This is the last week of classes of my undergraduate career. The majority of my life until this point has been focused on education and schooling. The first years were spent at home with my mom as my teacher. Those were blissful times, to be sure, although I did not fully appreciate them until much later.
High school was a formation of mind and spirit. If presented again with the opportunity to attend Mount de Sales or another school, I would choose the Mount every time. The influence of the Dominican sisters there cannot be overstated, and those four years hold memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
College has been quite the experience and unlike anything I expected. Growth, although sometimes a painful process, is necessary for our development as servants of God. It is not enough for us to remain naive as in childhood, as we cannot minister to struggling souls if we have no concept of life outside of our own sheltered homes. Still, I sometimes repine for my lost innocence, not necessarily resulting from my own actions but rather from my exposure to the evils of our world.
There are times, I admit, when I reflect on my years at this institution and feel that I have not grown in knowledge or wisdom but have only cultivated a jaded outlook on life and on our culture in particular. I sometimes have little hope for humanity to redeem itself -- we are already so fraught with hatred and disrespect for life and virtue that it seems impossible for us to pick ourselves up and be renewed.
And yet, at other times, I seem to recognize God's purpose in all of this. His ways are higher than mine, are they not? His plan is perfect, unlike my own. He knows all the desires of my heart and wishes to fill them with Himself. I have been exposed to the darkness that I may grow in the light and then reflect His light onto others, that they too may shine.
O Lord, fill me with Your love. You know how deeply I desire to know You and serve You. Reign in me once again, my Jesus.
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