2012 Seniors Speak

The following articles were written by Megan McCleneghen.

February 9, 2012
The Real 99%: Your Life

1%.    What does 1% mean to you?

1%  of the total square mileage of the United states is 37 940.83 miles.  That’s about the size of Delaware.  Delaware can fit into Alaska 264 times. 
 
1%  of the length of a basketball court is less than a foot.  That barely gets you in the game

1%.    of a average movie is under 80 seconds.  That’s less than the length of a single preview. 

1%.  of the number of your brain’s neurons is 110 million.  That’s the amount of neurons in the brains of a mouse. 

1%

You will spend only 1% of your life as a high school senior.  And-if you are not planning to live to 100 years old- that percentage drops. 

All you seniors out there: welcome to the spring semester!  Yes, in one sense, this marks the beginning of the end.  But, in the spirit of the “occupy Wall Street movement”, we can also cry out that it marks the beginning of, well, the rest of your life. 

High school is not an end.  It’s a means.  It’s not about who takes you to the dance or if you made the team.  It’s not about who gives the speech at graduation.  It’s not about giving into your boyfriend when he asks for more.  He’s asking for your 1%.  Wait for the one who wants to exchange 100%. 

Your state is small and your life is a preview.  But your 99% is waiting.   

John Paul II told us: “The future depends on you.”

Don’t let your future be determined by the 1%.

October 12, 2011
Vocations: It’s All in the Family

As I pass the kitchen every morning after breakfast here at Mater Ecclesiae CollegeI often hear a crisp “Yis!” (yes) above the rattle of pots, pans and general morning mayhem.  Catherine is in my class and we rarely miss an opportunity to joke about her New Zealand accent. 

I try not to overdo it though -- I mean she is the one who decides what we eat.  But Catherine is also one of my heroes.  She came halfway around the world to follow Christ and was not even a Catholic until she was eighteen! 

What’s the explanation?

“A lot of it has to do with the love I experienced in the very Catholic home of my best friend, Caroline.” 

“Caroline Lucas and I started taking the same route to school everyday.   Then we started talking on the phone every night.  When I went to her house I noticed that there was something special about her family.”

From daily mass to the huge icon of Our Lady in the dining room, the faith just meshed into the normal fabric of daily life.  Without pushing the faith on her, they included her  in family life, even the Catholic part. 
“One Saturday morning Caroline invited me on a retreat with her.  In the chapel, I noticed something I’d never seen.  Each girl prayed with her eyes open looking at the tabernacle.  During one of the meditationsI felt the presence of Jesus so strongly that I even looked down at the empty seat beside me because it seemed he was sitting there. After the retreat I asked Caroline, “What is that Golden thing up the front?” She replied, ‘That’s the Tabernacle, and we believe Christ is truly present in it.’ And it clicked. I believed.”

The thought started to enter of becoming a Catholic herself. 

Weeks later Caroline gave Catherine a biography of St. Therese of Lisiuex.  “Here I was, a Protestant, reading the life of some mystic Carmelite.  As I read the last lines and closed the book, the beauty of a life hidden away flashed through my mind and the thought popped into my head: I want to become a nun.”  

Over the next year, she continued to have long talks with the Lucas family about the Catholic faith. In a really tough moment, Caroline’s mother gave her a most assuring piece of advice, “There’s no hurry, you have time…” Meanwhile, Caroline left for the United States to give a year as a Regnum Christi Mission Corps volunteer.   

“Finally I was ready to enter the Church. But I knew Caroline had to be there.  So I waited for her to come home for Christmas.”
 
Now Catherine was Catholic.  But what was the next step? 

“In university I was restless. Finally, I made the decision to leave like Caroline to volunteer in the United States. I did a lot of work with girls in clubs, but an interior struggle was going on inside the whole time. My heart was searching for God’s plan for me. Finally I became certain of my call, in a cemetery of all places. I saw a tombstone which read, “Deo Gratia” thanks be to God. “What is my life if I don’t spend it for him alone?”

In answer to that question, Catherine consecrated her life to God in August 2008.  Here at Mater Ecclesiae we’re all grateful to the Lucas family.  We know that without them, we wouldn’t have her today.  I join Catherine in thanking families like the Lucas’s who are the answer to Blessed John Paul II’s prayer that “each Christian family may really become a "little Church" in which the mystery of the Church of Christ is mirrored and given new life.”  (FC 86).

And what of best friend Caroline?  She also is a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi.