By: Elijah Obasanya

Sometimes I think going through life can be analogous to getting steamrolled by a truck. It sounds rather harsh, but it is definitely the truth. Not to say that life is a daily struggle, but it sure does seem like it for a lot of folks in this world. I’ve gone through a lot in my life, and I think that it is rather important to understand that the smallest of factors, can have the most dramatic effect on someone. From my perspective, there was a multitude of factors that have affected my life, however I would like to focus on one time in particular: adolescence.
Adolescence for me was like oxygen in a vacuum, fire in outer space, or almost like a fresh foods grocery store in a predominantly black community. It was nonexistent, a fantasy, an illusion that kept true adolescence consistently eluded from me. I’ve always thought that I had an acceptable or normal adolescence. It is hilarious to think about this because it has become crystal clear that it was so nonexistent to the extent that I was completely unaware of what adolescence even meant. Up until very recently, adolescence meant simply living and going through the motions of teenage years. Hilarious right? I was so lost on what true adolescence meant, that I was unable to even determine the quality of my adolescence.
There are a variety of reasons as to why I consider my adolescence nonexistent, however I would rather talk about how it has led to the person that I am today, and the person I’m steadily growing into being. It all started with a self-assessment. I am unaware of when it happened exactly, but it is something that has definitely been occurring more and more recently. I began to think about who I am, the person I want to be, and where exactly I want to go in life. Not in the vein of occupation or life goals, but more so on the type of person I am, the values that I want to hold dear, and the people I consider to be vital in my life. If I were to answer these questions today, one would only need to look up at the stars in the night sky to get a sense of what the answers would be. Beautiful, but a scattershot. Seemingly disordered, and completely unorganized.
It was at this moment that I began to realize that I’ve only truly begun to live through my adolescence, my real adolescence. My teenage years was such an ordeal that I realized I couldn’t possibly fit an adolescence in the chaos that was life at the time. A rose tinted perspective would be one that is joyful of the fact that adolescence has at least begun. Many people go through life without contemplating who they are, what their top values should be, what they would stand for, and what they would die for.
Though my answers to these questions would look like the night sky, a jumbled series of stars with seemingly no direction and order, underneath the mess is gravity. An underlying force that has kept the stars in the same motions and positions spanning from thousands of years in the past, and will continue for thousands of years into the future. To fully complete my adolescence, all I need is to sift through the confusion and uncertainty of who I am. I say this because ultimately I know that the answers to these questions have been there all along. Just waiting for me to find it.

By: Nicolette Prociuk

I’m losing my faith. Or at least that’s what this feels like. And yet everyone’s telling me that it’s healthy to constantly question my beliefs but my beliefs aren’t what I’m questioning. It’s balancing who I am with what I’ve always believed. Sure I don’t receive Christ every week like I’m supposed to and I am constantly breaking the Ten Commandments. I have no idea when the last time I went to Confession. According to my mother I am impure to receive the Eucharist because I identify as Bisexual. I have broken the rule of abstinence. I haven’t read the Bible in years yet I have never felt closer to my faith because of DePaul. By living out being a Vincentian I have felt so close to the true meaning of being a Catholic. Sure going to mass and praying are key components to Catholicism but that’s not our purpose or meaning. Where is the action? We are told to be like Christ yet we reside in our safe churches every weekend and ignore that person experiencing homelessness as we walk out of mass that Sunday. Where is the justice in that? If we preach about how great Jesus was and aspire to take action like Him why don’t we practice what we preach?

Many Catholics cringe at the word social justice. It’s too liberal or too dramatic but yet is basically what Jesus did, he went to the poor. He didn’t “serve” them, he was one of them! But in the same way we must question authority and those that put the lowest of society into these conditions the same way Jesus Christ questioned the high priests. We must question the authority of these political figures who promise all this honesty and don’t deliver. While we put band aids on outside issues we must conquer and go straight to the source on the inside to end this struggle many human beings go through that so many others profit off of.