ALLEGRA THATCHER
ASSISTANT EDITOR
We’ve all heard the idea that every choice you make echoes in eternity. But have we taken a moment to reflect on the seriousness of this? Every choice that you make affects how you and those around you will spend the rest of time and beyond time. That’s a serious calling.
I’ve just been noticing lately how easy it is to make choices that will benefit me in the moment, but which I look back on and regret because they didn’t take advantage of the little time I am given here on earth.
Every day we are faced with thousands of choices, whether they are grandiose or insignificant. Should I wash the dishes now or spend a few more minutes on social media before class? Should I take a study break to call a friend or watch five stupid YouTube videos?
The fact is that we often live in everyday laziness. We hit the snooze button, we don’t take the time to organize our time well and we fail to meet our goals. Then we’re disappointed in ourselves, but we remain in this vicious cycle.
What if we lived as if we knew we were going to be saints? Would a saint take the time to say hello to a lonely classmate? Would a saint spend that time watching YouTube when he or she could spend just a few minutes washing dishes so the room would be a clean and a good study environment?
We don’t know how much time we have left on this earth. But if God called us home today or tomorrow, would people remember us as saints?
I’ve never been keen on the phrase “fake it till you make it,” but we have to begin acting like saints until we become them. No, that may not happen right away, and thus we will, in a sense, be faking it. But if we live out good choices that will draw us closer to holiness rather than laziness, we can take some solid steps along that road toward heaven.
Why do we try to get by doing the least we can do to survive? True, loving consists in making hard decisions. But ultimately, once you make those decisions, you not only feel better because you know you helped someone, but you actually are better. By acting like Christ, you are closer to being transformed into Christ.
When people look at us, do they see Christ in us? I just finished a biography of St. Teresa of Calcutta, and one of her primary mottos was simply to treat everyone the way she would treat Christ, because she saw him in them. That’s how one saint became one with her Lord. Are we becoming our Lord?
Saints aren’t minimalists because love is not about doing the least. It’s about doing the most. So let’s get off our couches, get off our phones and take a couple extra minutes to serve those around us. In doing so, we’re serving Christ and becoming saints. If college is preparing us for the “real world,” why not live now in the way that we want to live beyond Franciscan? Why not live in the way we want to live eternally with our Savior?