This article is especially written for students. Listen up all you ambitious, competitive, grade-conscious students, as I am about to share with you the most useful news you would want to hear as you begin the new academic year (or for freshies, as you begin your UP life). Have you ever dreamed of becoming the most brilliant student, one who is praised and respected by both professors and students? What is it about these students whose names appear every semester in their respective colleges’ list of University Scholars and College Scholars? Why can they make it? Why are they so lucky? Guess what friends—it is may be luck that works in their lives. But if you think you are one unlucky creature, don’t despair for you too can be as shining, glowing and sparkling as those lucky ones. Let them embrace the luck they have for you have something grander and more fantastic to embrace. But first let me tell you how I met this being you will soon want to embrace.
It was around 6 in the afternoon on a certain Tuesday dated the 14th of July this year when I heard this news which I am sharing with you. As I listen to our new Campus Ministry Head, Fr. Mike Ty, I am slowly hearing the best news I need to learn as I start the academic year. For ambitious, competitive and grade conscious people like me, (yes, I admit to being a grade conscious kid who computes my grade average every end of each semester to mark my target grades in the remaining subjects of my curriculum. GC, right?) I realize that although it may help to have some vision of the grades we want to achieve for each of our subjects, nothing beats entrusting the Holy Spirit to work his magic in our works so these would be even better than we dreamed it would be. We do not need luck to help us become dazzlingly brilliant creatures worthy of admiration and respect from our professors and fellow students. It is the Holy Spirit whom we need to help us grow into the best person we can be.
As Fr. Mike puts it, if only we let the Holy Spirit join us in our dance of pursuing a good academic life, our dreams of honor, of a gold medal, of a certificate are actually just simple dreams which are easily attainable. They are easy enough to attain that you might as well ask for bigger dreams. Sky is the limit, if your genie is the Holy Spirit.
In the end, all our worries are useless. All our problems, issues and hang ups are no more than a speck of dust that we can easily brush off if we have the Holy Spirit guiding us in our everyday lives. When we think about it thoroughly, the very big question that we ask of life is actually to have, quoting Fr. Mike, “an untroubled heart”, a heart of calm and peace. And this untroubled heart comes from having the Holy Spirit dance with us, “from having a deep relationship with God”. It is only when we embrace God’s love through a deep relationship with Him that we can have our biggest dream fulfilled.
By Kristine Turado
