The Life of a Student: Much More than Papers, Projects, and Finals

As we approach the final classes of the semester and final exams, I wanted to share some insightful and, hopefully, motivating, quotes about being a student. I know for me as the semester drags on (or flies by, depending on how you look at it) I often loose sight of my purpose as a student. Especially being a senior this year, it’s easy to see school and everything that it entails as just the last step before “real life” begins. Recently this way of looking at things has really been negatively affecting my attitude toward classes, assignments, and finals. The last couple days though, I’ve been getting the feeling that the Lord is trying to challenge me to turn my bad attitude around and to realize that what He has placed before me right now, the life of a student, is His will for me at the moment. Fr. Brad said in a homily the other day, “Success is doing the will of God.” If I make the effort, I can choose to see each academic hurdle as an opportunity for doing God’s will, as an opportunity for success.

Know that you will all be in my thoughts and prayers these last, challenging days of the semester!

Peace,

Megan

"Dear students, Hold school in high esteem! Return to it joyfully; consider it a great gift, a fundamental right which, of course, also involves duties." -Blessed Pope John Paul II

"An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer."
St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 335

"You have a war-horse called study. You resolve a thousand times to make good use of your time, yet you are distracted by the slightest thing. Sometimes you get annoyed at yourself, because of your lack of willpower, even though you begin again every day.
Have you tried offering up your study for specific apostolic intentions?"
St. Josemaria Escriva, Furrow, 523

"Do you desire to study to your advantage? Let devotion accompany all your studies, and study less to make yourself learned than to become a saint. Consult God more than your books, and ask him, with humility, to make you understand what you read. Study fatigues and drains the mind and heart. Go from time to time to refresh them at the feet of Jesus Christ under his cross. Some moments of repose in his sacred wounds give fresh vigor and new lights. Interrupt your application by short, but fervent and ejaculatory prayers: never begin or end your study but by prayer. Science is a gift of the Father of lights; do not therefore consider it as barely the work of your own mind or industry."
-Saint Vincent Ferrer

"You must study ... but that is not enough.
What do those who kill themselves working to feed their self-esteem achieve? Or those who have nothing else in mind but assuring peace of mind for a few years ahead?
One has to study – to gain the world and conquer it for God. Then we can raise the level of our efforts: we can try to turn the work we do into an encounter with the Lord and the foundation to support those who will follow our way in the future.
In this way, study will become prayer."
St. Josemaria Escriva, Furrow, 526

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23-24