization has spread beyond the clergy and leaders into the students themselves. Among them are Astrid and Tiphaine — both 19-year-old first-year students in a health sciences and therapy program. And both evangelists. “God is the center of our lives, that’s why He is at the center of our discussions,” says Astrid.
The two young women met at the start of the school year and soon became inseparable. Though raised in different faith contexts — Astrid in a devout Catholic family, and Tiphaine in a home where faith is more cultural than personal — they found a shared desire to make Christ known through the parish. And this as a result of being discipled into deeper faith and receiving support from others on the same journey.
Their stories mirror the larger spiritual hunger emerging in their generation throughout the country. Tiphaine, who is from Clermont-Ferrand, four hours away, had never talked publicly about Jesus before arriving in Toulouse. Astrid, whose family recently relocated to Senegal for her father’s military post, admits the shift to university life was jarring.
“I was really scared about my university years…I switched from family life to student life and the switch was very difficult,” she says. “I joined Tiphaine at the parish because I knew there were a lot of people like me…that it would help me to fight my fears about being alone.”
Now, the parish has become a sort of family — a home away from home.
Through mentorship, community, and formation, both have grown in courage and conviction.
“Today it is impossible for me not to talk about it,” says Tiphaine. “It is really surprising for [my parents] because I think I am not the same person I was…it is surprising for my parents to see how determined I am in what I believe.”
What began as personal transformation has become outward mission.
Tiphaine recalls that, “I met someone at the beginning of the year who asked: ‘Who is Jesus for you?’ I said nothing. Now I know He is everything…It was not the case before.”
Astrid and Tiphaine invited a friend, Ange-Elise, to Mass. She had some familiarity with God but little formation. That changed at St. Marc’s. She encountered Christ and began discipleship. This Pentecost, she’ll be confirmed — and she now volunteers in Alpha along with Astrid.
“I hope that people will have the same experience that I had with God that changed my life.”
Another story: Daniel, a third-year student, met Astrid in the hallway. When he heard she was going to Mass, he asked to join. It was his first time.
“He told her afterwards that he experiences ‘a lot of love, a lot of comfort at church,’” Tiphaine recalls.
Daniel returned again and again. But eventually, he stopped. The questions became overwhelming. Just last Sunday, he returned and told them he felt something missing in his life without God.
“He felt something that attracted him in Mass,” says Tiphaine. “After Mass, he said that he was liberated — that a weight was lifted from his shoulders.”
Stories like these aren’t isolated. “I think that the majority of us in St. Marc, their faith is new,” Astrid shares. Students from secular homes are rediscovering faith — or discovering it for the first time.
Clemence is Tiphaine’s upperclassman mentor (roughly translated as good mother).They bonded over faith after Clemence noticed a Jesuit cross on Tiphaine’s Instagram. She started coming to Mass with them. Now, Tiphaine says, “we talk every day about our difficulties, about ways to pray and praying for each other, and our relationships with our parents who don’t believe in God.”
Next year, Clemence will be confirmed. And she is just one of many.
This past Easter Vigil, the parish celebrated 30 adult baptisms. At Pentecost, another 70 Confirmations will follow. Over 240 catechumens are currently in formation at the Etudiante Paroisse de Toulouse.
But the numbers only tell one part of the story. At the heart of it are moments of encounter and invitation.
“I hope that people will have the same experience that I had with God that changed my life,” says Astrid.
Tiphaine agrees. “I think that sometimes when I talk with other students about Jesus…I have a lot of joy in my heart, and it is impossible not to talk about it.”
Just the other day, after going to Confession, she was so moved she had to call a friend — a Muslim friend — to share that joy in her heart.
“She’s very curious and open-minded, and that’s why it’s possible to talk so much with her…But sometimes I tell myself maybe it’s ‘too much’ for her, who doesn’t know Jesus, but I can’t help telling her about the deep joy inside me!”
That’s the Holy Spirit, she says. “It is not me who is speaking…I am sure that the Holy Spirit talks through me.”
Whether in the pews of St. Marc, or on a metro car with a stranger, students like Tiphaine and Astrid are bearing witness to Jesus with a faith that’s alive. Just last week, Tiphaine noticed a woman crying on the train. She had only one stop left — but still, she wrote down a Scripture verse, folded it, and gave it to the woman “in order to give her courage, that she is not alone…”
“It is not common for me to do this,” she says. “I knew it is not me.”
Tiphaine and Astrid show that a parish on mission forms missionary disciples. And at the Student Parish of Toulouse, there is not a shortage of them.
This is mission. Evangelization, happening through encounter. Parishioners equipped through a parish that dares to believe the Holy Spirit will move.
