Food Bank

Throughout this year, I have done many different types of community service. Whether it be tutoring, food distribution, or simple manual labor, there has been one consistent factor through all of them. I have done almost all of these services alone. When I decided to work at the food pantry, I was optimistic about the amount of people that we as a group would be able to help. I learned at the food pantry that there is a substantial difference between working by yourself, like I usually do and working with friends. By yourself, there are certain limits to the number of things you can accomplish. You only have a certain amount of energy you can commit to your goal and therefore that lessens many of your possibilities. But when you work with friends, your abilities to work and think are greatly increased, as instead of having one mindset, you have many.  Most importantly, I felt that I could accomplish more in a group, than I ever could working as an individual. I saw yesterday how much time and effort everyone put in to helping at the food pantry and I could not wait to see what we are able to do when we put that same effort into different things. I know that as a team, we were able to find and do something that we are truly passionate about like packing food for the homeless.

During the experience of packing and handing out food, I felt like I was living a more Christ like life. I also felt that seeing a different economic level opened my eyes to the poverty that is all around us, and it allowed me to feel for the people who may not have food or a place to live. I remember one Sunday when I was working at San Mateo handing out food to underprivileged families. I specifically remember looking at some of the kids that were hungry and seeing the joy when they got all the food. This experience has allowed me to gain a greater understanding for the underprivileged families in the Houston area and around the world. While packaging food, my group and I participated in a program called backpack buddies. Backpack buddies gives food to kids who only eat when at school. When packaging the food all I could think about were the kids that would be overjoyed when they received this food. The Houston Food bank is an amazing place that allowed me to both package and deliver food to underprivileged kids and families.

Looking back on the experience I have a greater appreciation for all that I have especially the food. Seeing the reactions of the kids when they are receiving food changed my perspective on the world. We live in such a privileged and lucky society and I sometimes forget that there are people with little to no food or shelter. All in all, I enjoyed growing closer to God and reminding myself of all the things people need in the world.

Helping the Under-Privileged Community

For my fifteen sophomore service hours required for graduation of my sophomore year, my family and I decided that I should volunteer at Spring Baseball. Spring Baseball is an organization that organizes a baseball league for under-privileged kids in a bad part of town. This organization was created with hopes that it would help these young kids as well as their entire family to get involved in their community through baseball and to stay out of trouble. I feel like my choice of volunteering at this organization was a good one because I used to play baseball and I enjoyed it very much throughout my middle school years. My duties and responsibilities during the hours that I volunteered were to assist the younger kids with the fundamentals of baseball, to assist the coaches in keeping the young athletes under control, and sometimes even to setup a volleyball game so that the families of the young baseball players could get involved in the fun as well.

            I think that this service project relates to my life at Strake Jesuit because one of the six grad at grad statements is physically fit. This means that although Strake Jesuit and its students take much pride in their academic success, they also take pride in their physical abilities and their performance in sports. I think this project is especially important because, as I said before, one of the main purposes of this organization is to get kids that live in a bad part of town to participate in their community in order to keep them off the streets and causing mischief. I am proud to have worked at this organization because keeping young kids involved in their community and out of trouble can affect them greatly as they mature and get older. They will most likely become more responsible and willing to help others because of the kindness that people had shown to them in their early childhood.

One main thing that I want to reflect on in this reflection paper is something that I didn’t really realize and it kind of bugged me at the time, but after thinking and reflecting about the experience I realized why this certain thing kept on happening. This “thing” is that many of the families that came to Spring Baseball late or sometimes didn’t even show up at all. The experience was very inconsistent because of this. Sometimes when I volunteered there, there would be tons of people and they would all show up on time, but other times there were very few people and the people that did show up were very late. This meant that I had a little down time in between setting up and the arrival of the players. The absence of punctuality of the players and their families annoyed me at first, but then I realized that they are doing their best to get there on time. I noticed that many of the families walked to the Spring Baseball fields, so I began to understand their inconsistency. Many times some of the families that showed up were very large, maybe about seven or eight people. This means that it would have been hard for them to get organized and walk to the field in order to get there on time without fail. I discovered that in the over-indulged world that I live in, being punctual and on time is a very important thing, but in the world of the under-privileged families, they are trying their hardest to get there on time. After discovering the reality of the situation, I became a lot more patient with the families and I now just happy when they showed up and were ready to play some baseball!

What are the Sacraments?

The sacraments are signs and instruments of God's grace. The seven sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick—are viewed as the life of the Catholic Church. Each sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace. The Catholic Church teaches that a sacrament "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions" (CCC 1131). As an efficacious sign of grace, the sacraments are successful in producing the desired result. Catholic's believe that the sacraments allow us to receive the grace and grow in holiness. Through the sacraments, we are able to grow closer to God and develop a greater relationship with Him.

The Fourth and Final Mark: Apostolic

The Church is apostolic. Christ founded the Church and entrusted His authority to the Apostles, who were the first bishops. He entrusted a special authority to Saint Peter, the first Pope and Bishop of Rome, to be his Vicar here on earth. This authority has been handed down through the Sacrament of Holy Orders in apostolic succession. The bishops that are alive right now can trace their authority all the way back to one of the original twelve Apostles that were alive during the time of Christ. Apostolic succession is from bishop to bishop and these bishops ordain priests and deacons to assist them with their work. Bishops are in charge of areas called diocese and these bishops ordain priests to run a specific church inside of the diocese. This is all part of something called the Hierarchy of the Church. That was just a little bit of background information about the bishops because they play such a big role in the Church being apostolic.
We can also see the mark of apostolic through the Deposit of Faith. The Deposit of Faith is found in both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and it was preserved, taught, and handed on by the Apostles. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Magisterium has the duty to preserve, teach , defend, and hand on the Deposit of Faith.

The Third Mark: Catholic

The Church is catholic. Saint Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrnaens, which my classmates and I had to read earlier this year, used the word catholic, meaning universal, to describe the Church. The Church is catholic because Christ is universally present in the Church. Christ told His Apostles to spread his message to "Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Christ told his Apostles to evangelize the world by saying "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). These quotes show the universality of the Church because Christ is telling his Apostles to spread the word of God to everybody all the way to the ends of the earth, so that everybody could hear the Good News of the word of Christ.
The picture shown in this post is the symbol of the Pope. I chose this picture to symbolize the third mark of the Church, Catholic, because the Pope, the successor of Peter, is the head of the Catholic Church. He continues the mission of the the Apostles, along with the Bishops, to evangelize and to spread the word of Christ to the ends of the earth. With Papal infallibility, the belief that God protects the Pope from error when teaching on matters of faith and morals, the Pope is able to spread the message of Christ message throughout the world as Christs intended it.

The Second Mark: Holy

The Church is holy. Our Lord Himself is the source of all holiness: "The one Christ is mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in His body which is the Church" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #14). Christ sanctifies the Church, and, through Him, the Church is His tool that he uses for sanctification. Through the Church and the power of the Holy Spirit, our Lord gives us abundant graces, especially through the sacraments. Therefore, through its teaching, prayer and worship, and good works, the Church is a visible sign of holiness. Each member of the Church has been called to holiness. Through baptism, we have been freed from original sin, filled with sanctifying grace, immersed into the mystery of our Lord's passion, death, and resurrection, and incorporated into the Church. A visible sign of the Church's holiness is all of the Saints that the Church has produced for centuries. These Saints have done many holy things to help the Church spread the word of God. 

The First Mark: One

The Church is one. The Catechism notes that the Church is one for three reasons: first, because of its source, which is the Holy Trinity, a perfect unity of three divine persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; second, because of its founder, Jesus Christ, who came to reconcile all mankind through the blood of the cross; and third, because of its "soul," the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the souls of the faithful, who unites all of the faithful into one communion of believers, and who guides the Church (#813). The "oneness" of the Church is also visible. Catholics are united in the Creed and the other teachings, the celebration of the sacraments, and the hierarchical structure based on the apostolic succession preserved and handed on through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. For example, no matter where a Catholic celebrates Mass, the Mass is the same — the same readings, structure, and prayers. Another place the oneness of the Church is present is the diversity of the Church. Lots of different people in lots of different cultures and traditions celebrate Catholicism. Although there is lots of diversity in the Catholic Church, all the members in the Church are united. The oneness of the Church has allowed the members of the Catholic Church to stay united for centuries.