Anyone who goes to Xavier knows service seems to be the foundation of not only our education, but also our faith. We are taught we need to help others because it is the right thing to do. But oftentimes, the essence of service can be lost when all we do is post about it on social media. We are taught that we should humbly serve, but are we really practicing humility by showing off our good deeds? When we help others, we should do it because it’s the right thing to do. We shold not post about it to make ourselves look better.

I first started thinking about this when we began talking about morality in my religion class. Ms. Soukup told us that for an act to be morally good, it must have a moral object and a moral intention. This means you must not only do the right thing, but do it for the right reasons. Just shortly after the flood happened, the majority of the Xavier community went out to help sandbag and move furniture. While this was a great act, I was surprised by how much effort was put into posting pictures, starting hashtags, and tweeting about all the positive things that were happening. It made me wonder whether we do service to help or just for others to see. This is also evident every year with Community Service Day. Not only do we go out to rake leaves, but social media floods with people showing the world what we are doing. Putting our service days on the news and starting hash tags like #xhsfloodhelp can sometimes take away from the true meaning behind helping those in need. We should be going out and helping for the good of others, not for ourselves.

I am by no means saying we shouldn’t help the community by doing service. I truly think all the service Xavier does is a great thing. I even think we need to go out and do more for our community. However, the next time we do, I encourage us to do it because we want to help, not because we want recognition from others. Sometimes, we need to step back and reassess how our posts come across. We should make sure we are celebrating our work, rather than celebrating ourselves. Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.”