I Have Set My Hand to the Plow

Once again another semester has come and gone, and I, standing at this crossroads that is Christmas break, am given a chance to reflect on the whirlwind that was my life for the last four months. This past semester may have been the most difficult one ever, but because it was difficult it was also rewarding—spiritually and intellectually.

In October, I learned what it is like to be confronted with something that turns you bitter against the Lord and to choose that bitterness and to pretend that everything is still okay even when it isn’t. Losing both of my grandmothers three months apart from each other was not exactly my ideal plan for how life was going to go this year. And I refused to acknowledge for a couple weeks that I was angry with the Lord for taking them both so quickly. In a sense, I didn’t want Him to heal this grief in me. I told myself that I was okay with their deaths. I just didn’t want anyone to be involved—even God. And then one day, wondering why I was having such a difficult time praying, I realized that I had put this wall up.

I asked myself: What kind of disciple would I be if I stopped here, dropped the cross, and turned back now? I knew then that I couldn’t drop the cross, that I didn’t want to drop the cross. I knew I had to be faithful, to move forward, to allow this piece of the cross to shape me towards sainthood. I knew that I had already set my hand to the plow and that I could not look back. I wanted to be fit for the Kingdom of God.

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

– Luke 9:61–62

This image of plowing was one that continued with me through the rest of the semester, as I struggled with the difficulties of researching and writing my thesis, trying to complete my reading homework, and saying “no” to numerous opportunities that I would have taken if I didn’t have work to do. The image of plowing is one that will probably continue with me through the rest of my life. Why?

Plowing is an image that speaks to me of choice. It reminds me that I have chosen. I have chosen Christ. I have chosen holiness. I have chosen to plow until I reach the Kingdom. I have chosen to write. I have chosen to love.

Deliberately I have set my hand to work, knowing that it will be difficult—the soil is heavy, the plow is clumsy, my grip is slippery. I am going to sweat. There is going to be struggle, exhaustion. Perhaps sometimes I will fall.

And when I am overwhelmed in the midst of a furrow, I can abandon the field, leaving it unfinished and unable to bear abundant fruit. I can look back. But then my work will be unfit for the Kingdom of God.

Or I can plow ever onwards, ever so slowly, in the path I have already chosen, towards the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ Himself waits at the end of the furrow with open arms. All I need is to keep my eyes on Him—to persevere—and He will allow my plowing to make the field fertile.

Constancy that nothing can shake. That’s what you need. Ask God for it, and do what you can to obtain it: for it is a great safeguard against your ever turning from the fruitful way you have chosen. 

- St. Josemaria Escriva

Shifting Pictures of Ourselves

You know those little 4 x 4 sliding tile puzzles that people sometimes give out as party favors or in the fish pond at parish festivals? Well, I'm really bad at solving them. But nevertheless, they're so popular that I have an electronic one on my computer desktop, with a picture of a lion's face.

But the face is all jumbled up and out of order. The cat's whiskers appear on its head and its eyes slide off the right side of its face. As much as I try to rearrange the tiles and restore the picture, I can never seem to figure out quite the right order. The lion's face is still distorted and incomplete.

Some days my face looks messed up too. I slide the tiles of my life around, searching for the proper arrangement that will reflect a balanced and beautiful face back into my eyes. 

At times I do this confidently, certain of where to position the eyes, but if only I could just get the chin in the right position…

At other times I go to the puzzle and mix all the tiles up at random. Then I can start over with the picture. Each piece is on an even playing field and no one tile is more important than another, at least for a brief time.

Sometimes a piece that I have so boldly placed at the center of the picture will hinder a piece that needs to go to the other side. This piece cannot remain rigidly in its place, but must move around, working in conjunction with the others to form the picture. And so the pieces of my life must give a little and gain a little. In order to solve this puzzle, I must discover flexibility within a small but appropriately sized frame.

There are times when I become discouraged and walk away from the picture. Who cares if the face ever comes out right? I'm tired of trying to solve this riddle of my life.

But my Friend takes me back to the puzzle. He shows me a sketch of what the final portrait will look like. It's just a cartoon, He says, of what the real thing will look like when we're finished.

It's so hard, I grumble.

Try moving this. He points to a piece in the upper left-hand corner. Try putting it here. A place in mid-right side. I'll be here if you need me.

And I begin to work at the puzzle again.

The Best of Me

Yesterday morning, I drove into nearby Pittsburgh in an attempt to attend a talk that I thought would inspire and influence me. It was called “Writing as Vocation.” All week (more or less) I asked people if they wanted to go with me and even succeeded in finding someone willing to drive into the city with me. Unfortunately, that fell through about twenty-four hours before hand, as she found out about a meeting she was required to attend. I decided that I would go to the talk anyways, even if that meant driving by myself.

Despite the fact that I am typically okay with driving in traffic, I got flustered in the light traffic that I encountered coming through the tunnel on Saturday morning. The short version of this story is that I ended up driving around downtown Pitt in search of St. Paul’s Cathedral, certain that I would find it. But my twenty-minute cushion time quickly dwindled as I realized that I was nowhere near the cathedral. 

In a last effort to get to the talk on time, I got back onto the highway that I had come from. The highway only took me back to the tunnel and so I drove out of the city, fifteen minutes after the start time of the lecture, frustrated with my spoiled plans.

“This is stupid.”

“Lord, bring good out of this.”

The two phrases alternated in my head for the next five minutes. Then I made up my mind to enjoy myself and drove to a little French café that I discovered over the summer, deciding that well, if I couldn’t attend a lecture about the vocation of writing, I could at least write.

Maybe that is what I really needed that morning—a sort of retreat from familiar faces and places, a time to recollect myself and to think about how writing is a vocation and what that means for my life.

Maybe there are times in our lives when we don’t need conversation. Times to pause and think. Times to enjoy a smooth cup of black coffee. Times to fill the cream colored spaces between notebook lines with dark loops and swirls.

Writing is something I can throw myself into—with my heart, my mind, my short experience, and my faulty wisdom—and become better for it.

Writing requires endless learning. Not simply learning in the sense of research, but in a deepening disposition of wonder towards the world. 

In the development of a critical eye for culture and for my own writing. 

In the discovery of my own relationship with the Infinite. 

In an understanding of how particular circumstances relate to the universal situation of man. 

In a tuning of my rhythmic ear. 

In a ripening sense of humor. 

In a sharpening of my notice of small intimate details. 

In a deepening ability to relate to all types of people simply because they are people and I am a person. In a discipline and passion for the gritty revision of my own words. 

In a vocabulary that expands to become more precise.

At this moment, looking at all these ways that writing will continue to demand the best of me and to sharpen what exists of me now, I have great hope! It is a work that will not be futile, a calling that will stretch me beyond the narrow limits that I set for myself.

Writing about writing—what a stereotype! But it’s necessary sometimes to step back from what we are doing and to think about why we do those things.

So why do I write? I write because it’s how I discover the world. It’s how I discover myself. And it’s how I discover God.

If the glory of God is man fully alive, I pray that the Holy Spirit comes to animate me, to inebriate my writing, so that my person and my words may be a spring of water welling up to eternal life; so that through my work, I may be refined into the sanctity that the Lord requires of me.

Reflections on Mercy

In this is mercy: that our suffering is not wasted if we unite it to Christ's. There is always reason for it, be it our own purification or the reparation of sins - ours or those of another.

We are never left abandoned to suffering without recourse. God is always present and always provides the grace necessary to carry the cross in union with His Son. Perhaps this is why so many crosses, so many sorrows, in my own life have occured around these great feasts - the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts - because there is abundant grace available to those who venerate the two Hearts.

"I will comfort them in their trials," the Lord says of those who are devoted to His Most Sacred Heart. And in the Diary of Divine Mercy He speaks words of comfort, reminding me that He alone is the Savior: "My daughter, let nothing frighten or disconcert you. Remain deeply at peace. Everything is in My Hands."

The Gift of a Penny

Because I'm a Catholic nerd and my housemate is a Catholic nerd, one of the items on our summer bucket list is to visit every parish within a twenty mile radius of our house. (At this point, we've been to Mass at six of them.)

This past Sunday, we went to Mass at Blessed Sacrament parish. Bry was driving, so I didn't bother to bring anything along with me and blissfully walked out of the house - purse, key, and cell phone free. When we reached the stop sign at the end of the block, I realized that because I hadn't brought my purse, I didn't have my wallet. Which meant that I couldn't tithe. I had no money.

I was disappointed in myself. Earlier in the week I was thinking about the fact that I want to get back into the habit of tithing (the Biblical concept of giving ten percent of your income to the Lord) now that I get a regular paycheck. But I forgot.

When we arrived at the church and knelt down in the pew, I noticed something shiny on the floor, so I bent to pick it up. It was a brand new penny. God provided me with one little penny to put in the offering basket. I placed the penny on the bench beside me to wait until the offertory. As I placed the nearly worthless coin into the basket, I felt like the widow in the Gospel who put all that she had into the Temple offering. It was a humbling experience.

This penny was a sign to me that my Father was pleased with the desire of my heart to give Him a gift. And when I had nothing to give Him, He provided me with the gift. Truly, He will not be outdone in generosity!

"His blessing covers the dry land like a river, and drenches it like a flood."

-Sirach 39:22

Adventures - Part One

Spending your summer in the same city as your university, a city that pretends to be a college town but really isn’t and that is known only by one of two things—your university or the rape case that made national news—doesn’t sound very promising. But really, it’s not that bad. There are adventures to be had here…

At the beginning, the small adventures of starting utilities, paying rent, and figuring out how much food to buy at the grocery store were enough to keep me occupied and overwhelmed for a week or two. Now that these grown-up adventures are a regular part of the schedule of work, eat, and sleep, I’ve had some time to realize that the best adventures so far have come not from being an adult, but simply from being young, wild, and free with plenty of time and very little money on my hands.

A local hiking trail in a West Virginia state park has become one of my favorite refuges, and although I’ve only ever walked to the mile and a half point—a swimming hole in the next-door creek—I fully intend to walk further down the trail before the end of the summer.

Or sometimes when Bry, my housemate, and I get restless and neither of us feels like driving the seven minutes to the trail, we will drive three minutes to one of the nearby cemeteries and go walking or jogging there. “It’s so weird to me that cemeteries are something beautiful to walk through around here,” she says. Apparently Southern Californian cemeteries lack the beauty of small town Ohio cemeteries.

I laugh at Bry’s comment and soak up the beauty of the peach-colored sunset between three sentinel oak trees that are probably older than the town itself. The cemetery is enchanting in the dim dusk-light and I can almost imagine little fairies dancing in the woods over there or hear goblin men’s footsteps as they come to hawk their fruits.

But the “scope for imagination” isn’t why I like coming here. No. It’s a fondness for thinking about the people who are buried here and whispering a small and childish prayer that they are sleeping peacefully. I read their names, turning them over like a hard strawberry candy in my mouth, and the joyful hope rises in my chest that one day I will meet them all, that I will see their beautiful and ugly faces, and that I will hear their stories of life and the road to heaven. When I’m here they seem very near to me. It’s like visiting long-lost friends.

Of A Lack of TP and Other Nonsense

Yesterday I discovered the one thing that has the ability to make me grumpy first thing in the morning: a complete toilet paper deficiency in my house. It wasn't just a toilet paper shortage. No. There was not one sheet of TP in the entire house. I can live without coffee or in grave circumstances, even breakfast. But yesterday morning I would not endure living without toilet paper, so I promptly took myself across town to the local Wal-Mart.

Now we have toilet paper again and I have enough dryer sheets to last me for a year. They're hypoallergenic. Yeah yeah…big deal.

In other news, I'm beginning to think that I may never need to water my plants this summer. It rains here, on average, every twenty-four hours. Three of my six tomato plants started to blossom this week, and the pepper plants are getting nice and tall. Hooray! Fresh vegetables will soon be appearing in my own backyard.

Since I don't have to take time out of my day (or evening) to worry about watering the plants, I can spend more time perfecting my Dutch Blitz skillz. I think Dutch Blitz is the most addictive card game ever, but maybe that's just because I can never beat my housemate when I play against her…

When Dutch Blitz stresses me out too much (or when there's nobody to play it with), I usually pick up a book and start reading. As a kid I devoured books, probably finishing two or three every week. I remember always going to the library during the summertime and checking out a nice healthy stack of books (approximately 5-8). My efficacy as an avid summertime book reader has greatly diminished. I have only finished one book so far this summer, even though I've started at least five. (Well, I guess I've finished two books if you count the one I had to read for work.) But the loss of my book-ravaging has come with a gain - the desire to spend more time with what I'm reading and to really understand it.

Christ: In the Flesh

I am blessed to have an awesome internship in the same city as my college, which means that I get to stay here over the summer and continue with it. Hurray! One cool aspect of the job is that I frequently get to read the writings of the Popes, particularly of Pope Francis.

As I was skimming through Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium, in hopes of finding a quote to use with one of the magazine articles I was copyediting, I stumbled across this gem: “God’s word teaches that our brothers and sisters are the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us: ‘As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40).”

This is a profound idea—that each person I meet is Christ. Because that’s what Pope Francis means when he says that each one is “the prolongation of the incarnation.” The Pope really isn’t saying anything new, because the Church has always taught that each person is made in the image and likeness of God, but the way that he says this made me stop and think about the idea more fully.

When I desire to experience Christ physically present, my first instinct is to go to the Eucharist, since God has truly shown me that He is present within that tiny host. But if each person that I meet is “the prolongation of the incarnation,” then Christ is also physically present in each human being. Each person shows me Christ in the flesh, in his or her own flesh. That’s what incarnation means.

Like I said before, the teaching that God lives in each person is not a new idea for me or for the Church, but it is one that I am only now beginning to let impact my life. It means that if I want to love Christ, I must love the person right in front of me. I must be convicted that each person is Christ. And I have to act appropriately towards them—with an abundance of love and respect. No person is too small, too poor, too beautiful, too sick, too smart, too talkative, or too anything else for me to love them, since they are Christ.

But I fail at this all the time. So Pope Francis’ words are a challenge for me, a challenge to live out a deeper and more radical love of Christ by loving each person I meet. They are a challenge to seek the face of Christ in every single human being. It’s like a giant “Where’s Waldo?” game. Only with God.

Resurrection Encounter

A reflection on John 20:11-18

How deep His gaze into Mary’s eyes is when she encounters Him in the garden. “Mary.” His voice is tender and yet commanding so that she, through her sorrow, realizes that this man indeed is her Teacher and Master. “Rabboni!” She knows His voice; the sheep recognizes the voice of her Shepherd and immediately responds. He instructs her, briefly, and sends her forth.

In our own lives, Christ calls out to us – even in deep sorrow and suffering. He asks only for a response of love, a response of trust. When we hear our name spoken in the tenderness of His voice, how can we fail to turn quickly to Him in reply? He shows us, in his very body, that He is already victorious over all our human suffering. He brings us hope of the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23) and of the glory that awaits us (2 Cor 4:17). After we turn to Him and have received with eager hearts the words that He speaks to us, we are sent forth to proclaim His triumph – that the Shepherd has died for the sheep and through His Resurrection has made each person into a new creation.

Of the Wonder of Love

This evening I attended the living Stations of the Cross put on by my university’s chapel as a special reflection for Holy Week. Following Christ’s journey to and death on the Cross is such a powerful form of prayer, and being able to see scenes from this journey acted out in front of my eyes brought many emotions whirling to the surface of my heart and my consciousness: sadness, gratitude, despair, hope.

Ultimately, however, the impression that I was left with tonight after praying the Stations of the Cross was one of wonder. I am in awe of how God brings great good out of seemingly great evil. Christ’s death was only a means to His Resurrection. And Adam’s sin was necessary for us to gain so great a savior. I am in awe of God’s greatness, of how He holds each one of us in His hand, of His perfect plan for every circumstance of our lives. When I see that He has such great love for me, how can I not surrender myself to that Love and immerse myself in it?

Life as a Costume Elf

During the first semester of my freshman year at college, I was blessed to find the coolest student job ever – sewing costumes for each semester’s theatrical production. Since I have been sewing since roughly age twelve, thanks to the inspiration of my friend L, and because the theatre was my refuge during the crazy years of high school, this was naturally the perfect job for me. The charm of this job has not worn off in the past three years.

After people have asked me where the costume shop is located, the next most common question I get is: “Wait…you make clothes?” Apparently saying that I sew costumes for the theatre isn’t a clear answer. So I respond calmly that yes, I make clothes and that, in fact, I get paid to do it. Sometimes people also ask what it is like to sew costumes for my job.

The first duty of each semester is to wait patiently for a cast. Once that small detail has been settled, we measure the actors – around their heads, their arms, their legs – and we jokingly warn them that the worst is yet to come. Measurements are the easy part; costume fittings, not so much.

During the beginning part of the semester research on the time period of the show is printed out and talked through. Then an exorbitant amount of time is spent sorting through every single stitch of clothing in the costume closet to see if there are any pieces that could possibly be worn in this particular show. Sometimes we get bored and we play dress-up, donning ridiculous hats that we would never wear in real life.

Once we have pulled out all the potential costumes we meet with the student designers and see which costumes are left that we need to make. During this part of the process, lots of time is spent looking through pictures of patterns and conferring with student designers about which fabrics are suitable for which characters based on their temperament and social status.

The next part is the best: we actually make the costumes! We typically cut out the various pattern pieces on the landing of the stairwell, since it is a wide-open space where we can easily spread out the fabric on the floor, and we get the strangest reactions from people who come by to go up or down those stairs. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Or “what are you doing?” Even “what is this for?” It’s a great way to promote the show!

Numerous other tasks go into making each show a success, including last minute scrambling to add drawstrings to pants, hem up skirts, or stitch trim to suit jackets before actors go onstage for the final dress rehearsal before opening night. One of the funniest instances of this was the time when an actor came up to the costume shop on the night of the final dress rehearsal and told me, “I don’t have a costume.” You what? Sure enough, we had a suit for him, but we had never put the appropriate trim on it, or even hemmed his pants. Oops. His suit got done in time for opening night, though.

Once show week rolls around and all the actors are properly clothed and on stage, one of us “elves” is stationed back stage every show in case there are any emergency repairs. This is our reward for all the hard labor of the semester. As I sit in the costume shop and work on homework or clean up the tornado of fabric scraps and threads, I can hear the sounds of the actors’ voices playing over the speakers like an old-time radio drama…

“You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,

And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom

Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,

For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,

Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,

Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,

Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.”

― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

God-incidences

This past weekend, a household sister and I went downtown to the perpetual adoration chapel in one of the local parishes. It was about 9pm, give or take a few minutes, and we needed to ring the doorbell in order to get into the church. Just as I was about to push the doorbell, a short woman wearing a blue flowered shirt and a brown quilted coat opened the door from the inside. She jumped a little bit and we jumped too, startled to see somebody standing there. My household sister, B, said, “Well, that was good timing,” and made the nervous laughing noise that is her usual response to slightly awkward situations that she doesn’t automatically know how to react to.

“You startled me,” said the woman.

“Sorry about that,” I told her. She held the door open to let us into the church. I touched her gently on the arm as I passed by her and said that I hoped we had not startled her too much and to have a good night. 

She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Thanks,” she said, and then “Oh! Your hands are so cold!”

“I know. They are always like that.” I moved to go down the stairs towards the chapel.

From the doorway she commented, “But you have a warm heart, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. She left and I turned to my household sister, who was already at the bottom of the stairs, examining the few posters on the wall asking for donations to the urban mission and advertising a consecration to Mary group. “Did you hear that?” I asked B.

“No, what?”

“She just told me my hands were cold. And then asked me if I have a warm heart. That’s the title of my blog.” We both had a minor freak out moment. It seemed like too much of a coincidence to be coincidence. I certainly saw it as Providence, but what convinced me of the fact was a nearly identical conversation with a different person not even twenty-four hours later.

I was again with household, but we were at a local nursing home for our bi-annual service project. We were there simply to have a little cake and coffee social with the residents. Upon arriving, I made eye contact with a little woman wearing a pink and white checked shirt and green pants, so I went over to say hello and talk with her. I gave her my hand and, of course, since I didn’t put my mittens on for the short journey across the parking lot and into the building, my hands were cold. Very cold. The first thing the woman did was comment on this fact and begin to rub my hands.

“Oh my. Your hands are cold.”

“I know. I should have worn my mittens.”

“But you have a warm heart, don’t you? I can see you do,” she said to me.

“Yes.”

What does it mean that two people, entirely unrelated to each other, neither of whom I had met before, should both have a conversation with me and tell me the title of my blog? I have no idea. All I know is that there are some things in life that can’t be explained simply by coincidence and seem to show us that there is Someone watching over us and calling out to us. These conversations reminded me of exactly that: God is there and He is calling to me at every moment.

Have you had any “coincidences” like this in your own life? How is God calling out to you through them?

Blessed is He who comes...

As we were singing the "Hosanna" in Mass yesterday, it struck me that this is what the people were singing to Christ as He entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A few days later, the same crowd betrayed Him, hurling insults and spitting in His face. 

And so later in the chapel I asked myself: Am I praising Him with my lips and betraying Him with my heart, like the people of Jerusalem? The question made me uncomfortable. (It should probably make you uncomfortable too, if you really think about it.)

Ultimately, the fruit of my prayer with this question was that I must not simply praise the Lord with my mouth, casually or superficially when life is peachy. No, I must praise Him from the very depth of my being, thanking Him at all times for the love and mercy He continually showers upon me. During the Mass I must turn towards Christ as He enters through the gates of my heart, disguised under the appearance of bread, and I must praise Him with my whole self. And later, when I leave, I cannot turn away from Him, for He still resides in my heart. My whole life must proclaim the glory of the Lord. 

Blessings from 2013

Yesterday it occurred to me that I didn't take any time to reflect on 2013 as it came to a close and the new year began. So I took some time then and there to make a list of the big blessings of the past year and the things that it taught me. Here's what I came up with:

1) Studying abroad - Being able to live in a foreign country for three and a half months and to travel all across Europe pushed me outside of my comfort zone many times. I learned more deeply of my own independence and uniqueness. I learned to trust that the Lord would provide for my needs and I learned to be more vulnerable with other people. Wonder became a constant attitude towards life. Friends were easy to make. Gelato and pizza were the staples in my diet for fourteen days.

2) A summer of service - I spent the summer of 2013 serving families at a Catholic camp. During this time I learned my own leadership abilities. Apparently I am great at directing people and delegating tasks; it became second nature to me by the end of the summer. Stillness possessed my soul during the first weeks of the summer and I came to understand what it is like to be detached from the craziness around me. When my physical, emotional, and spiritual strength shriveled up, I would beg the Holy Spirit to fill me with His strength and He always would. I experienced in a fresh way the weight of intercessory prayer: that God uses our words to heal and listens to our pleading on behalf of others. When I was together with the rest of the staff, I came to understand the power that each person's presence is. If someone was missing, the group dynamics shifted. I learned to maturely confront problems that I had with other people. Finally, I began to learn what it means to reach outside of myself to love others.

3) Household - This past semester was my first full semester in household. Growing in Christian friendship with my sisters taught me to be vulnerable with them. We cannot love and support each other if we do not share ourselves. Communication is key. I learned to share my faith with those around me, by speaking of what the Lord is doing in my heart. Several times over the course of the semester I found myself offering my bed to a household sister who really needed to take a nap and couldn't go back to her room at that particular time for whatever reason, and I learned again to sacrifice myself. Through conversations with my little and personal prayer, the Lord continued to deepen my identity as His Beloved.

4) Christmas with my family - It has been superb to be back with my family over Christmas break. My love for soup, baking, and reading resurged. I developed a love for playing guitar and watching high school basketball. Every single day I get to hug my family and tell them I love them. Even driving places with them is entertaining; our van seems like a clown car because we are all so tall!

5) Friendship - Probably the biggest blessings that came to me during 2013 were friendships with some pretty incredible people. Some were new friendships and some were older ones that have endured. These friendships have taught me that all relationship ought to be rooted in Christ and in Christian charity in order to be truly fruitful. They have challenged me to love other people selflessly, to see people as precious children of God who have the potential to be saints. Thanks be to God for my Alumni Corps Staff, all of my beautiful household sisters, Elyse, Allison, Grace, Yaya, Rachel, Dani, Becca P., Becca C. and Bry. I love you all.