Dear Heidi, You feel like you\u2019re in exile?\u00a0 Long dark nights, short grey days, cold icy windowpanes and the same boring \u201cgruel\u201d each day (I doubt cafeteria food is THAT bad\u2026).\u00a0 It does indeed sound a bit exilic.\u00a0 So you have two choices: transfer (which would mean renouncing all the good reasons that brought you north for college in the first place), or take advantage. \u00a0Yes, it is possible to take advantage of being in exile.\u00a0 Don\u2019t just believe me (though I do have some experience in this regard), believe today\u2019s saint, and follow in his footsteps. He was born in western France, to well-to-do pagan parents, who dutifully brought him up in the deadening falsity of paganism.\u00a0 But God had other plans.\u00a0 After he married and started his family, he decided to dedicate himself to further study (he had already received a solid classical education in rhetoric).\u00a0 Questions about the meaning of life interested him most, and with the help of Providence, his sincere, inquiring mind made its way step by step towards Christianity, which he eventually embraced wholeheartedly.\u00a0 So fertile did the soil of his soul show itself that he was soon ordained and then named bishop of his hometown of Poitiers.\u00a0 Tirelessly, he preached and taught and served the temporal and eternal needs of his flock.\u00a0 But a few years into it things got complicated. The Arian heresy was spreading like wildfire at the time (the greatest of heresies, that lasted almost six centuries; it claimed, among other things, that Christ was not truly divine).\u00a0 And the Emperor got into the fray \u2013 on the wrong side.\u00a0 He started to promote Arian bishops and demote faithful ones.\u00a0 Hilary happened to be one of the latter, and he was carted off to Phrygia when he wouldn\u2019t sign the Arian papers.\u00a0 For four years he was exiled, with all the sufferings that entailed (the ones you listed in your note, plus a host of others), but he was never idle.\u00a0 He increased his already prolific writing, striving to do through the written word what his exile precluded him from doing in person.\u00a0 He sent a defense of the true faith the Emperor, he composed commentaries on books from the Bible, and he redacted a treatise thoroughly defending Catholic truth called \u201cOn the Trinity\u201d.\u00a0 Eventually, he made his way to Constantinople, the seedbed of the rebels, and publicly challenged the leading Arian to a debate.\u00a0 It was rather embarrassing, but Saturninus declined, and Hilary was sent back to Poitiers, where they thought he would drop into obscurity.\u00a0 Instead, he called a council of the bishops in Gaul and continued confounding the Arians and supporting Christ\u2019s Church. So as you can see, he got a lot done in his four years of exile \u2013 more than most people do in a lifetime.\u00a0 If you stay close to Christ, and focus more on what opportunities he gives you than on the sacrifices he demands of you, I will venture a bet that your four year \u201cexile\u201d will be equally fruitful, if not equally dramatic. Your fellow deportee, Uncle Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Heidi, You feel like you\u2019re in exile?\u00a0 Long dark nights, short grey days, cold icy windowpanes and the same boring \u201cgruel\u201d each day (I doubt cafeteria food is THAT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n