Pentecost Sunday

Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, when God breathed the Holy Spirit onto the 12 Apostles after the Resurrection of Jesus. They received Him and their minds were illuminated with the Truth, their hearts set ablaze with passion and zeal. It was a huge turning point for them- they had just witnessed their Messiah tortured and killed in the cruelest way possible, and then rise again 3 days later. They must have been so confused and scared. Jesus had told them about the Holy Spirit, but I'm sure they still had questions. Then, after praying fervently for days, they finally received the Holy Spirit like never before. They began to know Him, as a distinct member of the Trinity. They were finally given the key to understanding everything that had just happened. It was like the light bulb went off in their brains- they immediately started praising God, speaking in tongues, and going out and evangelizing to the nations.

What a feast.

For a Franciscan student, it's just as big as Easter and Christmas. We are known for living in the Spirit in a particular way. Infamous, maybe. Our campus lives and breathes devotion to the Holy Spirit. Which is why I thought today would be the perfect day to talk about how I fell in love with the Holy Spirit in Austria. :)

This is mostly in thanks to Father Brad, the Franciscan TOR priest on campus who showed me the Holy Spirit in a completely new way. He's a person, the 3rd person of the Trinity. He's not just a formless ball of fog floating around.. He's God. And he wants to dwell in our hearts so badly. Once we let him in and give our lives over to His will, amazing things can happen.

In Scripture, there are two different baptisms talked about. There is the first obvious one, when we are baptized with water to cleanse us of Original Sin and bring us back into union with the Father. The second baptism, which many Catholics don't know about, is baptism by the Spirit. It's like our own personal Pentecost, when the Spirit comes down upon us in such a powerful way that we are made new. Our lives are changed. And we receive gifts that previously could not be unlocked. I was blessed to receive this second baptism the 2nd week I was in Austria, at a prayer group meeting. I felt the love of God surround me with a power and strength I had never felt before. I literally felt wrapped in a coccoon of love, of safety. Everything throughout my body was burning with a warm heat, and my heart was in a state of awe and wonder and the sheer Goodness and Beauty it was witnessing. I will always remember this moment. It completely changed the way I pray and look at God. He's not a far off judge who sits there waiting to condemn you- He is Love. He is Beauty. He is Peace. He is Mercy. He longs for you every single moment of every single day, waiting for you to come to Him and give your life to Him in love.

As the semester went on, I continued to grow deeper in my knowledge and love of the Spirit. I learned a lot about healing and suffering. God loves to heal. I've seen it before my very eyes. I've had it happen to me- both physical and emotional. I've seen backs, shoulders, necks, legs, and most importantly, hearts healed. It's not magic. It's not some special formula you say. It's God. God loves to heal. God loves to make things new. The important thing is that your heart needs to be open to receive it. Many times, a person will not receive a healing God wants to give them if their hearts are hardened with unforgiveness, bitterness, pain, jealousy, or pride. If you think God can't heal your heart, that's a form of pride. It's telling the omnipotent, all-powerful God that he isn't capable of healing your wounds. Think about it.

This is how Christianity was meant to be lived- in the Spirit. Does that mean that you're not a good Christian if you don't run around yelling in tongues and healing people left and right? Of course not. Then you'd just be crazy. But every Christian is called to have a relationship with the Spirit, whether it's a more charismatic relationship or a private inner one. It makes our souls and our religion come alive. Catholocism is alive and breathing. It's not simply an empty ritual of going to Church every Sunday, going to the Sacraments, and praying monotonously the Rosary. These things are absolutely necessary, but should be done with a spirit of life to it. The Mass is a partcipation. It's a marriage feast between Heaven and Earth, when the God of Love comes to meet you in the most intimate way possible. Prayer is communication with God- it means you have a conversation. It's not just rattling off prayers without spending the time to listen to the answer.

Come Holy Spirit, let the fire fall <3

Angels, a pilgrimage, and car named Bandit

The weekend before our 10 day pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi that the school took us on, I went on an Angels pilgrimage. No, not to see angels.. I was on a pilgrimage with angels. Members of Regina Angelorum, to be exact.

At Franciscan University, there is a famous thing called households. Everyone attemps to describe them as a Catholic version of a fraternity or sororiety, but they are so much more than that. They are groups on campus of around 10-40 men or women, and each have a special charism. The household meets at various times each week, to say a Rosary together, go to Mass, get a meal in the cafeteria, have a Holy Hour, or share things we're both thankful for and struggling with. These activities are custom to each household's particular spirituality and covanent. To join the household, you "intent" and spend a period of time in formation before you are inducted. The household that I intented to last semester is called Regina Angelorum (Mary, Queen of the Angels in Latin). We are devoted to Mary and the angels, especially St. Michael the Archangel, in order to aid us in our spiritual battles in life and "fight the good fight of faith" to reach eternal life with Jesus Christ. We focus on imitating Our Mother in every aspect of our lives in order to grow closer to Jesus, and especially on the spiritual warfare between good and evil. The sisters who are already inducted are called Angels.

I am still an intent to this beautiful household. This semester in Austria, we had one Angel and 3 intents total. All 4 of us got along amazingly well, and decided to take a pilgrimage together during the semester to some important places in Italy. This mini-weekend before the Rome and Assisi trip was a perfect opportunity! We decided to take an overnight train to Rome, rent a car and drive to the other side of the penninsula where all of the shrines were, and then drive back to Rome in enough time to meet the school at our hotel. Getting to actually drive a car and not have to rely on the train schedules was an amazing freedom and made our trip so much better!

We arrived early Friday morning in Rome and picked up Bandit- a silver 4-door Fiat Panda. He's named after the panda in Kung Fu Panda, thanks to Katie :) We all piled in, and started our adventure of getting out of Rome. The Romans (and all of Europe, for that matter) aren't big lovers of street signs. If there are any, they're up on the side of a building, not down on the street where they're easy to see. So that made reading a map and print-off directions extremely hard because we had to make split-second decisions. If we hesitated, we'd either get hit by a crazy moped driver or a pissed off car. After 2 hours of many wrong turns and many turn-arounds, we finally made it onto the highway leading out of the city.

It took us another 5 hours to make it to our first destination, because of the lack of good directions. Although we were tired and frustrated, we still had a spirit of joy. Miraculously, I didn't get carsick once. For those of you who have ever driven with me, you know how much of a miracle this is. I was reading directions the whole time, and never even got a hint of nausea as we were stopping and going and swerving through the city. It's a special grace I got from God that day :) The drive across the penninsula was breathtaking- we were literally driving through mountains. The highway winds around the peaks, elevated way above the valleys below.

Our first stop was the small Italian town of Lanciano. A Eucharistic miracle took place here in the Middle Ages, and is still visible today. I have a special devotion to the miracle of Lanciano, so to actually be there was breathtaking. As a priest was consecrating the host back in the early Middle Ages, he was doubtful of the real presence. To his amazement, the bread turned into real flesh and the wine turned into real blood! There have been multiple modern scientific tests done on the actual flesh and blood, which are still present today without any form of preservation. The flesh was found to be myocardial tissue from a human heart, and the blood (which is now in 3 clots) was found to have the same blood type as the blood stain found on the Shroud of Turin (Jesus' burial shroud). How amazing! Jesus literally gives us his heart and his blood every time we receive the Eucharist. He offers Himself up as a sacrifice of love in order that we may have divine life within us. When we receive Him, our hearts and His heart are united in a very unique and special way. To those who don't believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist, I ask you how much more proof do you need than this particular miracle?

The special monstrance that holds the flesh and blood is up behind the main altar of the church. After Mass, we went up to venerate it. I was so close to it that I could touch the glass casing around it. A burning heat went through my entire body, and my heart started beating. The love I felt washing over me was incredible. We knelt on the floor and just gazed up at the monstrance- literally gazing upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Precious Blood. Chills go through my spine even now as I think about it. The 4 of us ended up being able to spend almost an hour in Adoration! Praise Jesus :)

We then continued on our journey to San Giovanni Rotundo, which is where St. Padre Pio lived as a priest and where his body is. It was a much easier drive, but as night fell and we pulled into our hotel parking lot, we were absolutely exhausted on every level. The next morning we got up for Mass and went to the monastary church where Padre Pio said Mass and heard confessions. His confessional, which was his particular ministry, is still intact in a glass case up against the wall. Satan appeared to him at least once in this confessional, where he fought a spiritual battle every day to save souls.

After spending the morning in San Giovanni, we drove a very short distance to Monte San'Angelo. The entire town is built on top of a mountain, with spectacular views of the landscape below. There is a cave in this village where St. Michael the Archangel appeared in the Middle Ages. He asked that a church be built in the cave, and consecrated it once it was completed. It is therefore the only church in the world not consecrated by a human bishop. It is such an impressive sight- the basillica is literally built around the walls of the cave. This was the climax of our pilgrimage, since our household has such a strong devotion to St. Michael. There is an Adoration chapel as well down there, and we were able to pray the St. Michael Chaplet and the consecration prayer to St. Michael together as a household. It was absolutely beautiful. The rock from the cave is traditionally thought to be the closest thing to a relic of St. Michael we have, since his presence graced those walls. To pray and touch the rock was such a powerful experience!

After a crazy 2 days of no sleep and lots of driving, it was time to head back to Rome. Katie was such a trooper and did all of the driving, since she was the only one out of all of us to know how to drive stick. She also had to put up with me trying to figure out the directions, which would have driven anyone crazy. I'm so blessed to have this girls as my sisters :) We made it back to Rome and got to the hotel, to start another crazy 10 days of pilgrimage. But it was all so worth it :)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!
Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, pray for us!
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.