Seize your Adventure

Hey guys! What’s up? It’s Catherine. Here’s a new blog post for a brand new week of adventures, and since half of our team seems to be dying of some plague, you’re stuck with me for today. So, happy October and happy happy fall! Fall for me is just an absolutely amazing time of year and that’s not because of the invasion of pumpkin spice, because honestly my coffee is fine without it. Fall is a time where hopefully the weather starts to cool down (North Carolina still seems to still be working on this part), the air becomes crisp, the leaves turn into the most beautiful colors, and for me the smell of adventure is in the air with thoughts of hiking, bonfires, and camping lingering in the atmosphere.

I know for most of us students, school is in full swing by now. Here on the team, we just finished up a brutal two weeks of taking our first round of tests. At least for me, being a student right now is absolutely crazy busy. I am a person who thrives on the business of life. Striving for excellence in school and sports wears me out to utter exhaustion, and I sometimes feel my sense of adventure slipping away. The laid back and easy days of summer become a distant dream. My sense of adventure seems to be hindered and shoved to the side by the constant lingering of tests, papers, classes, social interactions, endless traveling to sporting events etc. And it’s so easy to become discouraged. So easy. At least for me, it’s easy to forget to take those precious moments to thank the Lord for all those blessings around me. And sometimes it’s so hard to see where this constant striving for success plays into my life as a Catholic.

Last year, I was struggling with the same thing, anxieties from the past, present stresses of being a high school student, and anxieties of the future seemed to pour down on me, and seem to block out the purpose of everything I strived for. My incredible, loving, beautiful, and all around just fantastic sister said these words to me. “You don’t need to worry, God is calling you right now to be a student and right now you get to live with all that entails.” Guys, for us students, this is part of our vocation right now. We’re called to take this opportunity to learn everything we can, and we glorify the Lord through our work in these studies. Just look how the great Saints and Theologians who dedicated their life to glorifying God through their studies. For me, I just find this absolutely beautiful that God created us to be creatures with an intellect and a deep curiosity and yearning to know more about Him through the world around us. Yes, some of it is most definitely hard, but most of it is beautiful. And the fact that we can glorify the Lord through our work in school when we strive to know Truth is a just beautiful gift. This is the adventure we students are called to right now. And we can do so much at our schools to embrace this calling. So don’t lose hope, trust God in your adventure, and work hard.

So yea, school can be stressful, and this Summer the thought of getting up early to take all my classes and then go to practice filled me with angst, a little dread, and slight despair. But then it dawned on me, this is the adventure I’m called to right now. As a student, I’m called to work my hardest academically, but the months of August through May can also be lived adventurously. God also gives me opportunities to build friendships, know him better, and go on adventures! So I made a promise to myself to do this, and glorify Him through it. And although it’s hard to imagine this at 11 pm while frantically flipping through notes after a game, it’s what I intend to do. Like I said, we students are called right now to be just that, a student, along with other things.

Prayer for the Courage to Be Great

"Heavenly Father,

Give me the courage to strive for the highest goals,

to flee every temptation to be mediocre.

Enable me to aspire to greatness, as Pier Giorgio did,

and to open my heart with joy to Your call to holiness.

Free me from the fear of failure.

I want to be, Lord, firmly and forever united to You.

Grant me the graces I ask You through Pier Giorgio's intercession,

by the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen."

So, I really hope this helps any students out there get a new perspective on the point of all of this. I really hope all you fellow students have the most fantastic school year. I pray you embrace your adventure, work hard, reap the benefits, and I hope you build strong relationships with those doing the same. It’s actually really exciting if you think about it.

And so here’s a quick story of a sort of micro-adventure I took in the middle of my school week that gave me some amazing perspective.

It was 2:10 in the afternoon, and I slid into my usual desk at my last period class. I looked out the huge windows and saw the bright sunlight of Fall cascading in, and longed to be outside. My friend slid in behind me, and I think my first words were, “I’m really hungry.” We then continued a conversation on what in particular each of us was craving and all I heard were the words “chicken nuggets.” To which I responded with the words, “Bruh, if you get me some chicken nuggets, I will legit come home with you.” The bell rang, and class began, but throughout those fifty minutes we sporadically continued with comments on the different fast food orders that sounded amazing in our hungered state. After the final bell had rung, and I was packing up my things at my locker, my friend ran up behind me and said, “were you serious…about the chicken nuggets…cause that’d be really cool.”

Embracing Alistair Humphrey’s 5-9 thinking and after a couple frantic calls to our parents who were strangely chill with the whole concept, I was in her car, with my two bags, after not being home in two days, on a Wednesday, on our way to Cook Out and then her house where I would spend the night. Some would find this absolutely insane, and it probably was.

It was completely spontaneous. I had no clothes for the next day of school, but hey that’s what they invented the washer and dryer for right? Our night was filled with adventure and bonding beginning with a walk with her dog down the road to visit with some cows, and concluding in a multi film movie night which included pulling out a VCR player and watching the original Aladdin on VHS.

And as we wound down to go to bed, I settled into an unknown bed with the most beautiful view of the night sky out the window. As I sunk into the sheets in my favorite sweatshirt and looked up at the stars with my friend, I was struck with a true wonder, a sense of adventure, and a true feeling of gratitude. Yeah, my adventure as a student is crazy, some people find it insane, but it’s what God is calling me to, and it’s one I fully intend to live out adventurously and to the fullest. And it was that micro adventure after weeks of stress that reground me in my purpose and called me to know, love, and serve God in everything I do. Sometimes it’s gonna be hard, but sometimes we get to have these amazing experiences, and it’s all part of the adventure.

Verso L’alto!

Catherine Siena