Spiritual fitness is about establishing and maintaining a balance of reason in our faith.

It is about serving the common good. Many ask why involvement in the community is encouraged.

My personal experiences with community service will help to shed light on that problem.

I have attended Church regularly since I was born. I started becoming involved with the Church and the community during the year of my Confirmation when I was about 13 years old.

Service is mandatory for Confirmation candidates, so I decided to become an assistant CCD teacher at St. Patrick?s.

I worked very closely with a student who found the work especially difficult in the Grade 7 class.

I am a Lector at St. Patrick?s during the 6:00 p.m. Evening Mass on Saturdays. It involves proclaiming Scripture publicly.

I began Lectoring almost as soon as I was Confirmed, and I read once or twice a month. I actually read last weekend. I also opted to become involved as a Minister of Hospitality, which involves greeting people at the entrance of the Church and attending to any needs the people may have.

I also help to set-up for any of the events that the Social Committee St. Patrick?s sponsors. This year, I am also participating with the Midnight Mass Christmas Choir at St. Patrick?s.

Not only do I volunteer at Church, but in the community as well. I worked at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo for a year as a Junior Volunteer.

Mount St. Agnes, as a prerequisite for graduation, has its Senior Class students participate in some form of community service once a week for their entire senior year. I personally chose to work the St. Vincent De Paul Society outreach programme, which basically entails going to a family or a person and simply talking to them, keeping them company, and helping out if they need something.

I go to a nice elderly lady by the name of Sarah Aruda, who is 99 years old. She is always delighted to see us.

The time that you share with others is the greatest gift that you can give, because by spending a few moments with someone who is lonely is fulfilling. It is my belief that little time spent with another can influence and perhaps change that person?s life.

For me, personally, the drive to continue being involved within the Church and the community stems from the great sense of satisfaction that service instils.

Basically, community service makes me feel good. I genuinely enjoy helping people, and their gratitude is further encouragement, even on a bad day. We all have bad days and face challenges, and these challenges do tend to consume our thoughts and actions, but seeing the smiling face of another, hearing them say ?thank you? and realising you have gone out and made a positive difference is, spiritually, very uplifting.

In my opinion, it is through this type of community service and involvement that we discover that we discover that we have many personal gifts, most of which we did not know we had.

We often ask how we can develop or acquire the special talents and gifts that we see others have. However, it is unfortunate that we do not stop and ask ourselves how we have been blessed, and what gifts and talents have been given to us that have not been given to those other people. While it is true that special abilities can be harnessed and developed, it is also true that each individual is born with unique gifts of their own that they should concentrate on.

It is this concept that is the focal point of spiritual fitness. God bestowed on us all natural abilities.

There is a happiness that comes from being true to oneself, and using the gifts given to us to lift up and improve what is around us.

Some people may say that they do not have any particularly special gifts, but is that really true? Simply because we cannot look into the future or heal the sick doesn?t mean that we do not have gifts; it implies that there are many different types of gifts.

Perhaps you are a good cook or can bring a smile to someone?s face quite easily. Maybe you are blessed with patience.

... The goal of spiritual fitness is to build up our inner person, our vision of who we are as people, and our ability to consistently represent that vision during our lives. The guiding principle of spiritual fitness instils a sense of inner peace, and helps us to focus on our goals, aspirations, and activities.

Being spiritually healthy and developing a close relationship with God helps us to not look back on our life and regretfully ask ?Why did we live our life that way we did??

Spirituality is the essence of our relationships within the intimate and the ultimate spheres of our lives. Spiritual fitness, spiritual discipline, is our effort to be in harmony with the world around us.

But how do we know if we are spiritually healthy? Sometimes the answers are obvious, but sometimes the answers are not. The answer to this question, and the way to become spiritually healthy, lies within our hearts and souls.

We know through intuition and reason. We know through our traditions of religious scripture or through the traditions of our religious communities. Through them, we know or we believe, what we have learned. And that belief is converted into our own personal truth.

Developing that personal truth is what helps us as an individual make decision. Evil, obviously, exists in our world.

Even though we are not strangers to it, we must do our best not to allow ourselves to become participants in it. In order to do that, we must be disciplined in our efforts towards spiritual fitness.

In the midst of terrorists, who have not found truth but rather turned their back on it, we must not reject the possibility of truth because others have done so.

Our personal truth answers the question of what God would do, and although what God would do may not always be the most popular, it has always been my belief that in doing what you think God would do, you can do no wrong.

Above all else, spiritual fitness promotes friendships with God.

...Why is it important to have God be a presence in your life? Because sometimes you may not have anyone else to depend on.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his Harvard Divinity School Address, said: ?The time is coming when all Men will see that the gift of God to the soul is... a sweet, natural goodness, a goodness that invites yours and mine to grow.?

God is calling for each of us to realise our personal gifts, discern our personal truth, and develop personal relationships. And each of these principles is obtained by working towards Spiritual Fitness.

David Amaro is a senior at Mount Saint Agnes Academy.