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We hope you will not only carry our Salesian charism with you as you head off to your new campus, but also share your own insights as you Live Jesus in college.
"Let us keep our hearts and spirits centered on God!"
- St. Jane de Chantal
Authenticity: Keeping Our Hearts and Spirits Centered on God
By John Whittaker, Religion Teacher
Social media, whether Snapchat, Instagram, or any other platform, is how the majority of high school students and young adults communicate with each other and engage with the world. I observe this every day as students hurry for their cell phones after school to check the latest Snapchat story or Instagram post. This ritual of checking one's phone has become so habitual that it is rare to see anyone without a phone in their face at any given moment of down time. We fear awkward silences, or, perhaps even worse, missing something on social media. We rush to our screens to catch up on what a peer did across town, check how someone's post is being received, or even find out what someone else is doing in another part of campus.
I find myself both caught up in and baffled by this incessant need to check our phones and all that it entails. What is the obsession with following other people's lives? Or capturing and posting details of our own lives only to anxiously await how many views it has received or likes it has gained? I recognize how social media can be a fun and engaging tool of self-expression or a savvy business tool to market products to a wider audience, but is it healthy? When we look to our Instagram feeds or friends' Snapchat stories, for what are we looking? Or, in the spirit of St. Jane de Chantal's words, on what are we really focused? When we are brave enough to confront this question, we can begin to unwrap this obsession. Are we keeping our hearts and spirits centered on God through what we post or see on our social media account? Are we being authentic to who we are and who we want to be when displaying one's life through this medium? This is the challenge that we are faced with when praying about and reflecting over the difficult and commanding words of St. Jane.
Humans crave authenticity. Authenticity is knowing who you are and being true to that self- knowledge. The most authentic people are those who love themselves and love others as God loves them. We have to remember that the deepest truth about ourselves is that we are beautiful creations of a master who first loved us. To keep my heart and spirit focused on God is to be authentic to the deepest truth about myself, that I am created to love and I must extend that profound love to others. Keeping our hearts and spirits centered on God is not to rid ourselves of social media, but it is to challenge ourselves to express ourselves through such a platform that reflects our truest and most authentic self.
Prayer of St. Francis de Sales
Lord, I am yours, and I must belong to no one but you.
My soul is yours and must live only by you.
My will is yours, and must love only for you.
I must love you as my first cause, since I am from you.
I must love you as my end and rest, since I am for you.
I must love you more than my own being, since my being subsists by you.
I must love you more than myself, since I am all yours and all in you.
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Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School
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Special thanks to Cecilia Kane '16 for the banner photo.