Sammie McGurl                     Moreau Integration Two  

Moreau 

 Throughout my first semester at Notre Dame I have encountered many new things: people, 

classes, experiences, and so many others. I have met people from all over the country and even from all 

over the world. I have had classes taught by professors from all different backgrounds on all different 

subjects. I have lived in a dorm room with a roommate from a completely different part of the country 

and with a completely different background from myself. I have eaten two to three meals a day in a 

dining hall rather than my own dining room table. I have moved 12 hours away from my home and 

family to come to a great school. I have experienced seven home college football games. I have laughed. 

I have cried. And I have had so much fun. There have been days that I have wanted to leave. And days 

where I wanted nothing more than to be here. Through it all, I have remained faithful to the Lord, and 

the lessons throughout the weeks of Moreau have helped gain a greater insight into how to carry myself 

and respond to challenges and all the other new experiences I have been having. 

 In week 9, the main points were about dissonance, and that included imposter syndrome and 

making mistakes in our lives. In one of the articles we read, Julia Hogan wrote that “none of us is 

perfect. We all make mistakes […] but the world doesn’t have to end when that happens” (“Why Letting 

Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit” by Julia Hogan – Moreau FYE Week Nine). This was my favorite 

quote from this week’s material. I personally often have a hard time letting go of when I make mistakes 

because I am always striving to be the best person that I can be. It can be difficult in the short run to see 

that it isn’t the end of the world just because I made one stupid mistake and setting a goal of not making 

any mistakes is simply unattainable. It is impossible to go through life without making mistakes, so we 

should just set the expectation that there will be mistakes but that everything will also be okay when we 

make them. My time at Notre Dame so far is teaching me this lesson slowly but surely. Although I 

haven’t made any huge, life-changing mistakes here, I certainly make small mistakes daily. Whether it is 



getting some questions wrong on an assignment or an exam or not handling a situation with a friend in 

the best way possible, or even forgetting to check in on my loved ones back home, I am learning that it 

is okay to make these mistakes. And although we, as humans, don’t want to make mistakes, we are 

simply imperfect and continually make the same mistakes. All we can do is look to the next thing and 

keep going and trying to be the best without beating ourselves up for making a human error.  

 In week 10, we kind of continued on with a similar theme that when we face trials and come 

into contact with things that are hard, we must turn to one another and build each other up, because in 

the end, we are all human beings. In his commencement address, Fr. John Jenkins said that “hatred 

poisons everything” (“Wesley Theological Seminary 2012 Commencement Address” by Fr. John Jenkins – 

Moreau FYE Week Ten). Humans often turn toward hatred when they are wronged or feel like they have 

been. However, Fr. Jenkins rather simply remarks on this concept, saying that hatred is wrong and is 

basically like a disease that spreads and makes everything that it touches “sick”. On the other hand, 

dealing again with more of the internal dissonance touched on in the previous week, I really enjoyed the 

video about the kintsugi pottery and about how we can put all the broken pieces back together again 

and make a single piece that is even more beautiful than the original one. There are many problems in 

our crazy world, both internal and external, but they don’t have to define us, and that doesn’t have to 

make our world dark, broken, and disgusting. Rather, we can take each of the pieces and put everything 

back together again into an even more beautiful complete story. 

 In week 11, we began to focus more heavily on community and diversity within that community, 

which began to touch more on aspects of external dissonance. When faced by both internal and 

external strife, the immediate human response is often to be filled with dread or despair. When we 

think about all the problems within our communities, we can sometimes look at them as problems to be 

fixed rather than the true gifts that they really are. In the text we read there was a beautiful quote that 

said “community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received” (“Thirteen Ways of Looking at 



Community” by Parker J. Palmer – Moreau FYE Week 11). This really changed my perspective on how I 

see community, because of course I value the members of my community, but sometimes it can be 

rather hard for me to value my community as a whole. I often find myself looking very critically on the 

problems that exist within my community rather than embracing its beauty and the true glory of what a 

cohesive community could be. I can fall into this trap of looking at it more like a responsibility or 

something to fix or change, but I should look to see it more as a gift and something glorious to be 

attained. When I face hardships, I often turn just to a few people, but I should be looking to my whole 

beautiful community as a support system to lift me and encourage me. As I have been at Notre Dame 

for almost a whole semester now, I feel myself starting to appreciate the whole overall community and 

know that I can always rely on it for full support in a time of need.  

 In week 12, we turned to looking more at hope in general and even more specifically, hope in 

Christ. A beautiful quote from the document about Holy Cross education reads “Still, the first four 

principles of mind, heart, zeal, and family, important though they are, would have little distinctive 

Christian purpose apart from hope in the cross of Christ” (“Hope-Holy Cross and Christian Education” by 

Fr. James B. King, C.S.C. – Moreau FYE Week 12). The second half of the semester we talked about 

conflict a lot, and at the end we finally moved on to what I would like to call the ‘good news’. We can get 

through all of the hardships and conflict that we talked about simply by putting our faith and hope in 

Christ. He is the final person we should always look to in times of need and even when things are going 

as near to perfect as possible. 

 In conclusion, these last few weeks of Moreau and my time at Notre Dame thus far has taught 

me so much about handling new experiences, especially those involving some form of conflict. I know 

that it’s okay to mess up, it’s good to turn to community, and we must ultimately always place our hope 

in the Lord.  Through it all, everything will ultimately be okay if I place my faith in God and hold myself 

with grace and dignity always. With a little faith, everything will work out in the end.