Walsh Final Integration Mary Grace Walsh FYS 10102-115 Professor Pruitt April 29, 2022 Mission Statement and Reflection My mission is to love. First, to love God in the Catholic faith, devoting time and energy to loving God in the Trinity and pouring out His love to those around me. The Cross and the Resurrection are my models for life: loving to the point of ultimate sacrifice and living in the hope and joy of the Resurrection. The Catholic faith brings meaning and texture to her life. Second, my mission is to love those around me, especially the poor and vulnerable who need more than ever to experience the love of the Father and the compassionate, fierce love of Jesus Christ. Filled with the Holy Spirit, I am called to overflow with extraordinary love for others. Defending the dignity of human life, I am committed to a whole life ethic and showing all the dignity that is inherent to them simply by being a human person. While life has its ups and downs, life has intrinsic meaning and is inherently good. Lastly, I am called to love myself. While this can seem to be prideful to some, I must love myself in order to love other people well. I will take care of myself and fill my cup in order to help fill the cup of others. Doing this will look different, but it can include intentionally spending time with those who love me, taking care of my mental health with therapy and medication, spending time in prayer, and finding joy however I can. “Even mere existence is extraordinary enough to be exciting,” says GK Chesterton, and this is the truth which I live by. Finding joy, loving others, admiring the ordinary, and seeking truth are my goals, and these will I pursue until I die (Personal Mission Statement draft by Mary Grace Walsh, Moreau FYE Week 13). Writing my mission statement was an interesting task, and one that helped me to finetune some of my beliefs and figure out what I am supposed to be doing on this earth. When I was a junior in high school, my English teacher had a meaning of life unit, which I went back to a little bit for this assignment. I found it interesting to compare my final unit paper to the mission https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1Zpd--xT6Skgd-WF4Si3tldItbSzWOrMtPSN-qkmBztg/edit statement I came up with 2.5 years later and after a global pandemic. I have grown and changed a lot since then, but it was cool to see that they were remarkably similar. First, I would like to reflect on the part of my mission statement about faith and loving God. As a Catholic, I recognize that I am called to love the Triune God first and foremost, above all other things, and from this, my love for myself and others spills over. I need to slow down in order to do this, especially during the business of college. If I do not slow down and spend time with God, I will be less prepared to love others (“Why we need to slow down our lives,” Pico Iyer, Moreau FYE Week 1). This calls for an intentional balancing of time, working hard on time management but also giving myself time to take a break and pause for a moment, whether that is watching a show or spending time with God (“5 Minutes,” Aria Swarr, Moreau FYE Week 6). Extraordinary people have a lot to teach me about how to do this well, so a lot of the time I will look to others to find my way, while also realizing that I am called to my own unique way of life, which doesn’t have to fit the common ideal of success (“Hesburgh,” quote from Mary Berry, Moreau FYE Week 2). Second, I said that I am called to love others. This is possibly the most important part of my mission statement to enact in a practical way. I was struck by our reading for week 10, where Jacob Walsh talked about the reaction his friend had to him coming out. This was beautiful and helped me understand how I should always put truth and compassion on the same level, never putting one before the other but seeing them side by side (“Growing up Gay and Catholic” by Jacob Walsh, Moreau FYE Week 10). We are called to come not just as servants but as neighbors for our friends and those who we do not know, loving them, serving them, but most importantly walking with them (Constitution of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Moreau FYE Week 12). It is important as well that we let our opinion of other people be shaped not by what we hear about them but what we learn from them and our interactions with them. This was evident when we learned about echo chambers (“How to Avoid an Echo Chamber” by Paul Blaschko, Moreau FYE Week 11). When we have true compassion for others and recognize their full human dignity, it is clear that we love them, even when words are not used (“Chapter 8: Jurisdiction,” from Tattoos on the Heart by Father Greg Boyle, Moreau FYE Week 7, on Canvas). Lastly, I am called to love myself and create a life I love living. This takes so many different forms, but it is important to do if I want to accomplish any of the other things I have set out to do. One way I can do this is to really investigate how I want to live my life and what I want an integrated life to look like. While this class sometimes put forward materials I didn’t love, the career stuff was very helpful, especially through the lens of discernment (“Three Key Questions,” Father Michael Himes, Moreau FYE Week 3). Taking the Career Center survey helped me understand that I might not have one continuous career, and that’s okay (Meruelo Career Center, Moreau FYE Week 4). Speaking with my cousin Emma helped me realize that even though I might not know exactly what I want to do with my life, if I know who I am and act in confidence following who I am called to be, I can’t fail (Conversation with my cousin Emma, Moreau FYE Week 5). While this can sometimes be difficult because of struggles with mental health, when I truly accompany myself in my own suffering and show compassion to myself, I always feel better (“Teaching Accompaniment” by Professor Steve Reifenberg, Moreau FYE Week 9). Writing my own eulogy (which ended up being more of an obituary, I got a little bit confused) helped me to realize that I do know who I am, and with that I can’t fail in life (Integration, Moreau FYE Week 8). Finding joy, loving, and seeking truth are the main goals of my life. I can do this wherever I am, whatever my circumstances are, and I consider that a win. I truly do love living this life, with all of its ups and downs. I am lucky to be alive and am grateful for the gift of this world and the life I get to live on it.