Going the Extra Mile: 2 Academic All-​​Stars

Some­times it’s hard to see edu­ca­tion as a gift, until we get a chance to give that gift to oth­ers. Last month, 20 col­lege stu­dents were cho­sen by USA Today for the All-​​USA Col­lege Aca­d­e­mic team, to honor not only their aca­d­e­mic excel­lence, but also their gen­eros­ity in using their knowl­edge and tal­ents to improve the lives of oth­ers. In this les­son we will take a closer look as at the work of two of our nation’s col­lege all stars, and exam­ine how their rela­tion­ship with Christ helped them choose to serve others.

The 16^th Annual All-​​USA team

Qual­i­fy­ing for the team is no easy task. Ten men and ten women were cho­sen from 602 stu­dents across the nation. Their ages range from 19 to 26, and their majors range from music to engi­neer­ing, yet their sto­ries share some sim­i­lar­i­ties. An aver­age GPA of 3.86 is proof of  rig­or­ous aca­d­e­mic dis­ci­pline. And these grades weren’t won by months of shut­ting them­selves away with their books. All of the all-​​star stu­dents are involved in other activ­i­ties such as sports, stu­dent clubs, and vol­un­teer organizations.

Each all-​​star received tro­phies and an award of $2,500.  Many of them are just begin­ning to dream of what the future will hold as they grad­u­ate from col­lege and move on to change the world. What moves them to put lazi­ness aside and put their tal­ents at the ser­vice of oth­ers? For two stu­dents in par­tic­u­lar, it is imi­ta­tion of Christ that inspires them to give themselves.

Part I: Meet­ing mate­r­ial needs

Rachel Hus­feld of Val­paraiso Uni­ver­sity is an “Engi­neer with­out Bor­ders”. As chap­ter pres­i­dent of this orga­ni­za­tion, she embod­ies the ideal of tak­ing her edu­ca­tion out­side of the bor­ders of the class­room, and using it to improve the lives of oth­ers. She led a group of 18 stu­dents to work in an orphan­age in Mex­ico, learn­ing from day labor­ers how to do the stucco work and installing toi­lets for the children.

She under­stands that because of her Chris­t­ian faith she is called to a life of ser­vice to oth­ers. “You fol­low the lifestyle of Christ,” says Rachel, “and that was how he lived, a life of ser­vice, humbly wash­ing the feet of oth­ers. This is how we know what love is.”

When Rachel went with her church on her first trip to Mex­ico, it moved her deeply to see so many peo­ple in des­per­ate need and made her think of more ways to help them. “I feel like I’ve been blessed with so much,” she observed, “I have the resources and the pas­sion to be able to help.”

Rachel noticed that it is easy to be an engi­neer­ing stu­dent who does noth­ing but engi­neer­ing, but from early on she took steps to make sure her mind was not con­fined within the class­room. She learned Span­ish, reflected on what life is really about, and actively thought of ways to serve with the gifts she has. She found sup­port in her church and fam­ily, both finan­cially and emotionally.

Her par­ents had always set a good exam­ple for her, and encour­aged her to get involved in a local youth group. Dad showed her the value of hard work, and Mom showed her com­pas­sion in car­ing for other peo­ple. Even though many around her were only con­cerned in look­ing out for them­selves, the Chris­t­ian char­ity she found in her fam­ily and church pointed her towards Christ. “God is the one who ulti­mately inspired me to ser­vice,” Rachel says.

The oppor­tu­ni­ties began to come to her, and she chose to take them. Once you take hold of an oppor­tu­nity, she explained, it requires hard work to see it through, to prac­tice team­work with the oth­ers, and to per­se­vere beyond the frus­tra­tions. Her group is cur­rently work­ing on a three-​​year project to design and install a windmill-​​powered well and drip irri­ga­tion sys­tem in Kenya. For Rachel, ser­vice for oth­ers is not some­thing extra, rather it is an inte­gral part of who she is as a Chris­t­ian.  She real­izes that love for Christ and the knowl­edge of His love is what inspires her ser­vice. In her own words, “I have a heart for the people.”

Part II: Meet­ing spir­i­tual needs

Cae­sar Gar­cia rep­re­sented his coun­try as a diver in the Athens Olympics, man­aged to keep his grades above aver­age, and still found time for God. His sports career increased his faith and his ser­vice to the com­mu­nity. As an ath­lete, he noticed that many times sports play­ers were painted in a bad light, from media sto­ries that focused on the neg­a­tive inci­dents, or just from the fact that ath­letes often don’t have the time for com­mu­nity service.

As the old­est of seven chil­dren, lead­er­ship came nat­u­rally to Cae­sar, and he used this to recruit the help of other ath­letes for a project he had in mind which would pro­mote char­ity and other char­ac­ter strengths. At a local ele­men­tary school, he started a char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion pro­gram based on NCAA “Life Skills”, form­ing his own les­son plans to teach virtues to the stu­dents while improv­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of fel­low athletes.

Caesar’s par­ents have always given him an exam­ple of strong faith. Grow­ing up, some­times had to be pushed by his fam­ily to do a bit more for Christ. For exam­ple, he did not enjoy get­ting up early for Lenten Mass before school, but through this the whole fam­ily grew closer together. They would also attend weekly prayer meet­ings where other fam­i­lies would join them for evening Mass, and, after the prayer time together, all the kids would go out­side to do sports and games. Look­ing back, he sees the value of what he received in hav­ing friends with the same val­ues and a fam­ily that sup­ported his faith.

His father, a gym­nas­tics coach in Baton Rouge, had taught by exam­ple that form­ing chil­dren well is more impor­tant than mak­ing money. “If you can teach a child suc­cess, you’ve taught him a les­son for life,” said Garcia.

Found­ing and direct­ing the “Life Skills” pro­gram was a chal­lenge at times, espe­cially to get all the ath­letes to help him, but he was moti­vated by a strong desire to help chil­dren learn the char­ac­ter traits that would help them to suc­ceed. “Char­ity was instru­men­tal. I think the best way to live is to try and do things out of love. Using char­ity syn­ony­mously with love reminds me that love is shown through actions and there­fore takes effort.”

He had already grown in for­ti­tude when he almost lost his sports career to a back injury. His whole life had cen­tered around div­ing, and when it looked like he had to quit there was nowhere to turn except to God. The deci­sion to trust in God uncon­di­tion­ally gave him peace to be able to go forward.

Char­ity often becomes a reflex that makes us heroes with­out even think­ing about it. In 2002, while Cae­sar was canoe­ing with his fam­ily on the Okla­homa river, rainy weather made the river choppy and treach­er­ous. They pulled off to the shore, but Cae­sar noticed that a cou­ple fallen trees were caus­ing trou­ble for other peo­ple still on the water, who were falling out of their canoes and get­ting sucked under. He swam over to help, pulling five kids out of the water and bring­ing them back to their fam­i­lies. His imme­di­ate courage and faith put into action saved their lives.

“I’ve had so many oppor­tu­ni­ties to apply my faith,” Cae­sar says, “faith that God is in con­trol.” For Cae­sar, this faith is not just an idea from the class­room or the pul­pit, but some­thing that is alive and real. He knows that we see Christ through our friends and the peo­ple around us, and the lit­tle things that hap­pen in life make our faith more real. It is time to move on from Olympic div­ing, Cae­sar decided, but as he looks ahead to grad­u­a­tion and career he knows that ser­vice will always be a part of who he is.

The Chal­lenge is ours

The col­lege aca­d­e­mic all-​​star team demon­strates that by excelling in our school­work, we can gain the knowl­edge and con­fi­dence to more effec­tively put our faith and char­ity into action.  Both Rachel and Cae­sar recall that the great­est virtue is char­ity, and they want to make it a defin­ing part of their lives.

At times our school work may seem bor­ing or overly dif­fi­cult.  Dur­ing these times it would be good to remem­ber some of the col­lege all-​​stars and how they use their edu­ca­tion to help oth­ers in cre­ative and effec­tive ways.  We also don’t have to wait for col­lege.  Today and right now we are all learn­ing things that can help improve the lives of oth­ers. It is up to us to find these oppor­tu­ni­ties and to then decide to be gen­er­ous with the knowl­edge and tal­ents God has given us.

Bible Blurbs

There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the great­est of these is love.” (1 Corinthi­ans 13:7,13)

“Be assured, then, that faith with­out works is dead as a body with­out breath.” (James 2:26)

“This is how all will know you for my dis­ci­ples: your love for one another.” (John 13:35)

Cat­e­chism Clips

2447: The works of mercy are char­i­ta­ble actions by which we come to the aid of our neigh­bor in his spir­i­tual and bod­ily neces­si­ties. Instruct­ing, advis­ing, con­sol­ing, com­fort­ing are spir­i­tual works of mercy, as are for­giv­ing and bear­ing wrongs patiently. The cor­po­ral works of mercy con­sist espe­cially in feed­ing the hun­gry, shel­ter­ing the home­less, cloth­ing the naked, vis­it­ing the sick and impris­oned, and bury­ing the dead. Among all these, giv­ing alms to the poor is one of the chief wit­nesses to fra­ter­nal char­ity: it is also a work of jus­tice pleas­ing to God

2444: The Church’s love for the poor . . . is a part of her con­stant tra­di­tion.” This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beat­i­tudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of his con­cern for the poor. Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the duty of work­ing so as to “be able to give to those in need.” It extends not only to mate­r­ial poverty but also to the many forms of cul­tural and reli­gious poverty.

Pope Quotes

“ …the hap­pi­ness to which we aspire can­not be obtained with­out an effort and com­mit­ment on the part of all, no one excluded, and the con­se­quent renounc­ing of per­sonal selfishness.”

“The wounds of human­ity can­not leave us indif­fer­ent; we must heal, con­sole and care for the mul­ti­tudes of suf­fer­ing indi­vid­u­als and peoples.”

” Indeed, the new evan­ge­liza­tion starts with us, with our lifestyle. The Church today does not need part-​​time Catholics but full-​​blooded Christians.”

Saints and Heroes:

Blessed Alcuin

Blessed Alcuin was a man from Eng­land who brought a sys­tem of edu­ca­tion to the empire of the great Charle­magne. Born in to a noble fam­ily in 735, he attended a cathe­dral school where he drew atten­tion from the head­mas­ter for his aca­d­e­mic excel­lence and strong faith. He was given spe­cial atten­tion in his instruc­tion, and even­tu­ally became the direc­tor of the school. He met the emperor of Europe, Charle­magne (Charles the Great), when return­ing from a trip to Rome, and was asked to share his edu­ca­tion with the entire empire. Know­ing that the faith would be spread eas­ier if peo­ple knew how to read and write, Alcuin estab­lished a sys­tem of schools con­nected to monas­ter­ies and churches for the com­mon peo­ple to go to learn. He also edu­cated the future lead­ers of the empire in his schools. He helped to bring Europe out of the Dark Ages, fought errors in the faith, and invented cur­sive writ­ing. He died in 804.

Saint Edith Stein

Saint Teresa Bene­dicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) was born into a Jew­ish fam­ily in Ger­many in 1891. She had a great aca­d­e­mic apti­tude, and stud­ied phi­los­o­phy under some of the most impor­tant intel­lec­tual lead­ers of her time. Her ardent search for truth and the exam­ple of some Chris­t­ian friends even­tu­ally led her to the writ­ings of St. Theresa of Avila, which prompted her desire to enter the Catholic Church and ded­i­cate her life totally to God. She was bap­tized into the Church in 1922, and spent a num­ber of years teach­ing and writ­ing. From the moment of her entrance into the Church she had wanted to become a nun, but her spir­i­tual adviser asked her to wait.  In 1933 she finally entered a Carmelite con­vent and took the name Sis­ter Teresa Bene­dicta of the Cross. As Nazi Ger­many became more hos­tile to the Jews, she was trans­ferred to Hol­land. How­ever, the Nazis invaded neu­tral Hol­land and took Sr. Teresa out of the Carmel, send­ing her in a cat­tle car to the con­cen­tra­tion camp. She died in the gas cham­bers in Auschwitz on August 9^th, 1942. She was can­on­ized in 1998.

Virtues High­lighted

Char­ity – Super­nat­ural char­ity: Love for God. Love of oth­ers from God’s point of view.

Human charity-​​ Kind­ness, respect, and gen­eros­ity towards others.

Com­pas­sion – Feel­ing of sym­pa­thy for the dis­tress of oth­ers, with the desire to help them

Courage- The capac­ity to meet dan­ger with­out giv­ing way to fear; to have the courage of one’s con­vic­tions; to be will­ing to put one’s opin­ions into practice.

Dis­ci­pline - Train­ing expected to pro­duce a spe­cific char­ac­ter or pat­tern of behav­ior, espe­cially train­ing that pro­duces moral or men­tal improve­ment.

Faith – belief and trust in God 

For­ti­tude – Inner strength that allows us to keep going in the midst of difficulties

Gen­eros­ity -- Giv­ing freely of our own pos­ses­sions, time and or tal­ent to some­one else

Humil­ity - Virtue that reminds us we do not know every­thing and that God can be trusted to guide us as a good Father.

Lead­er­ship – To inspire and moti­vate oth­ers in their con­duct; to play a guid­ing role

Per­se­ver­ance – Try­ing hard and con­tin­u­ously in spite of obsta­cles and dif­fi­cul­ties 

Respon­si­bil­ity – Accept­ing and meet­ing the demands of our cho­sen duty in life. Being account­able for our actions.

Dis­cus­sion Questions

1. Do you ever think that the classes you have now will be use­ful in help­ing oth­ers? What are some ways that we can ded­i­cate our­selves to serve with the edu­ca­tion we have received? How can you use your math to help oth­ers? Sci­ence? His­tory? Eng­lish? Other classes?
2. The big­ger ques­tions some­times get put off because the answers are hard to live up to. Rachel was moti­vated by reflect­ing on what life is really about. What do you think is the most impor­tant thing in life? What does your faith say about this? Why does it help to focus on your life’s priorities?
3. Did you ever think about how Chris­tian­ity first spread because of the char­ity that they lived among each other? What do you think of when you hear the word “char­ity”? Why is it such a pow­er­ful virtue?
4. What are the dif­fer­ent ways that Cae­sar lived the virtue of char­ity? How many peo­ple did he affect in a pos­i­tive way?
5. Many of these stu­dents did not plan far in advance the ways that they were going to serve oth­ers. They just went with some needs that they observed, and then solu­tions they were nat­u­rally inter­ested in. What needs do we observe in our local com­mu­nity, our nation and coun­try? Let’s also include things that every per­son needs, no mat­ter where they come from and how much money they have.  What are some of the ways we could help with our tal­ents, time and resources?
6. Many times when we have to get up early for school, or work on home­work, it is hard to see edu­ca­tion as a priv­i­lege. What are the “riches” that we get from edu­ca­tion that we would be deprived of if we were not in school?
7. What hap­pens if you have a lot of tal­ents, but no gen­eros­ity? What kind of per­son would you be?

Jour­nal Writing

• Write about the one need you would like most to address.  Describe the need in detail, your plan for address­ing the need, and the tal­ents, time and /​ or resources you could devote toward address­ing the need.  Also include a descrip­tion of the chal­lenges you will encounter in try­ing to address the need.  Finally, write out a spe­cific timetable for begin­ning the project.  Remem­ber that the need you focus on can be as local as within your own fam­ily or as dis­tant as a need in a for­eign country.
• We can­not imi­tate Christ’s life of ser­vice unless we really know what he was like. How well do you know Christ? Imag­ine that you are in one of the Gospel pas­sages, and you meet him. What hap­pens? What does he do? What does he say?

Actic­i­ties

• Ask stu­dents to read the USA Today pro­files of the 20 all-​​star mem­bers and choose their favorite. Stu­dents can then write an expla­na­tion of why they chose their favorite all-​​star. In groups of three, they can explain to each other why they admire the dif­fer­ent team members.
• Imag­ine that you are hold­ing an aca­d­e­mic all-​​star com­pe­ti­tion in your own school. On the board, come up with a list of attrib­utes that would be impor­tant for the win­ner to have, and define them (What kind of grades, what extra-​​curricular activ­i­ties, any spe­cific char­ac­ter­is­tics?). Advanced classes can actu­ally orga­nize this com­pe­ti­tion, design­ing an appli­ca­tion form with spe­cific ques­tions, pick­ing judges, and arrang­ing for school-​​wide recog­ni­tion of the winners.
• Enlist the help of par­ents to orga­nize a class ser­vice trip where stu­dents can be with needy peo­ple in a con­crete and obvi­ous way (soup kitchen, children’s hos­pi­tal, nurs­ing home, etc.). This can also encom­pass spir­i­tual needs such as a cat­e­ch­esis group for younger chil­dren or a mission.
• Divide stu­dents into groups of four. Give each group a news­pa­per arti­cle which of medium length. Stu­dents read the arti­cle and try to iden­tify the needs of the peo­ple involved. On a sheet of paper, they list all of the char­ac­ters or groups that are involved in some way in the story. Under each char­ac­ter, they think of all the pos­si­ble needs that per­son has. The stu­dents put a star by one of the needs that they could help solve. Together they think of a project pro­posal (hypo­thet­i­cal) that would address the need.

Resources

Catholic youth missionaries: http://www.ytm.org/

Catholic Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tion at Auburn Uni­ver­sity:   http://www.auburncso.com

NCAA Life Skills: http://www1.ncaa.org/membership/ed_outreach/champs-life_skills/index.html

Engi­neers with­out Bor­ders:   http://www.ewb-usa.org/

Bridges to Com­mu­nity:   http://www.bridgestocommunity.org/

Pro­files of Col­lege Aca­d­e­mic All-​​star team:

http://mostviewednews.orb6.com/stories/usatoday/20050217/2005collegeacademicallstarsfirstteam.php