Capstone Integration Life As a Daughter of God My identity at its deepest roots is a daughter of God. This identity inspires me to grow in holiness, kindness, and goodness. Throughout my life, I seek to develop my relationship with God as His daughter through trust, faith, prayer, liturgy, and learning. Because of the joy that comes in knowing He who loved us first (1 John 4:19), I desire to exemplify my relationship as his daughter in my everyday life so that others may see Him in me and come closer to Him. I look to St. Therese’s example of the Little Way, seeking to offer the small moments of my life to God for His glory and to do small actions with great love. I am reminded to use my suffering to draw nearer to Him and to lean on Him, knowing that the things of this world will pass. While I do not know what my future holds, I try to cling to Him so that I can best accomplish His Will for me. Presently, I recognize the desires I have and ask Him for purity of heart in following them: 1) The desire to love and be loved; 2) The desire to behold beauty, 3) The desire to be impactful. The first I currently see in my relationship with God, my family, and my friends–those dear to me; the second, in God’s nature surrounding me, by traveling, in small moments, and in listening to music and playing the piano; and the third, in my pursuit of engineering to create solutions to problems I do not yet know. Recognizing that vocations change throughout one’s life, I open myself to whatever path God guides me through. To write my above mission statement (“Writing a Personal Mission Statement Activity” – Moreau FYE Week 13) I needed to take some time to be alone with my thoughts–to stop all activity and just think. “To me, the point of sitting still is that it helps you see through the very idea of pushing forward; indeed, it strips you of yourself, as of a coat of armor, by leading you into a place where you’re defined by something larger” (“Why we need to slow down our lives” https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146102 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/145953 by Pico Iyer, TED – Moreau FYE Week 1). We cannot simply go through our lives without pausing to think about what our lives mean. I do not think that anyone does. But the world makes a constant noise that is so appealing to drown out our own thoughts. When we stop and think, there are some things we can do to make it more fruitful. “Why” questions trap us in our past; “what” questions help us create a better future. This quote from “The Right Way to be Introspective (Yes, There’s a Wrong Way)” by Tasha Eurich, TED Conferences – Moreau FYE Week 6 shows that we should have a mentality of thinking how we can move forward instead of staying trapped as a victim, even if we are feeling that way. “It was not for her to understand why God gave her so many blessings in life; she could only thank him and use it to the fullest” (Integration 3 by – Moreau FYE Week 8). We may not always understand why something has happened to us, but we can use it to grow. The Christian life often calls for one to do the opposite of what the world would say. The priesthood and religious life are examples of this. “You give up a life of wealth, marriage, and most of all, your freedom of choice” ("Hesburgh", produced by Jerry Barca and Christine O'Malley – Moreau FYE Week 2). These are things that the world often says we should seek, but this shows us an example of how there can be happiness outside of these things. The world says that if you have money, power, or love, you will be happy. However, the world’s idea of love is overly centered on pleasure instead of what a more pure kind of love is expressed as a person giving themselves completely to another in a promise to remain with each other and having a family. However, religious life is completely the opposite of wealth, status, and pleasure – it often involves material poverty, obedience to superiors, and the denial of oneself. Yet, priests and nuns are some of the most joyful people I have ever met. https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146033 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146033 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/assignments/50008/submissions/35209?download=767108 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/145968 My time at Notre Dame has disconnected me from the outer world. For many people, though, politics seem to be everywhere. “We live in a 24/7 cycle of political news that saturates every corner of our culture. It seems like this has led to increased engagement in politics, but Eitan Hersh says that engagement with politics for many of us has actually become more shallow” (“Passion Isn’t Enough” by Hidden Brain Media – Moreau FYE Week 11). The news has become entertainment for some people, making it hard to find good sources of news. Despite this, we can be attentive to the world around us so that we can remain active citizens by voting and seeking to improve the community around us. To be good people, we can take some advice from His Holiness Pope Francis, “Tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women. Tenderness is not weakness; it is fortitude” (“Why the only future worth building includes everyone” by His Holiness Pope Francis, TED Conferences – Moreau FYE Week 7). It is another example of living in a way that might be contrary to one’s initial thoughts. We also don’t know how much our help to another can affect them. “They did not see their caring for me as a grand gesture of generosity; they simply did, in the moment, what needed to be done” (“Teaching Accompaniment: A Learning Journey Together” by Professor Steve Reifenberg – Moreau FYE Week 9). Here, we can see an example of how tenderness and kindness can help another in a difficult situation. We can also be attentive to how other people around us feel. “In virtually any situation or image deemed valuable in dominant society, whites belong. The interruption of racial belonging is rare and thus destabilizing and frightening to whites and usually avoided” (“Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism” by Dr. Robin D’Angelo, adapted from HuffPost – Moreau FYE Week 10). Recognizing the patterns that exist in society help us to work for fairness https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146087 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146047 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146047 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146064 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146064 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146075 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/40288/modules/items/146075 and be compassionate. It is not enough to simply know, however, “For the kingdom to come in this world, disciples must have the competence to see and the courage to act” (“Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross” - 2: Mission, paragraphs 9-14 – Moreau FYE Week 12). Something everyone must acknowledge is that one day we will die. “To us, death is exotic,” said Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, a Brooklyn-based enterprise that offers events and books focused on death, art, and culture. “But that’s a luxury particular to our time and place.” (“Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die" by Ruth Graham, NY Times – Moreau FYE Week 3). This quote means that in the modern time and living in a very developed country we have such an abundance of technology and medicine that we might expect to live until 70 or 80 years, if not more. We may forget that we could really die at any time because of causes that we cannot control. This forms how we think about our lives now because it reorders what is important. If I will die one day, it would have mattered more for me to spend time with people I love rather than watching movies all day. Of course, there can be a balance. But we should live our lives enjoying the good and pursuing the wholesome. As for what I want to do, “The only way to know more about yourself is to test the waters - just get out and experience life!” (Navigating Your Career Journey by Meruelo Family Center for Career Development – Moreau FYE Week 4). I can experience life in good ways and will discover what I like in that way. If I abandon myself to God, I realize that I can live my life as his daughter in many ways. God could call me to religious life, to be a sister, or to be a consecrated woman, but these are all ways I could serve Him. My friend, Ali Mauritsen, said that God desires to reveal our vocations to ourselves, in a similar way that someone is excited to tell their friend a surprise (Week 5 Discernment Activity by with Ali Mauritsen – Moreau FYE Week 5. Pasted at the https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/ end). Therefore, I can continue to live with trust in God as his daughter, knowing he will take care of me. Week 5 Discernment Activity For my discernment activity, I spoke with my friend Ali Maurtison, a senior chemical engineering major studying for the MCAT. First, we talked about what questions should guide what we do in our lives. I told her about a previous Moreau activity, which had the questions of what am I good at, what does society need, and what do I like to do. However, a thought we had was that maybe these questions are not as significant as, or perhaps better summarized by, the question of what God wants us to do with our lives. For example, I met a religious sister who had been an engineer, but eventually found that God was calling her to a different vocation. Therefore, it seems that maybe it did not matter as much that the engineering job answered the three questions, because God was asking something else of her. However, what she does now still answers those three questions, just in a different way. Ali reminded me of my dreams to be an inventor, which was a word I had forgotten about for a while (the word “inventor”). She told me that what we do with our lives centers around the way in which we serve God. My favorite part of the conversation was that she said that God desires to reveal our vocations to ourselves, in a similar way that someone is excited to tell their friend a surprise. She could see how what I desired most in life is to serve God in the way he calls me to.