Year of Mercy Reflection

Friday, Jun. 10, 2016

As a senior at Juan Diego Catholic High School, I was asked to give a reflection about my spiritual growth in my time here. I was baptized Catholic. I currently practice Christianity. Although my mom was Catholic all of her life and my father was Christian, they never cared much about religion. For them it was a matter of your personal relationship with God.

I believe that a lot of people’s first experience with faith is oftentimes influenced by their parents, but as we grow older we become more independent and make the decision of whether we want to believe or not. 

My most recent experience was my senior service project. I worked with multi-disability children at Kauri Sue Hamilton School. It gave me the opportunity to give them the love and care every human needs and deserves. It showed me how blessed I truly was to be able to attend a school where I would have the opportunity to fully immerse myself into an uncomfortable situation  to better myself as a person. It helped me to grow stronger in my faith. Looking into the eyes of children who just wanted to be held, hugged and loved, I found God in those children in just another form of his amazing grace.  

I have been extremely blessed to have been given the opportunity to attend Juan Diego. Growing into an adult is hard. Doing it alone would be even harder, but I’m not doing it alone. I’m growing with God, and it is truly amazing to have an entire community of people who support that.

Justin Sherrell

Juan Diego Catholic High School