Generation Faith
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March 7, 2016
That Sunday afternoon, when we walked onto the worksite, there were foul smells, piles of junk and dangling weeds that covered the wood and ground of the structure that was our assigned “house.” After taking a second to look around, all I could think was, “How could someone live here?” When we walked toward the house, a lady came outside smiling to welcome us to her home. She introduced herself as Ms. J. and gave us a tour of her five-room house. The floors...
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January 4-11, 2016
My faith journey began in a Tupperware container. I can’t say why, exactly, I was baptized in such an unusual vessel—perhaps the church was doing a lot of baptisms that day. But while my baptismal font may have been unconventional, my faith wouldn’t be the same without it.
I have been in Catholic school since my first day of prekindergarten at the Boston College Children’s Center. Ever since my 2-year-old self joined Ms....
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December 21-28, 2015
Luis and I were both 17 years old when I met him two years ago. He seemed much older as he described his dangerous journey alone through the desert from El Salvador to the United States. His face was solemn, his words sparse and his eyes dark and emotionless. When he described fleeing El Salvador to escape daily abuse from his alcoholic father, however, he broke down into tears. It was then that I realized he was just a kid like me....
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December 7-14, 2015
Main Street is usually just like any other small-town boulevard, empty but for a few cars and lined with shops and businesses. Two streetlights at either end direct what little traffic there is. A few people walk along the sidewalk. When they pass one another, heads go down in hopes that the other person will not try to initiate conversation or perhaps in fear that a kind gesture will be ignored.
But a few summers ago, the...
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November 2, 2015
We are surrounded by several young children. Some are eager to befriend us, and others are more careful. “How are you?” we ask one young girl. She looks at us. We talk to her. About school. About the beautiful day. About anything. It is not exactly a conversation. It is only an attempt to put her at ease. Her responses are short and guarded.
A woman breathing heavily with her mouth open lies in bed. One of the Carmelite...
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August 3-10, 2015
In a spurt of procrastination, I eagerly reread the entire Harry Potter series during Easter break in my senior year of high school as a way of postponing studying for my last set of finals. When I was younger, after finishing J. K. Rowling’s latest book, I would often run around my house shouting spells from the world of witchcraft and wizardry— Stupefy! Wingardium Leviosa! —entertaining myself for hours with fantasy-filled magic. I vaguely understood that...
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July 6-13, 2015
From a bird’s eye view, Jesuit High School in Tampa, Fla., presents itself in regular geometric shapes. Academic buildings constructed of burnt-red brick lie in a disciplined rectangle around the centerpiece of the campus chapel. Sidewalks branch out of every building at 45-degree angles and form intricate webs of cement—mostly so students don’t take shortcuts across the campus’s sweeping lawns. When the class bells ring, students file out of the buildings...
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May 11, 2015
I tend to blame some of my less desirable attributes—my too-big feet, my sad excuse for an immune system—on genetics, that unique combination of traits I received from my parents. While in some regards it seems to me I wet my toes in the shallow end of the gene pool, I did make off with some of their more positive qualities (my mom’s thick head of hair; my father’s sense of humor). And getting to know my parents as a young adult has only made me more aware...
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March 30, 2015
Among the ever-growing pile of books in my room is a small compilation of quotations from the great St. Pio of Pietrelcina, often called Padre Pio. It is meant for daily meditation during Lent, but I find myself flipping through its pages at every season of the year, looking for something fitting for whatever my current situation may be. There are profound quotes about loving God and struggling to find him and, more than anything else, about the intense...
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March 23, 2015
My whole life was planned out when I stepped onto campus my freshman year. Although I was undeclared, I knew I wanted to major in education and graduate in four years, no more, no less. I was not exactly excited to be starting college, but I was excited to eventually become a teacher. In short, I knew what I wanted in life—but I hadn’t thought too much about what God wanted for my life.
Despite this feeling of certainty, I...