Holy Report Card

I am a terrible procrastinator.
Like I said in my previous post, I am visiting home this weekend, but instead of going out to enjoy this wonderful city, I resolved to stay in and get homework done.

Oh, I stayed in, and in the 7 hours I have been awake, I have accomplished 3 paragraphs for a 4 page paper. Granted, it is in Spanish, and Spanish is not my first language. It is also a history paper and I do not particularly care for the history of the Iberian peninsula and how it affected the Aztecs. It will take un milagro for me to finish this paper tonight.

So 3 paragraphs in 7 hours. That's pretty pathetic. Assume 6 paragraphs a page, 4 pages total, I need 21 more paragraphs. At this rate, it will take me about 2 more full days to write this. Don't worry, I will speed up. Those 7 hours that only produced 3 paragraphs were interrupted by my sick dog, my family, and eating, lots and lots of eating the yummy leftovers from the casino party last night.

This measuring of academic achievement today prompts me to think about my Lenten achievements. The problem with this is that it isn't quite as measurable. There isn't a word count or a page limit, in fact the achievements necessary for holiness are endless. You never reach a holiness 4.00 or a holiness limit, it is constant growth. A good friend of mine has said to me many times, "There is no standing still on the path to holiness. If you aren't moving forward, you are moving backwards."

We do not have the convenient tool of a time sensitive check list, but we have other wonderful resources for how to grow in holiness, like the Bible (I'm a fan of the NRSV), and a whole slew of documents and teachings of the church to guide us on our way. I am currently reading Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on economics (ok, not exactly economics, but there is a lot of good stuff for econgeeks like me).

I must conclude this post and return to my Spanish paper and/or watch my school's basketball team on ESPN.