Love is a universal language
By Magdalena Smyth ’25
As a global studies major with minors in history and political science, I study people, places, and ideas. I love to hear people’s stories: why they live the way they do, why they think what they think and believe what they believe. Through my studies and my personal endeavors, traveling and community service have become central to my education.
In the fall of 2021, my first year of college began with my involvement in Hunger and Poverty Outreach through Campus Ministry. Sophomore year, in the winter of 2023, I traveled to New Orleans Campus Ministry’s Friar Service and Justice group to help repair homes with fellow students. In the spring of 2023, I went to Tijuana, Mexico, as a part of a Global Border Crossing course, where we learned about immigration to the United States: its importance, the struggles migrants face, the politics, and the diplomacy. In the summer of 2023, before my junior year, I was awarded a Father Philip A. Smith, O.P. Student Fellowship for Study and Service Abroad. I traveled to Rosario, Argentina, for six weeks, where I taught English to more than 1,200 students and served their communities every weekend. Most recently, I spent September to December of 2023 in Rabat, Morocco, to fulfill my study abroad requirement. I learned about the culture and studied sub-Saharan migration through Morocco and into Europe.
Beyond immense gratitude and thanksgiving for these beautiful travels and opportunities, I am most grateful for the lessons that have emerged along the way, most of the time without me even realizing it. Now, in my senior year, I realize that these journeys have taught me how to truly listen to the stories people are sharing and effectively share my own. But how does this happen if you’re facing communication barriers? Through love and service to our neighbors!
Time after time through our outreach in Campus Ministry, we serve people with whom we cannot communicate. Often we can’t talk with the people we are serving because of social and physical barriers, or because we are simply moving too quickly in our work to talk, or because we aren’t even working directly with people, such as when we are painting fences. Throughout traveling, the most obvious communication hindrance is the language barrier. I can’t express how many times I came close to tears in Argentina or Morocco because I didn’t speak the language well enough to fully communicate what I wanted to say! (This should also give us a newer and refreshed appreciation for those in our communities who learned English as a second language. It’s hard work!)
But I was always comforted, and still am, whether in my service or my travels, by the knowledge that love is a universal language, and that the people around me love and appreciate me, and I them, regardless of communication barriers. If we serve people and treat everyone around us as the dignified and whole human beings that they are, we can create lasting relationships and change within our communities. I’m grateful to Providence College for all the opportunities it has given me: my friends, my studies, my faith, and my travels. But most of all, I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned through these blessings and the insights I will carry with me beyond my time at PC.
Magdalena Smyth ’25, from Exeter, New Hampshire is a resident assistant in Shanley Hall and served as a Feinstein Community Fellow with My Brother’s Keeper in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. She hopes to find work with an organization whose mission aligns with her values.
