Identity

James and Dan
 * Identity: courage / vocation, be yourself , self image, depression, conformity, Christian tradition

The real point of this part of the advisory program is that our Catholic Identity and our Catholic Tradition must be at the center of what we do at Notre Dame. If not we become just another school. The Catholic Church does not have schools because they make money (because they don't) but rather they exist to hand down the faith of the Apostles to those living today. This means that if we lose our Catholicity we lose everything. Now the real question is what does this mean for our students. Most of them are cultural Catholics, not necessarily against the faith but not necessarily always for it. Our goal for this advisory period is to show them that the faith is necessary for their life and the only way to true happiness.

Vocation: One of the problems that is apparent at Notre Dame is that it is not always popular to be Catholic, to choose a particular spiritual vocation. This does not mean that someone has to decide what he wants to do for the rest of his life but he has to understand that at some point he needs to make a decision about not just what he wants to do but what he wants to be in life. This decision should some how involve his Catholic faith and be guided by it, keeping him from starting a life that will ultimately take him nowhere. It takes courage in order to be a Catholic and to live it out in a world that is ever more hostile to our faith.

Reading: ** Struggles as certain as God's faithful love  Dear Young Friends, In the beautiful prayer that we are about to recite, we reflect on Mary as a young woman, receiving the Lord’s summons to dedicate her life to him in a very particular way, a way that would involve the generous gift of herself, her womanhood, her motherhood. Imagine how she must have felt. She was filled with apprehension, utterly overwhelmed at the prospect that lay before her.

The angel understood her anxiety and immediately sought to reassure her. “Do not be afraid, Mary …. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:30, 35). It was the Spirit who gave her the strength and courage to respond to the Lord’s call. It was the Spirit who helped her to understand the great mystery that was to be accomplished through her. It was the Spirit who enfolded her with his love and enabled her to conceive the Son of God in her womb.

This scene is perhaps the pivotal moment in the history of God’s relationship with his people. During the Old Testament, God revealed himself partially, gradually, as we all do in our personal relationships. It takes time to get to know and love another person. It took time for the chosen people to develop their relationship with God. The Covenant with Israel was like a period of courtship, a long engagement. Then came the definitive moment, the moment of marriage, the establishment of a new and everlasting covenant. As Mary stood before the Lord, she represented the whole of humanity. In the angel’s message, it was as if God made a marriage proposal to the human race. And in our name, Mary said yes.

In fairy tales, the story ends there, and all “live happily ever after”. In real life it is not so simple. For Mary there were many struggles ahead, as she lived out the consequences of the “yes” that she had given to the Lord. Simeon prophesied that a sword would pierce her heart. When Jesus was twelve years old, she experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when, for three days, the child went missing. And after his public ministry, she suffered the agony of witnessing his crucifixion and death. Throughout her trials she remained faithful to her promise, sustained by the Spirit of fortitude. And she was gloriously rewarded.

Dear young people, we too must remain faithful to the “yes” that we have given to the Lord’s offer of friendship. We know that he will never abandon us. We know that he will always sustain us through the gifts of the Spirit. Mary accepted the Lord’s “proposal” in our name. So let us turn to her and ask her to guide us as we struggle to remain faithful to the life-giving relationship that God has established with each one of us. She is our example and our inspiration, she intercedes for us with her Son, and with a mother’s love she shields us from harm.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/b16wyd08angelus.htm

1) What do I want to do in life? Do I want to be married? To be a priest? 2) What do I want to be in life? What type of person do I want to be? 3) How are the decisions that I make today going to affect me in the future? 4) Am I truly a Christian? Do I live the faith? Do I really love others? Is my faith more than just skin-deep? 5) Am I who I want to be? 6) Am I who God wants me to be? 7) Am I afraid of following Christ, of where he might lead me? Or do I have confidence that God will give me the grace to accomplish what he calls me to, as he did for Mary?

Self-Image One of the keys to happiness in life is our self-image. This consists of three parts: How I see myself; How others see me; and how God sees me. When these three parts are separate, a person is much happier. The problem is when someone starts collapsing one of the categories into another one, such as when I confuse how I see myself with how other people see me. In order to have a positive self-image I have to keep the three separate and ultimately know that I have to see myself how God sees me.

Reading: Often, we tend to reduce our standards of self-evaluation to whether we observe or violate certain laws, and we define ourselves based on this. But according to Christian tradition, it is precisely here that the structure of sin takes shape. We try to define ourselves by using an idol or a form, something that we can manage and fully comprehend, something constructed in order to make us feel secure. This is why moralism is idolatry: it is truly a shame of the moral life that has been reduced to looking for certainties in what we do or fail to do.

To say, conversely, that in God is the ultimate identity of the “definitiveness” of the human being means that the definition of the human being and of his or her destiny is a //mystery//; it means that we should appropriate the following powerful suggestions from the Bible and make it the daily horizon of our actions:

Let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; Let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:7-9)

And yet, we tend to run away both from meditating on the fact that out ultimate identity is found in the mystery of God and from the evidence of our sins. We need help to face this meditation and this evidence: we need support, or, step by step, we run away.

From //The Risk of Education// by: Luigi Giussani pp.34-35

Questions: 1) Who am I? Who do the important people in my life think I am? Who does God think I am? 2) What do I see when I look in the mirror? What happens when I look more than just skin deep? 3) Do I view myself in a positive light? Do I just focus on the negative parts? Do I ever give myself credit for what I accomplish? 4) How much do I let others affect what I think of myself? 5) How much do I let God affect what I think of myself? 6) Is the way I present myself to the world a front that I hide behind because I am afraid to let the world see the real me?

Conformity One of the major struggles in High School is the desire to fit, the desire to be a part of things. The result of this desire can be both positive and negative. We join clubs, activities, sports teams, and make friends in order to be a part of things. It is a desire for the truly good things in life that allow us to be a part of some many things, the desire to satisfy our higher appetites. However, this desire to fit in can also be a detriment when we do things that are harmful to us. We sometimes have to choose between doing the things our friends want and that which is actually good for us. High School is more difficult than adults will acknowledge and most of it stems from the social pressures and the desire to fit in.

Reading:
 * TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, || ||
 * And sorry I could not travel both || ||
 * And be one traveler, long I stood || ||
 * And looked down one as far as I could || ||
 * To where it bent in the undergrowth; || ||
 * Then took the other, as just as fair, || ||
 * And having perhaps the better claim, || ||
 * Because it was grassy and wanted wear; || ||
 * Though as for that the passing there || ||
 * Had worn them really about the same, || ||
 * And both that morning equally lay || ||
 * In leaves no step had trodden black. || ||
 * Oh, I kept the first for another day! || ||
 * Yet knowing how way leads on to way, || ||
 * I doubted if I should ever come back. || ||
 * I shall be telling this with a sigh || ||
 * Somewhere ages and ages hence: || ||
 * Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— || ||
 * I took the one less traveled by, || ||
 * And that has made all the difference. ||
 * Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— || ||
 * I took the one less traveled by, || ||
 * And that has made all the difference. ||

1) Do I think for myself? Do I just follow what the crowd does? 2) Do I listen to the music I listen to or go to movies because they are popular or because I think that I will life them? 3) Do I allow my personality to shine through or do I wait to copy someone who is popular and just mimic what they do? 4) Am I afraid to put myself out there, to be unqiue in a way that might draw attention to myself? 5) Do I listen to my friends even when I know it will cause me harm? 6) Do I let others decide who I am going to be?

Catholic Tradition The desire for our students to be Catholic is essential to the mission Peoria Notre Dame High School. The goal of the school is not to produce people who can carry out a task well but rather well-rounded individuals who understand the necessity of living in community that is set-up for the common good. The young men and women of Peoria Notre Dame need to realize the importance of their Catholic Identity and how the faith ought to inform their daily lives. The world needs saints and it mission to send our students out into as saints.

Reading: [The saints] show us the way to attain happiness, they show us how to be truly human. Through all the ups and downs of history, they were the true reformers who constantly rescued it from plunging into the valley of darkness; it was they who constantly shed upon it the light that was needed to make sense - even in the midst of suffering - of God's words spoken at the end of the work of creation: "It is very good".

One need only think of such figures as St Benedict, St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Charles Borromeo, the founders of 19-century religious orders who inspired and guided the social movement, or the saints of our own day - Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio. In contemplating these figures we learn what it means "to adore" and what it means to live according to the measure of the Child of Bethlehem, by the measure of Jesus Christ and of God himself. The saints, as we said, are the true reformers. Now I want to express this in an even more radical way: only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world.

In the last century we experienced revolutions with a common programme - expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man, but takes away his dignity and enslaves him. It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?

Dear friends! Allow me to add just two brief thoughts. There are many who speak of God; some even preach hatred and perpetrate violence in God's Name. So it is important to discover the true face of God. The Magi from the East found it when they knelt down before the Child of Bethlehem. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father", said Jesus to Philip (Jn 14: 9). In Jesus Christ, who allowed his heart to be pierced for us, the true face of God is seen. We will follow him together with the great multitude of those who went before us. Then we will be travelling along the right path.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/august/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050820_vigil-wyd_en.html 1) What does it mean to be a Catholic? 2) How do we at Notre Dame live out the Catholic Tradition? 3) Is the Catholic Tradtion important to the world, or is it something that the world could do without? 4) Is the Catholic Tradition important to my family? My friends? If not, how do I show them that it is an essential part of life? 5) Am I for the faith? 6) Do I want to continue to be Catholic or will I stop once I go off to school?