Spring Has Sprung!

Happy Spring and Happy Easter! On Saturday morning, I snapped this lovely photo with my phone and wanted to share it here, but when I sat down to write up a post to go with the picture it had started snowing! The snow came down in big clods and by Sunday morning the ground was covered a lacy white blanket. Imagine that. 

The sunshine has returned today and my daffodils, which drooped with the cold, have perked up again. However, the forecast for this weekend predicts a return of the snow; nature always surprises us. I guess that is part of the beauty of living in a climate with seasons. 

During this fickle spring season, I hope you are able to enjoy glimpses of beauty like these daffodils, birds returning to your yard and baby tree leaves. We are offered an incredible opportunity to reflect on the Resurrection of Christ while we watch the world burst into bloom around us.

Shifting Pictures of Ourselves

You know those little 4 x 4 sliding tile puzzles that people sometimes give out as party favors or in the fish pond at parish festivals? Well, I'm really bad at solving them. But nevertheless, they're so popular that I have an electronic one on my computer desktop, with a picture of a lion's face.

But the face is all jumbled up and out of order. The cat's whiskers appear on its head and its eyes slide off the right side of its face. As much as I try to rearrange the tiles and restore the picture, I can never seem to figure out quite the right order. The lion's face is still distorted and incomplete.

Some days my face looks messed up too. I slide the tiles of my life around, searching for the proper arrangement that will reflect a balanced and beautiful face back into my eyes. 

At times I do this confidently, certain of where to position the eyes, but if only I could just get the chin in the right position…

At other times I go to the puzzle and mix all the tiles up at random. Then I can start over with the picture. Each piece is on an even playing field and no one tile is more important than another, at least for a brief time.

Sometimes a piece that I have so boldly placed at the center of the picture will hinder a piece that needs to go to the other side. This piece cannot remain rigidly in its place, but must move around, working in conjunction with the others to form the picture. And so the pieces of my life must give a little and gain a little. In order to solve this puzzle, I must discover flexibility within a small but appropriately sized frame.

There are times when I become discouraged and walk away from the picture. Who cares if the face ever comes out right? I'm tired of trying to solve this riddle of my life.

But my Friend takes me back to the puzzle. He shows me a sketch of what the final portrait will look like. It's just a cartoon, He says, of what the real thing will look like when we're finished.

It's so hard, I grumble.

Try moving this. He points to a piece in the upper left-hand corner. Try putting it here. A place in mid-right side. I'll be here if you need me.

And I begin to work at the puzzle again.

The Best of Me

Yesterday morning, I drove into nearby Pittsburgh in an attempt to attend a talk that I thought would inspire and influence me. It was called “Writing as Vocation.” All week (more or less) I asked people if they wanted to go with me and even succeeded in finding someone willing to drive into the city with me. Unfortunately, that fell through about twenty-four hours before hand, as she found out about a meeting she was required to attend. I decided that I would go to the talk anyways, even if that meant driving by myself.

Despite the fact that I am typically okay with driving in traffic, I got flustered in the light traffic that I encountered coming through the tunnel on Saturday morning. The short version of this story is that I ended up driving around downtown Pitt in search of St. Paul’s Cathedral, certain that I would find it. But my twenty-minute cushion time quickly dwindled as I realized that I was nowhere near the cathedral. 

In a last effort to get to the talk on time, I got back onto the highway that I had come from. The highway only took me back to the tunnel and so I drove out of the city, fifteen minutes after the start time of the lecture, frustrated with my spoiled plans.

“This is stupid.”

“Lord, bring good out of this.”

The two phrases alternated in my head for the next five minutes. Then I made up my mind to enjoy myself and drove to a little French café that I discovered over the summer, deciding that well, if I couldn’t attend a lecture about the vocation of writing, I could at least write.

Maybe that is what I really needed that morning—a sort of retreat from familiar faces and places, a time to recollect myself and to think about how writing is a vocation and what that means for my life.

Maybe there are times in our lives when we don’t need conversation. Times to pause and think. Times to enjoy a smooth cup of black coffee. Times to fill the cream colored spaces between notebook lines with dark loops and swirls.

Writing is something I can throw myself into—with my heart, my mind, my short experience, and my faulty wisdom—and become better for it.

Writing requires endless learning. Not simply learning in the sense of research, but in a deepening disposition of wonder towards the world. 

In the development of a critical eye for culture and for my own writing. 

In the discovery of my own relationship with the Infinite. 

In an understanding of how particular circumstances relate to the universal situation of man. 

In a tuning of my rhythmic ear. 

In a ripening sense of humor. 

In a sharpening of my notice of small intimate details. 

In a deepening ability to relate to all types of people simply because they are people and I am a person. In a discipline and passion for the gritty revision of my own words. 

In a vocabulary that expands to become more precise.

At this moment, looking at all these ways that writing will continue to demand the best of me and to sharpen what exists of me now, I have great hope! It is a work that will not be futile, a calling that will stretch me beyond the narrow limits that I set for myself.

Writing about writing—what a stereotype! But it’s necessary sometimes to step back from what we are doing and to think about why we do those things.

So why do I write? I write because it’s how I discover the world. It’s how I discover myself. And it’s how I discover God.

If the glory of God is man fully alive, I pray that the Holy Spirit comes to animate me, to inebriate my writing, so that my person and my words may be a spring of water welling up to eternal life; so that through my work, I may be refined into the sanctity that the Lord requires of me.

Rome Part 2: The Vicar of Christ

It is 8am and I settle down in my chair in St. Peter’s square to wait for the general audience to start.  Part of me can’t believe I am here.  I have seen so many pictures and postcards of this place that it seems like I am just staring at another picture.  But the rest of me feels entirely at home, as if I have lived in this place for my whole life.  

As I sit and wait and chat with my friends, more and more people pass through security and enter the square for the audience.  There are now thousands of people here, from many different places.  We are all here for the same reason – to say goodbye to our papa.  He has been such a gentle shepherd and a humble priest that our hearts are overwhelmed with love for him. 

A glimpse of the huge crowds that gathered in St. Peter's square on Feb. 28th.

 

The thought that we are all united strikes me.  Being surrounded by the many people from different countries, young and old, rich and poor, lay people and consecrated people, makes me realize again that the Church is indeed universal.  She welcomes all in her loving arms, leading them to Christ, just as the “arms” of St. Peter’s square welcome in all the pilgrims who have come to greet the Holy Father.  

One of my friends begins to talk to the people sitting in front of her.  They are Italian.  We chat with them for a little while.  Then someone suggests praying a rosary, so we invite the three Italians to join us.  This too shows me the universality of the Church.  We say the prayers in English while they say them in Italian.  One decade is lead in English and the next in Italian.  It is wonderful to be praying to the Mother of the Church in the place that is identified as the heart of the Church. 

In the short time that we interact with the Italians, we have become friends with them.  It is surprising, as we have no understanding of Italian and they know only a little bit of English.  Still, we understand each other.  They take a picture with us. 

The morning progresses, but we still have about an hour to go before the audience with the Holy Father begins.  The student life director brings us a small banner that has the name of our university printed on it.  We hang it up on the barricade.  A woman with two small boys who is standing at the barricade opposite to us sees the banner and yells over to us.  “I’m a Franciscan Alum!”  She is so happy to see us and asks us to contact her husband, who works for a Catholic news agency in Rome.  “They want to interview you.”  I take down the contact information to pass along to the student life director later.

At 10:30am one of the cardinals comes out onto the stage that is set up on the steps of St. Peter’s.  One by one he reads the Holy Father’s greeting to all the different language groups that are present there in the square.  He addresses the people in seven (or maybe more) languages.  I recognize: Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, and Polish.  When the English speaking groups are announced, we cheer loudly when we hear the name of our University.  It sounded funny, because the majority of our group was in the front part of seating and only a few of us were in the back. 

The excitement of the people in the square is building.  Any minute our Holy Father will appear.  The greetings finish and the cardinal takes a seat.  A few minutes later we see the pope-mobile emerge from the arch on the left side of the square.  The crowd erupts into cheers.  The joy and love that the people have for Benedict XVI is overwhelming.  I am caught up in it and blown away by it all at the same time.  I wonder what he feels like.  

Here he comes! 

We wait in suspense by the barricade, not sure if he will even drive past us.  The pope-mobile turns and goes around the opposite side of the square.  I try not to get my hopes up, because I don’t want to be disappointed.  Then he turns down to go across the back between the seats and the people standing.  We get excited.  He is coming towards us!  He is going to drive by us!  A few minutes later he turns down the little street and drives right past us.  I am right on the barricade, only six or seven feet away from him.  We are shouting “Papa! Papa!” over and over again.  I feel tears coming to my eyes.  As he drives past it feels as if the world is in slow motion.  Love for the Holy Father wells up in my heart.  And then, he stops.  Right in front of us.  For one or two minutes.  He kisses the baby of the woman who told us she was a Franciscan alum.  We are still shouting “Papa!”  Someone is pressing on my head in an effort to see him.  I don’t know what to think.  I feel so overwhelmed.  The moment passes, the babies are handed back to their mothers, and the Papa moves on to greet and bless the rest of the people in the square. 

He was right in front of us!  What a blessing!

 

When he has returned to the front of the square, he goes up onto the stage and addresses the people in all their different languages.  It is marvelous.  The love of the people surges up again every time he addresses a new group.  He speaks again about how we must step out in faith and trust more deeply in the Lord’s will for our lives.  When he is finished, we sing the “Our Father” in Latin.  Then we receive the blessing of Christ Himself through the hand of His vicar on earth.  I am overwhelmed by the beauty and the great grace of being in St. Peter’s Square for the last general audience of the pope.  He is such a loving and gentle Papa.

 

Rome Part 1: All Roads Lead to Rome

It is 3:10pm on Tuesday, February 26.  I finish shoving the last few items into my backpack and purse: my hairbrush, camera, snacks for the road, homework that I am not really planning on doing but which I am bringing along “just in case.”  I pull on my boots and zip up my coat.  My roommate has already gone downstairs to get on the bus.  I see her Roma metro ticket lying on top of her travel mug on her desk.  I grab it and slide it into my back pocket – it would be disastrous if she didn’t have that ticket during this week long “super trip.”

           

Ready to get on the road, I head downstairs and outside to the buses with my luggage, a medium sized hiking backpack, a satchel I use to carry books and my laptop around the Kartause, and my purse.  I have probably over-packed, but it is too late now.  Besides, I am going to be gone for fourteen days, not just two or three.

It is nearly 3:30pm.  I show my passport to the RA who is checking us in, throw my luggage into the storage place below the bus, and climb on board.  As my classmates put their bags and coats in the overhead storage bin and begin to settle into their seats, the excitement is growing. 

We are going to see the Pope.  We are going to be there for his last general audience with the people of God before he steps down from the Seat of Peter and transitions to a hidden life of prayer.  We can’t believe this is happening.  None of us planned to be in Europe during this time of transition in the Church.  We are in awe of this great blessing.  It is the opportunity of a lifetime, made possible by the director of the Austrian program, the director of student life, and our professors.  Only a week and a half ago they had completely revamped the semester schedule so that this opportunity, this blessing, could become a reality for us.

And so now I find myself going to Rome with my classmates, three days before our planned pilgrimage to Rome, to see the Holy Father and then to wish him farewell the next day.  The buses begin to pull away and we say “auf wiedersehen ” to the Kartause and Gaming.  We will return only after a very long and exhausting, but hopefully fruitful, Roman holiday.  It is now around 3:45pm.

The bus turns right out of the Kartause parking lot (a first) and heads up into the mountains.  It is snowing lightly, but the flakes are very thick and large.  The road winds and becomes steep as we venture further into the mountains.  The bus is filled with music and the chatter and laughter of about fifty people.  We have just finished midterms and we are going to see the Pope – if that isn’t a cause for joy, what is?  Still, I am slightly overwhelmed by the noise.  I have been awake since 6:30am and I am getting tired.

Once we make it to the other side of the mountains, our drive is relatively straight and flat.  The bus drives through the night.  Every three or four hours it stops and we all pile out to use the bathroom, breath some fresh air, and stretch our cramped legs.  (We are used to this kind of travel now, after going to Poland and back two weekends ago).  The last of these stops is at 3:35am on Wednesday, February 27.  I am sleepy, but I get off the bus anyways.  This is our last stop before we reach Rome.  Before getting back on the bus again I grab breakfast – an orange, a banana, a granola bar, and a large bottle of water.  There is no way I am eating this now.  I get back on the bus and quickly fall back asleep. 

“Hey guys, it’s time to wake up.”  The RD’s voice comes over the bus’ speaker system.  “We are only a few minutes away from the place where the buses are dropping us off.”  I rub my eyes and stretch.  Then I shove my breakfast into my purse.  I am ready.  It is around 6am.

The bus pulls into a parking lot and we all pile out.  We stand in the parking lot chatting, then little groups of people begin to make their way to Vatican City.  I begin to walk with a group of friends.  Suddenly, we round a corner and I can see the dome of St. Peter’s before me, all lit up, with the pre-dawn sky painted navy blue behind it.  The sight makes me so joyful!  I laugh in disbelief.  The excitement amongst my classmates begins to build.  Soon we are running down the streets of Rome towards the Vatican.  We can’t wait to get there!  We can’t wait to see our Holy Father.

When we reach the gates of the city there is already a mass of people there.  Security doesn’t open until 7 or 7:30am, so we pack into the crowd and wait.  A group of American seminarians is next to me.  They form a circle and begin to pray morning prayer.  When they are finished, a friend and I begin to chat with one of them.  He tells us to climb to the top of the Cupola, to tour the necropolis underneath St. Peter’s, and how to get to a good bakery. 

 Waiting to enter St. Peter's square early in the morning.

The security guards open the gates and begin to let people through.  People are packed on top of each other.  They are pushing from all sides, in all directions.  I have no choice but to move with the crowd, otherwise I could be trampled underfoot. 

When I finally make it through the security line, about 20 of my classmates and I discover that the front section of seating where the rest of the school is sitting has just been closed, so we find some seats in the back, right next to the barricade.  At first we are disappointed and try to get through to the front with everyone else.  But then we begin to hope that the Pope might drive right past us.  This is exciting, but I don’t want to be disappointed, so I try not to get my hopes up.

It is only about 8am and the audience doesn’t start until 10:30am.  So I settle down in my chair to wait.  And as I gaze on the beauty of St. Peter’s and on the thousands of people who have come to say goodbye to Papa Ben, I am struck by how universal – how catholic – our Church truly is…

(To be continued…)

 

Waiting for the Holy Father's audience to begin.

Melk Monastery

Okay, this is going to be a picture heavy and word light post.  I know that my family and friends back home are eager to see pictures of the beauty of Europe!  And my thoughts are not organized enough yet to write a full blown blog post.  

The pictures below are of the monastery of Melk, a Benedictine monastery that has been operating for roughly 1000 years.  That is hard to imagine when you are from a country that is only a few hundred years old.  Just for clarification, this is not where I am living.  The monastery I am living in is no longer a monastery, but a 4 star hotel!  I will post pictures of the Kartause and the town of Gaming later.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is Melk:

 A picture of the main courtyard. 

 An outdoor corridor.  Isn't it peaceful?

 A hallway in the former imperial guest suite.  Apparently the doorway at the far end of the hallway is a little bit shorter than the one at the end where I took the picture.  This makes the hallway seem even longer than it is... and it was already pretty long!

The front of the monastery church.  The church is probably bigger than the cathedral in my home diocese!  It is painted yellow because of its association with the Hapsburgs, a family who ruled the Austrian empire, whose castle the monastery complex once was.

A view of the Danube river from the balcony in front of the church. 

The high altar of the church.  In the middle, above the tabernacle, you can see Sts. Peter and Paul shaking hands.  There are many statues and gold decorations all throughout the church.  But, since it is gold leaf/gold plating it only took 6 pounds of gold to decorate the entire church.

A view of Melk from across the Danube as we were driving to lunch.

Blessings!

"From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace."  - Carae Domini Lord's Day

God is good.  He loves us so much.  Let me share some of the ways that He has been showering His love down upon me during the past few weeks.

This week I was able to make it to Mass everyday. What a blessing it is to receive the infinite Maker of the Universe into my finite body!  The mystery of Love contained in the Eucharist is beyond human comprehension, yet we are able to capture little glimpses of it.

One of the Masses that I was able to attend this week was the Ordination and Installation Mass of Steubenville's new bishop.  Because of the limited seating for this event, it was necessary to have a ticket, so I was not going to be able to go...but a friend of mine, who didn't need a ticket because he was ushering during Mass, gave me one!  It was really incredible to be a witness to the passing on of the Holy Spirit through the successors of the apostles!

This beautiful girl is my roommate.  She is WONDERFUL!  I am so thankful to be able to live with her this semester.  I have a feeling that we are going to be really good friends/sisters in Christ by the end of the year!  :)

My new tie-dye shirt turned out really well!  I made it during a program hosted by some of the RAs in my residence hall.

Last night was my first ever rugby game!  Although it took me a while to figure out what was going on, I was finally able to get the gist of the rules.  I have to admit, I am not a very good sports fan...I get too distracted by the rest of the spectators!  Part of what made last night's rugby game so fun was that I went with some girls on my wing and got to know them a little better.  They are lovely!

And for those readers who might question whether I really did pay attention to the game, I still remember the final score: FUS 17 vs. Grove City 31.  We lost.  :(

Now, for the most exciting part of this weekend: I am now an official intent to Carae Domini (Beloved of the Master) Household!

I am so excited to get to know the lovely ladies of Carae Domini even better!  :)  They are such wonderful examples!

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!