<p>Could Someone please read my essay ad tell me if it flows well and answers the prompt properly and accurately, also please tell me if I ramble or if I am too wordy. as well as any other important information you feel will make my essay better. Also Bear in mind that this is a Christian University so there are christian refernces in the essay and they are fine.</p>
<p>Here is the Prompt:</p>
<p>In his homily at the Class of 2005's Baccalaureate Mass, LMU's President Fr. Robert Lawton, S.J., said: ''So what is the answer to this deep insecurity we all feel? The answer, I think, is to embrace the adventure of becoming deeply, and fully, ourselves. This is what God is really calling us to. It seems like the riskiest of all journeys, this journey to be one self. But it's ultimately the journey that leads us to happiness, that leads us into God's dreams for us.''</p>
<p>QUESTION 1: Why do you think Fr. Lawton says the ''journey to be oneself'' seems the riskiest of all journeys? What risks lie ahead in your college career as you embark on the ''adventure'' of discovering and becoming yourself? </p>
<p>Please tell me any advice you have.</p>
<p>Here's what I wrote, Enjoy!</p>
<p>When I heard this excerpt from Fr. Robert Lawton's homily to the Class of 2005 I was reminded of a passage written by St. Paul. In his letter to the people of Galatia, St. Paul discusses with them that everyone should not only be true to his or herself but true to God as well. St. Paul writes,
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
Although it is never explicitly mentioned in this passage, I believe the wise words of this apostle are almost exactly what Fr. Lawton was trying to teach the graduating class before they venture off into the world on their own. To me both these passages are trying to instruct us that when we embrace ourselves and the way we were created we not only do ourselves justice but through our actions, which will show our integrity, we as Christians, simultaneously magnify the Lord our God.
However neither I nor anybody else will be able to do this without facing some opposition. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that when a person, especially a Christian, tries to be true to his or herself and their own set of values, he or she will inevitably face at least some resistance. This resistance was spoken of by Jesus Christ himself when he told his disciples in the Gospel of John that,
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
This passage alone speaks to me a lot and it justifies what Fr. Lawton was speaking of; the risks we are taking when we try and be ourselves and glorify God through our day to day actions may come in many forms. Trying to be ourselves can sometimes be hard to do, especially with the society we live in today. The amount of secularism and moral degradation we as Christians must face on a day to day basis is unspeakable; however a Christian knows that it is more important to be true to his or herself than to fit the image we are regularly told to conform to.
With regards to myself, I have had to take many different risks while embarking on the journey to be myself, and I've tried to handle all of those while demonstrating Christian values. I'm certain that during my tenure at LMU, I will indeed have to face many more challenges in order to be true to myself. The most common type of hardship I will have to face will come in the form of decision making. Each day I will be faced with a choice, be it big or small, where there will always be the option through which I can glorify God by demonstrating my integrity and Christian behavior, or there will be the opposite choice, which may benefit me in the short run, but won't exemplify what I as a Christian have learned and what God asks of each of us.
These types of decisions have an unbelievable effect on shaping a person. Following ones own set of beliefs can be incredibly difficult at times, and it will almost always be easier to just do what benefits me alone, but this is a slippery slope that every human being, regardless of creed or religion, must avoid at all costs. Once one bad choice is made, the next bad choice becomes even easier to make and so on, before a person knows it they can have entirely abandoned their beliefs and principles all for a few insignificant gains that don't have any major impact in the long run, and do nothing in the way of adding to a person's character; quite the contrary they can deteriorate any and all moral fibers someone possesses.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will have to face a lot of these types of situations; try as I might they are unavoidable. I wish I could say that at every one of these I will do the right thing, but I would be lying if I said that. I can only hope that by the time I am sitting in the same seats as those class of 2005 graduates, during the Baccalaureate Mass, I can listen to the words being said by the speaker, and look back at college and know that I was true to myself and took the risks Fr. Robert Lawton spoke of while trying my hardest not to deviate from what I know is right, and most importantly that I was demonstrated honesty while I embarked on the journey to be myself.</p>