Back 2 School

It's that time again. last minute shopping for books, going to staples to pick up back packs, pens, pencils, and making sure you are going to go to the right class tomorrow morning. It's the school year once again. Amongst seeing old friends, or maybe meeting new ones for the first time we are going back to a part or life that is shaping us better or worse for the future. Who we are now, and who we will be once we get out of school are never really the same.

Since this time is so crucial, I think it is something for us to not only remember the home work due tomorrow, or the test coming up next week, but I also think we should take time to see ourselves. I think today for a person who is just starting out in college, who has stuck to the faculties of the Christian life, college is an exotic land. One that may or may not have seen missionaries come by. This is where we should stop and think about how we are when we step in to that land, and how we might be when we step out.

I have been fortunate enough to have grown up in the Catholic school system. From grade school, high school, and now I'm back again after taking a four year hiatus I am back in the system of my youth. But I know many fellow Catholics who didn't or specifically the audience of this blog are the ones who are not.

College puts you on the cusp of something bigger. In universities, and colleges across the country, young adults are going to take a part o something that may very well be there future. But in doing this they enter into well the exotic land mentioned above, and in this land has a different way. Today colleges are a place where the values of the building blocks of society are tossed aside, replaced with a "modern" blue print. For a young Catholic who is going to navigate this labyrinth this can seem a pretty daunting task.

But I in no way want you to feel discouraged, for what you are doing is taking part in something that leads you to God. Learning is a transcending experience, and it gives you identity, a piece of yourself that you will always have with you. For whatever the shifting sand of society are going, you can always remain in something greater. That knowledge, you develop more and more everyday by attending lectures, and practicing problems, it is a very real sign of the love that God has for you, to lead you towards the mysteries of the cosmos, even the law class you are taking in your Criminal Justice Major.

In college, so many can be a witness to the hope that is in you. Never be ashamed of that. The Christian tenet of Charity comes in. To help those in need. This can be done by helping your fellow student out. To be there, to lend a hand. For it is in giving that we receive.

Let it be that you can take heart in Peter, the rock. That wherever the passing fancies of contemporaneity life go you can allays be firm . Today school is filled with the ism's that only tear away at the fabric of ourselves and reduce us to cattle off to the slaughter. So stand and always be a light for those tossed on that stormy sea.

I guess it is safe to say that you will do a lot of reading right.?...

Well one could dream can't they. But in the mix of "hitting the books", and carousing with friends let your hope shine for all to see. Also I have a little reading list. It's little I promise, no really I mean it's like two books. I mean come on giving me some credit two books, the first is called Disorientation: How to go to College Without Losing Your Mind written in part by Catholic Professors, Journalist, Theologians, Priest, Philosophers to help guide you through the popular errors of Modernism, Progressivism, Scientism, Fundamentalism, and others. The other book is the recently published, youcat or the Youth Catechism as it is known. Also as a tip I have learned throughout my years in college, is to study before you go to bed, but do not cram that is acually harmful to the majority of kids, and when you wake up have a banana, especially when there is an exam that day.

So may God bless you and keep you, and grant you his precious gift of peace.