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PostHeaderIcon When Ecumenism Becomes Hard

 

 Ecumenical dialogue has always been important to me, almost as important as learning Catholic apologetics is.

I want to know everything about my faith, as well as I can. But I also want to be able to use that information I know, to participate in ecumenical discussion with anyone I meet. The more I have learned, the more I have been able to explain and understand, and have done so over the years.

I remember my first attempt at ecumenism, four years ago now, was very unforeseen, forced even.

In fact, it was somewhat of a hostile environment for me. I had posted a tweet about Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon One Day You Are Born…To Reorder The World

“One day you are born, no one asked you if you wanted to live.

But now you are living. Sometimes it’s nice for you. Sometimes instead you are sad. There are many things you don’t understand. You are alive, but why are you alive? With your hands you must help reorder the world. With your mind you must learn to distinguish good and evil. With your heart you must love people, and help them when you can. There are many tasks that await you. They await our hands, our mind, and our heart.”
~Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

I was recently scrolling through the notes app on my iPod, and found this quote that I copied down in 2014. I liked the quote because it’s a basic, Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon Yeah Homie, “I’m Turnt!”

ImTurnt

In my last post, I talked about Mike Posner’s song ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ and why I think it’s a good song. While it does seem to warn against drugs, the message could always be a little more explicit. While my friends can attest to the fact that I always turn up that song when it comes on the radio, it’s not my favorite anti-drug song. That honor goes to Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ – Music And Drugs

YouDontWannaBeHighLikeMe

Almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post on today’s music and the dangerous glorification of drugs (which you can read HERE). My music listening habits have shifted from “One Direction Radio” to “Life Of Dillon”, which has a lot more lyrical EDM songs. In between all the various messages that are transmitted via song lyrics, I was somewhat surprised by one song in particular: ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ by Mike Posner. I was doing some homework and playing music off of my iPad the first time I heard it.

At first I thought it was just another song about using drugs, but then I started to actually listen to it…and I was slightly shocked.

Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon We The People Have A Role In Peace

I am just one person, living in a grieving country; a small part of this troubled world. We the people, are heartbroken about the increasing amount of tragedies that contribute to a river of blood which knows no borders.

I read the news and every day I read of a bombing in one place, a shooting in another, attacks that are taking place worldwide and with different motives. I will not use this post to point fingers, Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon When Silence Speaks

Something about the gray day and the dark beauty has me brooding over nothing. As I wander around campus, the silence is comforting but there’s only one place I want be.

I make my way to the other side of campus and run across the street to the one building that I can hide from the world in. As soon as my foot hits the first step leading up to the doors, a sense of Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon You Can’t Save People

*****This was actually something I posted on on my personal FaceBook and Instagram, but the more I thought about it, I decided it would be a nice little blog post too. So for those of you who didn’t catch it, I hope you enjoy reading my little pep talk!*****

CantSave

I think one of the biggest lessons 2015 taught me, is that you can’t save people, you can only love them.

2015 started with me finding out that one of my teammates had run away from home. I begged him to come home, but I quickly realized that no matter how many times I called his dead phone, or texted him, or sent him FaceBook messages, he wasn’t going to change his mind. All I could do, was pray. Things have worked out alright for him, I’ve heard, and for that I am glad.

That was just the first of a few instances this past year, where I think  Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon Be A Real Rebel

BeARebelBeInItNotOfIt

Be a real rebel. Be in it, not of it.

I think this is a very important concept that we all need to understand. Have you ever felt like you just don’t belong anywhere? Maybe, like me, you have a few different circles of friends that you drift in and out of. We enjoy the company of all of them, but we just don’t fit in. That’s OK, because none of us were made to fit in! We can only find the perfect love and acceptance that we want so much, when we turn to God. He put us on this earth, not to blend in with the crowd, but to stand out and point others to Him. We live in this world. But we don’t belong here. We need to be rebels and prove we are in it, not of it.

Enter the college scene. I have experienced my first semester of college. Within that first semester, I have been exposed to many trends Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon My College Application Essay

It was just over 2 years ago, that I created my blog here, Just Shine On.  Naturally, it was time to update my About Page, so I just did that. My life has changed in some big ways! One of those big changes has been moving to college. I applied and was accepted to six Catholic colleges, and submitted the below essay, to each of them.   I recently found this essay on my computer, and thought sharing it with you all, might be a great post.  The essay prompt was: “Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?” 

I hope you enjoy reading it. Read the rest of this entry »

PostHeaderIcon The Wish Of 11 Year Old Me (It Came True!)

Firefly

Last month I celebrated my 18th birthday. But turning the big one-eight wasn’t the only thing that made this past birthday so special. It was also the fact that my birthday landed on a Sunday this year. I spent a good amount of time thinking about this one night last month, as I held one of our hens and watched fireflies glow in the dusk, on a perfect early July night.

Celebrating my birthday on a Sunday might not seem like much. But for me, it means the world. You see, Read the rest of this entry »

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