Speaking Out

My main resolution this year has been to attend my church’s noon choir rehearsal every Sunday and to be punctual. During 2011, my choir attendance was sporadic at best, despite the fact that I feel closer to the Lord when I praise Him in song. I decided to make my New Year’s resolution faith-based.

At the time of writing, three Sundays have passed, and I have yet to be on time for choir rehearsal, for various reasons.

However, I still take my resolution seriously and refuse to give up on the promise I have made to myself.

How did you spend your New Year’s Eve? For as long as I can remember, I have spent New Year’s Eve with family, congregating around cookies and champagne. But this year, I spent it alongside 600 fellow university students at Rise Up, Catholic Christian Outreach’s national conference.

The five-day conference in downtown Vancouver was a far stretch from my past New Year celebrations and it inspired a deep desire to live out my Catholic faith. 

After submitting four essays in 24 hours at the end of last semester, I found myself staring into my latest (of many) tea of the day and glumly contemplating the point of getting a degree.

I am in my fourth year of university, and often feel that I’d rather be any place but here. It’s not that school isn’t challenging or that my extracurriculars aren’t engaging. It’s that it seems there’s more to learn from reading the Asperges or hiking in the mountains than from a week’s worth of readings in history or political science. A better understanding of the social, economic and political reasons for contemporary Middle Eastern post-colonial resistance could be very useful — if nothing else, for looking smart in barroom conversation — but once the notes are done, essays written, it seems there is little left of lasting value. I can’t educate my way into heaven.

As cliché as it may sound, the famous phrase “Ignorance is bliss” can be highly relevant to modern society. Many of us fail to recognize the surplus of blessings we have been given and focus more on what we lack.

If you have a Twitter account, the essence of our ignorance can be seen in the tweets of FirstWorldPains. The account satires the pains of developed countries by tweeting various complaints that many find relatable. Tweets like “It’s nice outside, but my Internet doesn’t reach far enough to the backyard for me to watch Netflix on my laptop” and “The chips I’m eating are too wide for my mouth” grace the newsfeed every other hour.

It’s a typical experience for students. As the end of the semester approaches, class assignments pile up. This leaves students, especially university and college students, feeling overwhelmed and lost.

Personally, I had been feeling the pressure of a fourth-year course load. With bi-weekly quizzes, four assignments and a thesis due, there were many times I felt trapped — like I could not get out from under the mountain of homework. But I persevered and, this time, I had something in my arsenal to use: prayer.

Since early November, stores have been filled with Christmas decorations and an endless stream of Christmas music.

I forced myself to believe that maybe all this excitement had something to do with people eagerly expecting the birth of Jesus. Sadly, there is a limit to how much one can deceive themself.

How many children think of St. Nicholas and blessings at Christmas, not Santa and presents? How many times have I gaped at a suddenly precious item without mentally adding it to the Christmas shopping list? Zero.

Turkey, roast beef, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables and fruitcake are just a few of the many items sure to grace shopping lists everywhere as Christmas approaches. Facing so many impending seasonal feasts, it seems the best thing to do is to loosen your belt and prepare for the onslaught of dinner courses. As the days get shorter in the winter months, the meals get longer and Christmas’ transformation into a festival of excess is all too apparent.

This abundance of food, however, is hard to recognize amongst all the cheer and good will. After all, what can be wrong with sharing a hearty meal between friends and family? The problem arises when wastefulness occurs. To acknowledge such wasted food, one must change their perspective — precisely what happened to me when I returned to my high school to participate in a program called ThinkFast. The program acts as a fundraiser, allowing students to raise money while committing themselves to a 24-hour fast. In addition to raising money, the students meet to collectively bond as a group, reflect on their faith and discuss what it really means to be hungry.

It seems the number of teenagers having children is on the rise. It is not an ideal circumstance to have teen parents raising an infant, but it doesn’t mean something good cannot come out of it, and while it is a struggle, young parents can turn to their Catholic faith.

My mother gave birth to me one month shy of her 16th birthday. I was baptized a few months later and when I was old enough, I was sent to Catholic schools. There, I learned about God and my faith. My mother and I went to church sometimes, but she worked a lot and went to school, so we didn’t often go together. Instead, it was left to my grandparents to take me.

My mother was recently diagnosed with cancer.

She had suspected it for awhile, but reading the emotionless official hospital papers was still difficult. Breaking the news to my sister and I was a challenge in itself. She tried to hide the fact that she was scared, but her forced smile and unusually high voice proved otherwise. Somehow, though, she was able to say: “Well, whatever God has in store for me.”

When James and John left their father to follow Christ, did their father Zebedee cry out in protest or did his heart break as they left him to follow their vocation?  

We often hear about biblical heroes like the apostles leaving everything to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11). But it’s hard to understand the full impact of “come and follow me” until you’ve experienced it. Or someone close to you has.