Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Go Irish! Beat Midterms (Prayerfully)!

This week is anything but ordinary on the Notre Dame campus. Each time the question “How is your week looking?” is uttered this week, it is done so with great trepidation. Typical responses are tossed out and accompanied by wearied looks: “Crazy.” “Stressful.” I have assigned these words to my week in various conversations, too; after all, three exams and several papers do not fit my concept of an ideal week.

BUT, there is great hope…

Last November, I published a post on praying without ceasing in which I discussed how ordinary actions can be offered as prayers of thanksgiving. Something as mundane as washing dishes after hosting friends in my dorm room for tea became an act of prayer for me.

Reflecting on this piece got me thinking about how we can view midterms week and other times of academic stress through this lens, as well. That five-hour chunk spent at the library can be offered up to God in a prayer of gratitude for the gift of education. The effort of hand-crafting an essay can be used to praise God for His creative power. Working hard to chip away at a problem set may not seem prayerful at the surface level, but it can be made so by putting away our phones and other distractions and offering our focused, hard work in prayer.

In fact, the act of focusing, the act of paying attention, can help us cultivate better prayer lives.



Simone Weil, French philosopher and teacher, reflects on the refinement of such attention in Waiting for God. She writes that “school exercises…are extremely effective in increasing the power of attention that will be available at the time of prayer” if students actively engage in their schoolwork with the intention of prayerful attention. I find her reflection on long hours of studying hopeful: “Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted.” Simone also comments on finding joy in schoolwork:

“The intelligence can only be led by desire. For there to be desire, there must be pleasure and joy in the work. The intelligence only grows and bears fruit in joy. The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.”

Approaching schoolwork with faithful attention, oriented toward a desire to cultivate a better prayer life through the practice of focused attention, then, yields many fruits. Including JOY!

In New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton offers this beautiful reflection on attentive work:

“To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me.”

We are called to do everything for the glory of God, whether picking apples, running cross country, or studying for midterms (1 Corinthians 10:31). Being a student is a vocation. As college students, the best way we can live into our common vocation is to focus in and offer our studious efforts in prayer. Through paying attention to our studies and by intentionally offering them to God in prayer, our work will bear many fruits. We will cultivate the ability to better pay attention during our daily lives, whether in prayer (encountering God) or daily conversation (encountering others), and we will realize the full potential of the joy of learning.

Midterms week may still be “crazy” and “stressful,” but it can also be prayerful and full of joy.

Go Irish, Go!

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