growing up.ward

I'm turning 18 this year and have realized that I don't want to grow old, I want to grow upward! To strive for heaven and sainthood and closeness with my Lord and Savior and His bride, the Church. All while surviving high school, IB, and teenage-hood and all THAT jazz. ——— Rediscovered this Tumblr at age 22.

[inspiration-52]

[inspiration-52]

[tillitisyou]

[tillitisyou]

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

[tillitisyou]

FRIENDSHIP LESSON: Share Good News

So there is this girl in my class who peeves me. She is a close friend of one of my best friends, so I have been in several social situations with her. She can be sweet and nice. She can be really cute and bubbly, but I avoid her because she makes me feel angry, not-so-Christian feelings. (NOTE: When I cannot bring myself to love a person or cannot find the patience to slowly change my feelings, I avoid the person and love them from afar. Otherwise, I am dishonest to them and my feelings when I am nice and civil in front of them but hate them on the inside.)

The reason why I cannot be friends with her at this point in time is because about 70% of the time I am with her she is angry, bitter, upset, spewing blame, focusing on her own issues, making drama, and cussing. The other 30% of the time is split between being a charming and sweet classmate and whispering irrelevant things so loudly to her friend in the back of the class that I, who am trying to get a good education and take good notes, cannot focus. Now, I don't want you to things she's a terrible person. I assume she is not. And regardless, all people deserve our compassion. Most of what she does (giggle, complain, gossip, overreact, act silly, etc.) are things all of my friends do but she does them in vastly different proportions.

From my experience with her, I have learned a lot of positive things:

a) All people have problems and get upset and need to rely on their friends for emotional and moral support. However, we have to share our issues and troubles in a way that allows our friends to help us, and we must always keep in mind that others are willing to help and be unselfish. We should, thus, also be unselfish by not dominating all social time with angry rants.

b) If a tree in the woods falls but no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? I don't know. But I do know that if something happens and no one is there to overreact and gossip, there would be no high school drama. Saying negative things only makes us think about them more.

c) We have to share happy news with our friends. Best friends are always there for you to share in your sorrows. As an act of friendship and thankfulness, we should also share our joys. Friends want to share everything, especially happiness. After and above all, great friends want you to be truly happy.

I may not be able to hang out with this girl. And I often have to drop the thought of her. And shush her during class. But I must admit, that she has taught me a lot abut friendship, and for that I am thankful.

[tillitisyou]

Whose call are you going to answer?

So there's a part of me that kind of wants to pray a rosary right now. However, there is another part of me that really wants to not do anything. It wants to eat or play with makeup or peruse facebook.

I've been pushing off this feeling of needing to pray the rosary so often that I have forgotten what I am rejecting. The significance of this finally dawned on me. Great ideas and longings, such as those for prayer and love and self-sacrifice, are put into our hearts to bring us closer to Christ. We oftentimes push aside these deepest desires for the trivial ones that move us more obviously. God is calling me to Himself, to prayer and closeness with Him, and if I understood the gravity of this and the strength of his love, I would not reject him as I do now.

This begs the question: If God called you now, would you pick up on the first ring? The second? Third? Or would you perhaps let Him go to voicemail?!

If we pick up the phone calls of hunger, boredom, fatigue, loneliness, and allow these forces to move us, we should definitely sit anxiously beside the phone, waiting for God to call. After all, we worship an awesome, almighty, loving God. Not food or television or the internet.

Whose call are you going to answer?

Answer right now with a prayer.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[tillitisyou]

Cramming for Finals

Today I took a very important test in my calculus class. It was over sequences and series, the last unit of new information in this course. After this, all of the assessments will be reviews and cumulatives. I've been struggling in the class all semester; nothing would add up. I studied the way I have studied for math tests since the 8th grade, but every test felt impossible. Desperately, I googled "how to study for math," found this helpful page, and realized that I have been approaching math incorrectly all year.

  photo credit: http://livingsu.syr.edu/2013/studying-101-dos-and-donts/

For high school level math, if I understood the definitions, equations, theorems, steps, etc. I could ace the test. All I had to do was review definitions and show up on test day. However, college level calculus (and, according to this website, all upper level math) requires me to practice and practice and practice. Concepts are not isolated, methods are not universally useful, and definitions are meaningless without application. Last night I studied until 3AM, looking at one problem after another. I was scared because I still felt uneasy and unsure, but at around 2:30, everything clicked. I did not understand the concepts or topics more than I had before, but now I could feel them. I began to find solutions intuitively. In that last half hour, I was able to correctly work through more practice problems than I had in the hours and hours before. It occurs to me that we often treat are spiritual lives like a high school level class. We understand the basics and believe that that will suffice in passing the test. We often push the practice of virtue to the next day because we are busy with pressing, temporal issues. But that final judgement day is not a test we can cram for. And our actions do not become aligned with God's will just because we know what is good and what is not. To prepare for trials that we will face and to prepare our hearts for the inconceivably perfect joy we wish to join in, we must begin practicing virtue now. I need to focus more on heaven, and placing my treasures where I want my heart to be every day. Above all, I want to go to Heaven. Don't we all? "Not all virtuous men are holy, but all holy men are virtuous."

[tillitisyou]

Prayer for the Pope

Christ Jesus, King and Lord of the Church, in your presence I renew my unconditional loyalty to your Vicar on earth, the Pope. In him you have chosen to show us the safe and sure path that we must follow in the midst of confusion, uneasiness, and unrest. I firmly believe that through him you govern, teach and sanctify us; with him as our shepherd, we form the true Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Grant me the grace to love, live and spread faithfully our Holy Father’s teachings. Watch over his life, enlighten his mind, strengthen his spirit, defend him from calumny and evil. Calm the erosive winds of infidelity and disobedience. Hear our prayer and keep your Church united around him, firm in its belief and action, that it may truly be the instrument of your redemption. Amen.

[tillitisyou]

‎Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

C.S. Lewis