Living to the Fullest

A blog post by Chelsea Graham

All throughout the Poland Pilgrimage ideas for this blog kept popping into my head, but now that I’m writing it, I don’t know if it’s what I really want to write about…

 I loved Poland, it was an incredible experience, and one I am so glad that I had, but it was possibly one of the hardest things I’ve experienced. It was wicked cool to see the unveiling of the Black Madonna, touch my rosary to St. Faustina’s relic at the Divine Mercy Shrine, have mass at the Cathedral in Krakow, and see where Blessed John Paul the Second grew up.  And at some of those times I felt like I wasn’t on a pilgrimage, just on a trip visiting Poland. But then Auschwitz would pop into my head. It would remind me of the horror that happened inside the barbed-wire fences. Flashes of buildings, the sleeping conditions, and the death wall would flood my memory, and remind me that this was indeed a pilgrimage.

After Auschwitz I almost forgot how to be happy for a while.  For the rest of that night I was dazed, I was angry, but most of all, I was confused. How could any human being watch what the prisoners were going through and not do anything? What spell were the “commandants” under? None of it had made sense to me. And yes, I’ve seen pictures and read books on the Holocaust, but those in no way prepared me for what I saw at Auschwitz. Nothing could have prepared me for actually being there and beholding the atrocities.

For the rest of the weekend I felt guilty for having a bed to sleep in, food for every meal, and the freedom to do what I want--all the very things that were denied to the prisoners of the concentration camp. It wasn’t until days later at the Festival of Praise (an evening of charismatic prayerful song and praise) that I really let everything sink in, and I accepted it. What right did I have to let life pass me by and not live it to the fullest in the honor of those who couldn’t? The prisoners of the camps will always be a reminder that there is evil in our world, and our lives can change in a matter of minutes, everything can take a turn for the worse in seconds, or we can lose all of our material possessions in a blink of an eye (just think of all the recent natural disasters). 

And we can continue to live just waiting for that to happen or we can look at the opposite end of the spectrum: for many of us, we have our occasional difficulties, but we also have a beautiful, happy life and everything we basically need. We have more than the prisoners of the camp could even dream of in their time of need, so let’s take advantage of that. Let’s not let another day go by when we don’t thank God for the beautiful gifts he has given to us: for his mercy, love and compassion.

I am so blessed to be here in Gaming, and I let almost a whole week go by without even enjoying any of his beauty. Time is of the essence, so let’s not waste it! Go out, explore the beauty of creation, spend time with everyone you love, and love till it hurts. Love like you’ve never loved before for in the scheme of things, we really have so much to be thankful for.