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by: Christine Grote
FOCUS Missionary
Montclair State Newman Catholic Center
Does Latin scare you? It can be intimidating, since it’s a dead language. But really Latin is nothing to be afraid of, especially if you go to Montclair State University. You have your motto Carpe Diem and at least two buildings named after it.
Have you ever thought about “carpe diem,” and what it means to “seize the day”? It means to grab a hold of whatever moment is in front of you and get what you can out of it. Well, honestly what can you “get” out of the moment when you are stuck in traffic? What can you “get” out of the moment when you are so distracted in Mass that you are not sure how you ended up in line for the Eucharist?
So what are you supposed to do with the moment that encouraged you to seize the day? You offer it up, to God. You’re stuck behind a long red light? Offer that moment to God & acknowledge His presence right there in the car with you. We’re not meant to “get things out” of life, we are meant to give and receive. There is a difference.
The difference lies in Venerable Pope John PauI II’s motto, “Totus Tuus.” I know, I know, another Latin phrase but it is worth it. The words “Totus Tuus” belong in a category of words like: Totally. Completely. Absolutely. Unconditionally. Limitless.
“Totus Tuus” means totally yours.
I learned the phrase from Pope John Paul II’s life. His mother passed away, and so he fled to Our Mother the Blessed Virgin and the Church and said “Totus Tuus.” What he was saying to Our Mother was: “I am totally yours & you must be my mother now.”
When I heard that story, my heart dropped to the floor. I knew that just as JPII was called to utter that phrase, so was I. This is a phrase that I love. I am either all in or all out. I don’t like gray areas or white noise. I hate busywork, red traffic lights, and boredom. I want every moment of my life to matter.
The words Totus Tuus, were created for me. They were created for you too. They were created for Pope John Paul the II and the entire world, so that we could utter them to Our Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t want to give Him half of me. I want Him to have me, totally.
Yet, I fail at this, every day. In fact I fail at it a lot every day. It’s like when you were a kid and you had to share your toys. I used to think that if my sisters didn’t know I had the toys, I wouldn’t have to share them. So I would seize them and hide them. You know what happened then? No one got to play with them, not my sisters and not me… because I was too busy hiding them.
Like our childhood toys, when we have moments, gifts, joys, struggles or sins that we don’t want the Lord to see, we seize them and we try to hide them. You know what happens? No one has any fun. The Lord, who has already borne the pain
of your “hidden” sin, doesn’t get the joy of relieving you from your pain and neither do you. The Lord who has given you your gifts or talent doesn’t get the joy of watching you share it with the world for His glory. Yes you’ve “seized the moment”, the gift, the talent, the struggle or the pain. But then your hands are too full because the “seizing” is where you’re stuck. Once you take a hold of something, we must offer it back to the Lord. It is then that we re ceive more and are able to give more.
Last year, I did a lot of seizing. Life got kind of rough. At one point in time, someone very dear to me, a family member hit rock bottom. And you know what I did? I seized the struggle and I ran. I held onto that struggle, just like a toy, and prayed that the Lord wouldn’t ask me to share it with Him. Because I didn’t want to share it with anybody. And there was nothing life-giving in that at all. It was just hard.
One day in prayer the Lord asked me why I couldn’t give it to Him. He asked, “Christine, well, what are you going to do with it?”
Good point. See, I can’t do anything with this struggle. It was consuming my heart, my energy and it wore me down. It was a heavy burden to carry around and the Lord has already resurrected every struggle, sin, and pain that we try to carry. So we are better off just offering it to Him.
This is the meaning of Totus Tuus: to hold absolutely nothing back. Totally, Completely, and Unconditionally yours. All that I have, I offer to you. And
this act, this prayer, this motto is greater than Carpe Diem,
much greater.
This is my prayer for you as we dive deeper into the semester. I pray that you will hold nothing back. I pray that you will embrace the Latin phrases in your life. I pray that you give more and receive more. Most especially I pray, that the prayer of Totus Tuus enter your heart and that you experience the joy of seizing the moment with God and offering it completely back to Him!
