Dear Senior Class,

This is my dream. After I graduate, I want to buy a hippie jeep with soft sides, dread my hair, buy old cassettes of Bob Marley for $1.00 each on Ebay, start drinking homemade herbal tea mixtures out of mason jars, and take a two month road trip around America camping at all the major national parks in the United States.

If anyone is interested, the Jeep has four seats.

And while on this excursion, I want to spend my time praying and reflecting on the four amazing years of college I was given. Because, we did it.

Well, almost.

We have almost successfully navigated through years of books, lectures, European trains, professors, bad cafeteria food, athletics, long hours in the library, and hundreds of cups of coffee. We are so close to the end, so ready to throw in the towel and start the next part of our lives.

I urge you to take a moment to reflect on the last three years, and decide what you want this last year to be like.

I for one, have tried many times to imagine what my life would have been like without these last three years here at Franciscan, and frankly I cannot do it. These last three years have been some of the most formative years of my life, whether I knew it at the time or not.

But please take note of the word almost. We have almost done it. We have almost conquered college.

But we aren’t done yet. There is still work to be done.

There are still classes to attend, practices to work hard at, Freshmen to mentor, and whether we like it or not, checking out is not an option.

There are still souls that need saving.

I beg you to take this to heart. We were not made for complacency. We were not made for mediocrity or laziness, and I fear we so easily could fall into this trap.

Because, if I could be frank for a moment, I would like to point out that holiness never involves “checking out”. There is a certain diligence that holiness demands. If we want to be holy, we must be dedicated to the Lord, and part of being dedicated to the Lord is by living out our vocations, which right now, for all of us, includes being a student.

The Lord didn’t give you four years of college so that you could spend the fourth year watching Netflix and eating Cheetos in bed.

I am speaking to myself here as well, so don’t think I, or any one else, is exempt from this idea. Lets take this last year to light the world on fire with the love of Christ, instead of wasting it by wishing it away. Lets become more involved than we ever were before, lets participate more in class, run harder at practice, focus more closely on our studies. Lets strive for excellence during our senior year, rather than falling plague to the deadly disease of senior-itis, which can completely and utterly destroy our very beings.

Let’s take this year to be the first year of the rest of our excellent lives.