Judgement. It's rough.

It’s official — I’ve been a college student for three full weeks. It might seem like a short time, but in those three weeks, I was exposed to more than I ever had been in my previous 18 ½ years on this planet. Partying. Drama. All the stereotypical college-life stuff you would expect.

But not participating in these shenanigans wasn’t the hard part — I’ve made some amazing friends at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center who love to have fun in unique, hilarious ways like playing sand volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, or going to Dairy Queen. So avoiding the craziness of the college life isn’t extremely difficult. Where things get tough is fighting the temptation to judge people who don’t make the best decisions.

I’m being real here — it’s not easy. 

Judging is something we all do. It just happens. At least for me, it’s usually because I want to feel like I’m superior to others. I’m working with Mary on trying to become more humble. But we all judge for different reasons.

I had really been struggling with judging many, many people around me at school. And the Big Man Upstairs decided to throw me help me out, like He always does somehow.

A few days ago, I was looking for a Mother Teresa quote to put in my English paper. I was on some quote website, and the first thing I saw at the top of the screen was this: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Thanks for that one, God.

Next, we had our first night of catechetical classes at the St. Lawrence Center yesterday. John-Mark Miravalle (“Teaching Fellow in the St Lawrence Institute for Faith and Culture,” what a sweet title) taught a class about Virtue and the origins of happiness. I learned that every single action we commit, good or bad, has some root of good intentions. Even if I went and stole a necklace from Macy’s (which I don’t plan on doing, by the way), I could justify that I had good intentions by saying that I wanted to look beautiful, because beauty is a good thing and a cause of happiness. So you see how every action is rooted in a desire to be happy.  Therefore, we have no right to judge anyone, because we all look for happiness in different but similar ways.

Finally, today, I was just scrolling down my News Feed on Facebook, right? Here’s what comes up this time — a picture that said, “Don’t judge people someone because they sin differently than you.” Everything came together. And that’s when it really hit me. I have absolutely no right to judge. Because there are numerous things that I too could be judged for — they’re just different things that I judge others for.

When it comes down to it, we don’t know everyone else’s lives. We don’t know their struggles. We don’t know their desires. We don’t know their story.

So all in all, judging is not cool. And Mary can totally help us. She’s a rock star with humility.

Mary, Star of the Prairie, pray for us.