Something to love, something to hope for and something to do.

Friday morning, I awoke to a strange feeling as I realized that I was in the same bed, in the exact same bedroom that I had for two weeks when I was 16. It was in total just two and a half weeks that I was in France, but I believe that, that trip and the events leading up to did so much to make me the person I am today. Montpellier, St. Croix, and France as a whole are places that are very important to me. This weekend I realize I was in a place that was very important to me because it's my past, it's a part of my story.

For me, it is similar to how being in ancient churches or knowing I'm in a church that is a part of the Vatican makes me feel. My parents both grew up going to Catholic schools. They grew up in the Catholic church and even though they are no longer practicing Catholics, Catholism is still very much a part of their story and even more so the story of my grandparents. I was named after my grandmother on my father's side. I never met her, this woman who obviously had a huge impact on my dad's life. And, from all I know of her, I know that her granddaughter being in Rome, amongst all this history of the world and of Christianity especially would make her so happy.


I've heard it said that the great essentials of life are, something to love, something to hope for, and something to do. I believe that if one takes any religion at its best, it is these things that it tries to give people. Some people may believe in love at first sight, but really, real love, I think, is all about trust, all about the things that people share. It takes time, to have something or someone that you really love. I believe that one cannot truly have faith in something that one does not love. Since love takes time, there is something about this history of two thousand years, that makes the Catholic Church so precious. Yet at the same time, of course, no faith would be complete if it did not come with a hope for the future. That is what faith is for. It's why they say there are no athiests in a foxhole. It's because faith is supposed to give that hope, that one thing that helps someone through even the most desperate of times. Losing all hope I think, is in many ways the worst possible thing that can happen to someone.

Religion and more importantly faith's purpose is to provide those things that we are need that to me, only appear to be outside the basics of physical survival, love, hope, something to do (practicing the faith) with this love and hope. That, is why religion is firmly rooted in the past and also gives hope for the future. I guess the biggest difficulty I have with this assignment , is that I feel that it implies that there is somehow a contradiction if something is firmly rooted in the past and hopes for the future. If there is a contradiction I fail to see it. This is how I try to live my life, I have a strong base in what I've gained from my past, but I also have strong hope for the future.