How CBL Changed my Perspective – Elaines Peña ’18

Growing up in the inner city of Boston all that I ever heard was the college was the only way to “get out of the hood”, to get a job, and to be happy. I realized that I was not coming to college just for me but for my whole family. Everyone depended on my success. With that in mind I came to Holy Cross hoping to be an Economics major, because that is what I thought would secure me a job after college. At that point, getting a job and wealth was the only picture of living a good life that I had. I was not interested in the topic and that was clear to me my freshman year when I struggled in my Principles to Microeconomics class. Instead I found myself thriving in my Montserrat class, Exploring Differences, which is where I was introduced to CBL.

Personally I have realized that Economics does not fulfill me. With that class I did not have time to focus on justice, but I only had time to focus on myself. CBL helped me choose what was really important to me. With CBL I was able to direct my attention to God and justice for the marginalized. Justice is something that I want to focus on now, and that is what I see CBL doing for me and for those around me. CBL is more than just about community service to me, it is about the conversations of justice that CBL initiates in class. With discussions of CBL in my past classes, the injustices in the world become reality. As students we are able to put faces on the marginalized people we read about in class, which inspires us to get to the root of the problems in society.

Recently in my Liberation Theology course we discussed how some see religion as an opiate because it teaches us to endure the pain of the world and wait for the suffering to go away in heaven. Before I took any CBL courses, I was enduring the pain of the world by accepting the injustices that I saw. Instead of being idle to the injustices of the world, I have chosen to be active, and play a role in one day easing the injustices of the world.