Maggie DiRenzo's Witness, 6 April 2014

Hi. I’m Maggie Di Renzo. I’m a Junior Pharmacy Major and a member of the leadership team with the BCC.

I’m not gonna lie. I have been dreading this moment for the last 2 weeks, maybe even the whole semester. Let’s just say the whole year. I tried to hide and hope I would slip through, but alas here I am. So here we go:

When I first looked at the readings several ideas jumped out at me, but the over-arching theme of all 3 readings is really what struck me the most. The purpose of life. Now before you go and role your eyes, and think to yourself, “Self, there is no way she found the purpose of life just from reading today’s scripture.” Think again. From what I have gathered, our purpose here in this life is to make it to heaven and take as many people along the way with us. I mean the road to get there is rocky and bumpy, but overall it is just one “simple” task. 

When things get rough or I lose focus in my life I try to remember where we are all headed. Yes we have to make it through school and yes we have to get a job and yes we have to accomplish other tasks throughout our life but when things go askew just ask yourself once again, “does this glorify the Lord with my spirit or does this please the flesh?” In the first reading, the lord promised to place his spirit within us so we may live whole fulfilling lives that glorify the Lord.  So have no fear, it is in there somewhere helping you make the right decision. You just have to listen and feel as difficult as that may be at times.

Jumping to the second reading, it gets kinda mushy with all the words having a deeper meaning. You just hear: Alive, dead, sin, spirit, flesh and then flesh again and I’m not a fan of that word so I get kinda grossed out. But the meaning behind all of this is so beautiful and rich in symbolism. You may be physically alive but does that mean you are alive in spirit? And who just wants to be a blob of humanity? God reminds us that through his spirit that he places within us, we can be alive with him but (there’s always a but) we have to die to ourselves, our earthly ways, and our physical bodies in order to better our spiritual bodies. In the gospel, we hear the story of Lazarus raising from the dead. When Jesus gives a little lesson about the different type of dying: flesh vs. spiritual, Thomas, maybe a little naively, get excited and says, “Let us also go to die with him.”

I know when I hear this I think, “ok great idea, but how are we actually going to do that. The science part of me wants to know the process and exactly how we are supposed to accomplish this?” That’s when I realize there isn’t a process or a step by step lab manual. It also reminds me, I am by far not the expert in this field as I feel like we are all striving to better. But I simply remind myself what the ultimate goal of this life is: It is to get to heaven and take as many people along the way with us. So hold we each other accountable, we try our very best and follow what we hear the spirit saying to us in our conscience.

When I fall, I am lucky enough to be reminded often by someone that we are not perfect and never will be perfect so we will fall to our human ways every so often, but that isn’t a reason to give up or use it as an excuse to keep doing what we know is wrong. It also means that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we fall. Just brush yourself off and keep on truckin.

So in the words of Thomas from the gospel, “Let us also go to die with him.”