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.

Climb EVERY Mountain!

The iron cross at the top of the Kirchenstein.

Phew...it's been a while, hasn't it?  It has turned out to be harder than I thought to set aside time every week to write even a short blog post.  Not that there is a lack of anything to write about here.  It is simply that there are so many things to do!  (And also that when I get back from traveling on the weekends all I want to do is sleep).  

So thank you for patiently waiting for this post.  I hope you enjoy it.  This event originally happened about 2 or 3 weeks ago....

Well folks, this past Sunday I climbed my first mountain.  It was glorious!  I don’t think I can accurately describe the beauty or the thrill of climbing a mountain.  And pictures definitely don’t do it justice either.  But here goes nothing.

My friend and I left the Kartause around 1pm and walked across town to where the path starts.  It begins as a sidewalk between two houses and then there is a staircase leading up to the beginning of the trail.  This part of the hike was really easy.  The trail goes very slowly upwards and there is a lot of zigzagging back and forth across the mountain.  Seriously, if you just went straight up it would be a lot faster (but probably more difficult).  We took our time walking up, stopping to look at the view a few times…and we thought it was beautiful!  But we didn’t know that there was more breathtaking beauty to come. 

After about a half an hour we reached a “peak” called the Kirchenstein.  It is a huge rock with an iron cross on top.  You can look out and see all of the town and the valley spread out before you.  That was the breathtaking view.  We were very blessed because it was a beautiful and clear day with a little bit of sunshine!  (The sun doesn’t shine as much here as it does at home, probably because it is snowing most of the time).   My friend and I enjoyed the beauty of the view and soaked up the sunshine.  But we hadn’t reached our goal (the book), so we kept moving – onwards and upwards.

A view of Gaming from the mountain.  

Now the going got tough.  We started going more steeply uphill and in a few places we were crawling on our hands and knees.  There were spots along the trail where there were almost no trees and we could see everything on both sides of the mountain, including more beautiful mountains in the distance.  After about another thirty-minute hike we finally reached the book!  There is a metal box hanging on a tree, which holds the book.  After signing it (and looking through it to find the names of students who signed it before us) I said a little prayer at the shrine there.  Then my friend and I looked for our household name, which was carved in one of the trees in the little grove there.  We finally found it and took a picture. 

A view from the ridge of the mountain, before we actually reached the book.

After this we began our long descent to the bottom of the mountain.  But it actually didn’t take that long because… after we were about halfway down we decided to just slide down the mountain on our bottoms!  It was fun because the snow was so deep! 

At the end of the day we were exhausted, but content. 

Me with the iron cross.  Isn't the sunlight over the mountains beautiful?

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.

52 Blog Posts...and Other Things

This year I have (once again) made the resolution to post on this, my blog, once a week.  And I think that there is a much higher chance that I will actually follow through with it this year, because I am beginning to enjoy blogging, even if no one ever comments on what I write (hint, hint).  It also gives me motivation to continue to improve my writing.  In other words, by December 31^st I plan to have written at least 52 blog posts.

I have changed the look of my blog (again).  Not really sure if I like the way it looks yet, but I think I will keep it around for a little while and see if I get used to it.  Originally I wanted to have a background with a travel theme, but all of the travel themed backgrounds I could find were a little too cheesy.

Right now I am working on applying for a summer job at a Catholic camp.  The application is challenging me to take a deeper look at why I am Catholic and at who I am as a person.  This application is much different than the one I submitted a few months ago for an RA position at my school and is challenging in a different way.  But the jobs have similar goals: to help every person I encounter become the best person they can be – a saint.  What makes me qualified to help people do that?  Nothing – except that I am also trying to become a saint. 

Surprisingly, this week really has not been too crazy.  But that being said, it has been stressful.  More stressful than I realized, until I picked up my new glasses today and thought they were the wrong ones…after I got home.  So I went back to the eye doctor to double check.  It turned out that they were the right ones, but the pair that I originally tried on was a different shade because the color lot of the plastic was different.  The ladies at the eye doctor were kind enough to switch out the lenses since I liked the coloring of the model frames better.  That’s what I get for ordering variegated glasses frames!  The whole ordeal made me realize that I’m more stressed about this going abroad thing than I thought. 

Finally, I will be saying "auf wiedersehen" to you all until after I get settled into the Kartause.  I won’t be posting again until I am in Austria!  Pray that all of us studying abroad this semester have safe travels.

Instant Saint: Just Add (Holy) Water

Sometimes (especially right now) I don’t want to work at things.  If it isn’t going to be quick or easy, then I won’t do it.  Which is why I have not cleaned out my sewing machine and oiled it so that I could sew a present for a friend, and why I have not sat down to read a long book.  I want instant results with as little effort as possible.

In some ways this is definitely a result of the culture I live in.  We get everything we want whenever we want.  That’s why we have microwave popcorn, fast food, instant hot cocoa, text messaging, sports updates on our smart phones, and yes, even Facebook.  All these things give us the desired results with very little effort on our part.

And so, if you are like me, you might become lazy and impatient.  You might start expecting instant results in your relationship with God when you have given Him very little of your time and life.  You might get lazy and thing that just because you are nicer to that one person now, you are a perfect human being.

But that isn’t true.  As St. Josemaría Escrivá said, “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.”  There is no such thing as instant sainthood.  We can’t wake up one day and automatically be holy.  It takes hard work, discipline, and a continual openness to the grace of God in order to live a life of virtue and to become the saints that He wants us to be, the fullest version of ourselves. God is always calling us to go deeper and to discover more and more about Him (and ourselves).  But it isn’t easy.  We must be patient and we must work hard.  

That's why the New Year always encourages me.  Just like confession, it gives me a chance to start over and to renew my commitment to become a virtuous and holy woman.  So here’s to continuing to work hard towards sainthood in 2013!

St. Josemaría, pray for us!

I Can't Believe This is Happening!

Well folks, with only fifteen (yes, 15) days left until my departure for Europe, it is finally starting to sink in.  I am going to study abroad!  FOR REAL!  I have been dreaming about this experience ever since the day that I found out about my university's amazing study abroad program.  Which means that I have been dreaming about this since...well, since I was approximately a sophomore in high school and one of my good friends was in Austria for the semester.

In sixteen days I will be living here:

(website for image)

It is called the Kartause Maria Thron and it used to be both a monastery for the Carthusian order, as well as a palace for the Hapsburg family!  The place is older than our country!  And I get to live there for FOUR MONTHS!  (Please forgive the excessive use of exclaimation points and capital letters...I am a little bit excited, if you can't tell...)

Anyways, there are many things to be done between now and then, one of the most important of which is packing.  I am now shamelessly warning you: this is about to become an intense travel blog.  :)