<p>Sorry for the arrogant title but I wanted to grab peoples' attention so I could get any and all possible advice for my LMU essay.</p>
<p>Statement 1
In his homily at the Class of 2005s 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 oneself. 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>
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<p>When I heard this excerpt from Fr. Robert Lawtons 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 instructs them to not only be true to themselves 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 the way we were created we not only do ourselves justice, but through our actions which show integrity, we can simultaneously magnify the Lord our God.
However neither I nor anybody else will be able to do this without facing some opposition. It shouldnt 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 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 speaks to me a lot and it justifies what Fr. Lawton was addressing in his homily: the risks we are taking when we try and be ourselves and exemplify Christs teachings through our day-to-day actions may come in many forms, and can be difficult at times, especially in the society in which we live. The amount of secularism and moral degradation we as Christians must face on a regular basis is unspeakable; however we must bear in mind that it is more important to be true to our values than to conform to some false image.
The most common type of hardship we will all have to face will come in the form of decision making. I have personally had to make many difficult choices while embarking on the journey to be myself, and Ive tried to handle each of them while demonstrating Christian values. A few are so common that I must make them on a weekly basis. For instance my family and I have been attending Sunday Mass for as long as I can remember, however as Ive grown older this has become increasingly difficult. When I was a child the decision was entirely my parents but now it is more up to me than anyone else. A part of me wants to stay up late on Saturday nights and enjoy my team with school friends who have the luxury of sleeping in the next morning. On the other hand I also know that the mass begins at 7:00 am sharp and that I need a lot of rest in order to be attentive the next morning. I am proud to say that not only have I been regularly attending mass ever Sunday with a full night of sleep, but even my friends are aware that I have set a curfew for myself for the sake of attending mass and they have nothing but the utmost respect for that decision.
Im certain that during my stay in college, I will have to overcome countless challenges in order to be true to myself. Each day I will be faced with a choice, be it big or small, where there is always the option to glorify God by demonstrating my integrity and Christian behavior. There is also the opposite choice, which may benefit me in the short run, but wont exemplify what I, as a Christian, have learned and what God asks of each of us.
These types of decisions will have an unbelievable effect on shaping the type of person I become. Following my own set of beliefs has been incredibly difficult at times, and it will almost always be easier to simply do what benefits me alone, but this is a slippery slope that every person experiences, regardless of creed or religion, and it must be avoided at all costs. Once one bad choice is made, the next bad choice becomes all the more easier to make, before one knows it they can have lost all their principles because of a few insignificant gains that have no major impact except that they 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 them I will do the right thing. I can only hope that by the time I am sitting in the same seats as the class of 2005 graduates, I can look back at college and know that I was true to myself and took the risks Fr. Robert Lawton spoke of as I embarked on the journey to be myself.</p>