Lessons from the Interns

Gabe and Rachel, the CSC interns for the 2008-09 school year, spoke during a segment of the homily at Tuesday's Mass. They each had a lot to share, but I thought I'd pull one thought from each of them that stood out to me. The Gospel question was, "What have you learned this year?"

Gabe shared how he has gotten better at accepting help this year, and he offered some insight on how to do that. A struggle he has--that a lot of people have--is believing someone when they offer help. We don't know if they really mean it. So Gabe has come up with a theory that you should always accept offers of help because (a) if the person genuinely wants to help you, then they'll feel good after helping you or (b) if the person doesn't actually want to help you, accepting their disingenuous help will teach them not to offer help when they don't mean it.

Rachel shared how she has learned how to offer prayers of gratitude this year. She said in the past she would mix thankful prayers with "wishful" prayers, So she wasn't able to embody the gratitude as she was praying. She decided to name specific names and things she's grateful for, as well as gifts that God gave her. It became an exercise in intentional prayer focused on specific examples in her life and what those things mean to her (instead of thanking God in general for all of your gifts or blessings).