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.

Carnevale

Venice! The city of lovers. It's also the city of canals, gondollas, gelato, and Carnivale. And, the city where I got to celebrate my 21st birthday! Venice is my favorite city in Italy, and I was so excited to get to spend a day there with my closest friends just relaxing and enjoying Italy. I had been to Italy before with my family, but this was the first trip here during my semester. The sound of the Italian language, the smells coming from the restaurants and cafes, and the sun gleaming off of the canal water made my heart burst with joy as we walked out of the train station. Italia!

We realized very quickly that Carnivale was happening that weekend, which we had no idea about! It was a nice surprise, to come on a weekend with so many festivities going on. Many people were wearing the beautiful masks in every shape, size, and color. Some people were even wearing full-length costumes. There was an atmosphere of celebration on every corner.

Venice came at such a perfect time in the semester. We had been working hard at our studies for almost 2 months, were preparing for midterms, and were under a lot of stress. Not to mention the intense emotional stress of Poland we were still processing, and the physical exhaustion of traveling every weekend that had begun to catch up with us. We needed a break. And, although we had to take an overnight train there and an overnight train back due to the short weekend, we got just that. We just wandered around the city, doing what the Italians know how to do best- sit, eat, and enjoy life. We didn't have an itinerary, didn't have a tight train schedule, didn't have to rush. It was a beautiful birthday present!

We basically took the whole day to walk from the train station to St. Mark's Square and back, a pretty long distance that took us the whole length of the city. We got gelato (more than once..), took a gondolla ride, and had a dance party to Stereo Love on a tiny random bridge that no one else was on. We got to St. Mark's Square, which was absolutely packed, in time to see a Carnivale performance. There was confetti everywhere, on the sidewalks and in the water! It was magical.

Of course, we didn't pass up the opportunity to see the churches of two great saints, one quite well-known and the other more obscure- St. Mark and St. Lucy. St. Lucy's incorrupt body is in a church by the train station. She is the patron sight of vision, since her eyes were plucked out by the Romans as she was being martyred in the Early Church. She was our age, if not younger, and was given the courage by God to stand up for her faith, even to the death. Her body is different from most, for there is no wax covering her hands or feet, which are about halfway decayed. It is proof that these saints really are incorrupt- that it's not just a bunch of fools putting a wax figure in a glass case and calling it an incorrupt body. I could see her skin and her bones, right in front of me. A young woman who died in the 300s. Now that's miraculous. We also saw St. Mark's tomb in the main cathedral of Venice dedicated to him. He is the man who wrote the Gospel according to Mark, and was a great witness to Christ. The cathedral is absolutely gorgeous both inside and out, with gold everywhere.

My last birthday present of the day was from Jesus Himself, in the adoration chapel of the cathedral. We went in to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament for a few moments, and ended up being there for Benediction. This is a series of prayers honoring the Blessed Sacrament, and ends with the priest holding up the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament and making the sign of the cross with it, blessing all of us present in front of it. It's basically Jesus blessing us as if He was standing right in front of us, because He is present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. So He gave me a special birthday blessing to end a perfect day :)

Love will always triumph- Poland.

Poland. Such a powerful and moving place. The school took us on a pilgrimage there in the middle of February, when the sky was grey and the ground was covered in snow. A cold wind cut through your skin the minute you stepped outside. It sounds like a cold and barren place, but in fact is vibrant with the love of God and hope in His salvation. Poland has seen more terror and bloodshed than almost any other country in Europe, especially during WWII and the era of Communism. Yet, out of the ashes of evil God has raised some of the most important saints of our time. Professor Cassidy told us before we left that if you take a handful of Polish soil in your hand and squeeze it, the blood of martyrs comes out. The ground is still figuratively saturated with their blood. In Poland we saw the worst of humanity and the best of humanity, the worst evil and the greatest love, all within 50 miles of each other. It's amazing how God works like that.

Poland was one of the most life-changing trips of the semester for me. I felt so solemn in the presence of memories of such violence and suffering, but I also felt such hope and joy in the power of God's love. The person who helped me see this the most was JPII. We watched a movie about his life on the long bus ride to Poland, and it set the tone for the entire trip. He saw so much evil right before his eyes during WWII, yet he continued to love and became one of the greatest human voices on love and human dignity. It's all about love. Love will always win in the end, because God is Love. And God wins. Evil will devour itself, yet to keep it from happening again we must win with love. We must conquer evil through love. No wonder why JPII was so passionate about love and the dignity of the human person, because he had it destroyed right in front of him. He is a living witness to the fact that man can always choose to love, no matter what evil you are faced with. That is our greatest freedom as human persons. It is our salvation, our purpose, and our meaning. We are called to love. This revelation helped us get through the trip.

Our first stop was at the shrine of Our Lady of Czestohowa (Chest-a-hova). This image of Our Lady is one of the oldest we have of her, believed to be painted by St. Luke on a piece of wood that Jesus used during His life. Many miracles have happened through this image- both to individual people and to the nation of Poland as a whole. Our Lady of Czestohowa is consecrated as the patron saint and Queen of Poland. Polish pilgrims have gone to her for centuries, pleading at her feet to save their country from destruction. JPII was one such pilgrim during the dark days of WWII. After the failed assasination attempt on his life in the 80s, he gave the Shrine the stohl that he was wearing on the day he was shot with a spot of blood on it, in honor of Our Lady and all of the ways that she had protected him throughout his life. Her most important feature, however, are 3 haggard scratches down the side of her cheek. These arrow and sword slashes were put there a few centuries ago by soldiers attacking the Shrine trying to destroy the image. Artists have done everything they can to cover these markings and "fix" her face, but each time they have miraculously come back. We talked about her in my Theology of Healing class last semester, how through these scratches she wants to show that there is beauty and meaning in brokenness, woundedness, and suffering. That God will always bring something greater out of this suffering. How perfect then, that she resides in Poland! Their entire history as a country is based on Our Lady's intercession, and they base their strong national identity around her.

Our Lady of Czestohowa is absolutely beautiful. Her gaze was so peaceful, so accepting of God's will to suffer with her Son for the sake of the Kingdom. I felt so out of place there, like I wasn't worthy enough to stand in a place where so many people have prayed fervently for their nation, people who have endured more suffering and pain that I can ever imagine. I could feel a sense of urgency in Czestohowa, which must have been in the hearts of so many Polish pilgrims as they came to pray in the midst of war. However, there was a safety here. This was the safe zone for them. We were lucky enough to have Mass right under the image, and during Communion I felt this burning go through my heart; to LOVE! Jesus and Mary told me very powerfully in my heart to always love. That love will always win out in the end. That I should always try to bring Christ's love to others. Never give up on love. This was a little present to help me get through Auschwitz and Birkenau, which was our next stop.

Auschwitz and Birkenau were very powerful places. I was scared to go in, to subject myself to that evil. I've learned about these places in school for so long, and it's always seemed like such an untouchable place of horror. So to actually be walking through the gate was surreal. I imagined the SS guards and the prisoners and the overall sense of dread- all of that is gone now, with only hallowed buildings as reminders. The sky was grey with low-lying clouds, creating an even more somber atmosphere. You could feel the oppressive evil and hatred pushing down on your heart as you walked through the buildings. Yet, at the same time, there were lights in the darkness. St. Maximillian Kolbe's cell was one such light. It was breathtaking, actually, to picture such a joyful and holy man in such a tiny ugly cell. His cell was literally in a dungeon, where prisoners sentenced to death by starvation were sent. For those who don't know his story, Fr. Kolbe was a Franciscan priest who was sent to Auchwitz. One day, a man in his barracks was sentenced to death by starvation. This man started crying, pleading with the guards to let him live because he had a wife and children that he needed to live for. Fr. Kolbe was deeply moved by this, and freely decided to sacrifice himself and stand in this man's place so that he may live. He lived for over two weeks in the starvation chamber without any food or water, and eventually had to be given a lethal injection. From eyewitness accounts, he was radiating light, peace, and joy until the very end. He had completely given his life over to Christ was was a martyr of love.

Birkenau had the famous train tracks leading right into the camp. There were barracks everywhere as far as the eye could see. We prayed a Divine Mercy chaplet as a group by the gas chambers. We sang the last decade and it was so beautiful, so peaceful- just what this place needed to soak up. The gas chambers were horrible. You could see scratch marks on the walls where clawed in panic as they were dying. There was a deadbolt on the door as we walked in. It made me sick. It was such a dark dungeon. However, I felt God's presence with me the most in that chamber. He brought so many people home to Heaven in that place. I walked the same path as millions of women, children, handicapped, and elderly did on the way to their deaths. Yet I did something none of them did- walk back out of the gas chamber alive. I get to live. I can feel their envy in a sense. I am free. I can walk out. The children affected me the most- seeing their shoes, clothes, and pictures. So many of them were killed. I felt them calling out to me, telling me to live for them because they never got the chance. To live and spread God's love into the cold evil world that killed them. That's how I can honor them. By living, but more importantly by loving.

The last few days were a lot lighter emotionally. We toured around Krakow and saw the cathedral where JPII was archbishop, where he lived, and where he studied at the university. Krakow is such an old city full of history- it was the only major city in Poland never to be bombed in WWII, and therefore is precious preservation of Polish culture. There are churches on literally every single corner- Krakow is called the Little Rome. I think that's why I felt so peaceful there, because Jesus was everywhere! We had Mass in the cathedral, at the same altar where JPII celebrated Mass. It was a Latin Mass, which so beautifully showed us the universality of the Church. We spoke English, the priest spoke Polish, yet we could communicate and pray together in Latin- the language of the Church.

We got to visit the Divine Mercy shrine, which is the convent where Sr. Faustina lived and received the Divine Mercy messages from Jesus. We said the Divine Mercy chaplet with the sisters in the convent chapel at 3pm- the hour of Mercy. The chapel is where Jesus appeared to Sr. Faustina many times, and is where her relics are. We got to venerate her relics and just soak in the mercy and love that was pouring out of this place. It's amazing how the Divine Mercy message was given right before WWII in Poland. Jesus told us that we must always forgive. Our Lady of Fatima warned of the World Wars too, saying we could avoid them if we repented and began to love one another. Heaven gave us so many signs to avoid these wars, but we did not choose to listen. Instead, we chose hate. However, this mercy is always available if we repent. Mercy is a form of love. It's how God shows His love towards creation, towards humanity. So this shrine is not just a shrine of mercy, but of LOVE! Jesus gave us His blood and water on the Cross out of burning love for us, to heal us, cleanse us, and bring us into union with the Father. So this shrine makes even more sense that it's in Poland, because it bears testimony to God's unfailing love for us even in the midst of suffering. God never leaves us. Love always conquers.

The last place we got to visit was JPII's hometown in Wadowice. The town itself is very barren and industrial- like most towns in Poland affected by Communism. However, there is a beautiful church that looms above the rest of the buildings. It was so awesome to see the church he grew up going to. He spent most of his childhood in this church, praying in front of the huge Our Lady of Perpetual Help portrait in a side chapel. My jaw dropped when I saw it, because she is the patron saint of Haiti and very close to my heart. I smiled to think that JPII had a similar devotion to her, and that it was in front of her image that he first heard the whisperings of the call to the priesthood. I spent a lot of time praying in front of her image like he did, praying for whatever my vocation is in life. There were about 100 school children in the church singing before Mass, something that would have given JPII great joy.

We all had heavy hearts as we left Poland- it was such a life-changing place for us all and many experienced significant conversion in their hearts. Praise God! This concept of love and its strength in the face of evil completely changed my perspective and set my heart on fire! No matter what suffering we go through, we can always choose love. We all have that dignity and that freedom. Love is stronger than death. Christ proved that on the Cross.

The fact that Blessed John Paul II, St. Faustina, and St. Maximillian Kolbe all rose up out of the same region in Poland within 50 years of each other and during the horrors of WWII is no coincidence. It's grace. It's God fulfilling His promise to us, that out of the ashes of suffering He will bring good. He will conquer evil and use it to bring people closer to Him. All of this, of course, was done with the intercession of Our Lady of Czestohowa, who keeps the people of Poland close to her heart always.

Notre Dame- the real one.

The second weekend of free travel 3 of my friends and I decided to take a crazy adventure to France. It included spending more time on trains than in the actual places we visited, and a lot of stress, but in the end it was totally worth it. In the span of 72 hours we saw 2 Marian apparition sites, 3 incorrupt bodies of saints, and a certain tower in Paris that sparkles at night :)

Our adventure started with taking our first overnight train to Paris on Thursday afternoon right after our last class ended. By train I mean 5. After a long night of uncomfortable seats and no sleep, we arrived in Paris later that we expected. It gave us barely enough time to go to the ticket counter, reserve the rest of our tickets, and then catch our train to Lisieux. The French train system is very annoying and demands that you have a reservation for each train, even if you already have a Eurail pass. By the time we got our tickets, we only had 15 minutes to catch our train to Lisieux that left from a train station on the opposite side of the city. We ran down to the metro, but my debit card didn't work in the machine and we didn't have the right amount of cash. Time was ticking at an incredibly fast pace, when from behind us we hear a man ask in English if we need help. He was like an angel sent from above. I told him our situation, and asked if he could put our tickets on his credit card and we would give him the cash for it. He hesitated for a minute, but I think the panicked look on our faces moved something in him to help us. He got our tickets, and after thanking him over and over we ran down to the subway. We got to the train station with minutes to spare, and ran from track to track looking for our train. When I say ran, I mean it. Sprinting through the train station with our big backpacks. We finally found our train just as it was about to leave and hopped on at the last second.

As I flung my stuff down on a seat and caught my breath, I thanked Mary and St. Therese for helping us. I had been frantically praying to them the whole time, asking for their intercession. We were going to see St. Therese of Lisieux, one of my favorite saints, and I kept asking her to help us get on the train. The man who helped us at the subway ticket machine came back into my mind. I have no doubt that St. Therese put him in our path for a reason. She was all about finding holiness in the little things, and showing charity to every single person that you meet. He gained more holiness, whether he knew it or not, through his act of charity. Without us being there, that opportunity wouldn't have happened. So, although it was stressful, I thanked God for everything.

It was a quick train ride to Lisieux, and when we got there the sun had broken through the clouds to greet us. We could see the big basilica from the train station, and walked right over to it. It was built to honor St. Therese, and is massive in size. It's very beautiful, but I wonder if she's looking down from heaven and shaking her head, asking if we learned anything from her. She loved everything small and simple, and here was this grandiose basilica built in her honor. Hmm. We then walked over to the Carmel convent chapel, where her body is. I was so excited and nervous at the same time- she was going to be the first incorrupt body I have ever seen. We walked in, and a feeling of peace washed over me instantly. She lies in this glass case, sort of like Snow White, except much more beautiful. She is wearing her habit, and all of her skin is covered in a wax covering. This means that her body isn't completely preserved but that the process of decay is slowed down to a miraculous pace. Many of the other incorrupt saints are like this as well. I just knelt in front of her body, completely in awe. I had read her Story of a Soul only a year or so ago, so it was fresh in my mind. Everything that she talks about was sitting right in front of me- the convent, the garden, even the statue of Mary that miraculously healed her as a child. I felt her presence in such a powerful way. The sisters even started singing midday prayer in the chapel while we were there. I wish I could have stayed there for hours, but we had to catch our train back. The way the schedules were, we could only stay in Lisieux for about 2 hours in order to make our next train to Lourdes. While 2 hours is an incredibly short time to be in Lisieux, it was enough for us to see St. Therese and have her bless us with peace and love. I could feel the love pouring out of her body still, radiating like a warm lamp. Everything she did was out of love, for love.

The next leg of our journey was to travel back to Paris to catch a train to Lourdes. This train left out of the southern part of the city, so we decided to walk there in order to see some of Paris. It was a beautiful walk, but we didn't give ourselves enough time and ended up having to run again. This time we ran the last mile to the train station. Running on the sidewalks, maneuvering around people, on a gradual uphill. It was brutal. I started praying to Mary again. We made it to the train station with about 5 minutes until our train left. However, there were two different buildings, one on each side of the street. We went into one and it ended up being the wrong one. By this time we only had about 2 minutes, so we sprinted across the street, down the stairs, and into the huge train station. We eventually found our train, but realized that it was two different trains linked together, each going in separate ways once we left the train station. Apparently they do that a lot in Europe. So, we had to sprint down the length of the train (it was a very long train) to get to the right car. The train should have left already, but the conductors must have seen us and held the train (something they don't usually do). As we were sprinting, people were looking out the windows and standing in the doorways, some yelling "go, go, go!" It was sort of embarassing, but hilarious at the same time. We jumped on the right train just in time. I thanked Mary again, in disbelief that we actually made it. There was no way that we should have. The French trains are very particular about leaving on time, and this one had left about 5 minutes late, just enough time for us to get there. I knew it was through Mary's intercession, since if we missed this one there was no way we would make it to Lourdes at all that weekend.

We got to Lourdes around 11:30pm on Friday, February 11th- the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes :) I thanked her that we at least got to spend a half hour of her feast day in the actual place where she appeared. It was a miracle we had made it, after two days of travelling and no sleep. We walked straight from the train to the grotto, and knelt down in exhaustion and complete peace. It was like all of the stress from the last two days completely melted at her feet. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen- there were candles everywhere from the procession they had had that night, which lit up the face of her statue with a warm glow. The grotto is so peaceful and natural, which I liked so much better than being in a big, loud distracting church. We prayed there for a while, and then walked back to our hostel around 1am to get a few hours of precious sleep before we had to wake up early again. We got up early to beat the crowds to the baths, since we had to leave that afternoon to take the train back to Paris. As with everything in life, the women's line was much longer than the men's line even at 8am in the morning. Katherine and I waited for a good 2 hours to make it into the baths, while Jose and Nathan were in and out before we even made it inside.

The baths at Lourdes are an incredible and life-changing experience. For those who don't know, the water in Lourdes comes from an underground spring that Our Lady revealed to St. Bernadette during her apparitions. It has special healing graces in it, and many people have been miraculously healed at Lourdes through Our Lady's intercession. They have indoor baths, called the piscines, where you can be dunked into the water and pray for any type of healing (physical, emotional, psychological, etc.) It's not magical water- healings don't happen 100% of the time. It's more the prayer that's in the heart of the pilgrim that brings about the healing, and their openness to God's work in their lives. There is so much respect for the dignity of each person who comes into the piscenes. I felt Mary's presence more in the women who helped me than in the water itself. They are so motherly, so tender, so caring to people who are complete strangers to them. They help you by holding up a sheet while you take off your clothes and put on a big robe made out of thin cloth. There are then more women inside the bath itself, who pray with you and help you into the water. There is one women who leads the prayer, and the woman I had happened to speak English. She was probably in her late 30s and very soothing. She asked me to pray to Mary for my intention, and wrapped her arms around me from behind like a mother and held her hands on my heart while I prayed. I felt like it was Mary herself holding me. They then led me into the water, which is FREEZING cold, especially in the middle of winter! I was kind of in shock from the cold as they helped me up, but I managed a smile through my blue chattering lips and thanked them from the bottom of my heart. I changed back into my clothes and went right back outside to the grotto. I prayed a Rosary and thanked Mary for her intercession at the feet of Jesus. Although Lourdes seems to be all about Mary, it really is all about Jesus because all of her graces come from Him. I felt His peace through her. We eventually had to leave to catch our train- but Mary gave us a special grace by not having to run this time! We all didn't want to leave, but got on the train back to Paris.

We arrived in Paris late Saturday night and walked to our hostel. It was right near the Eiffel tower, so we stopped there on the way to look at it. It sparkles at night!! It was beautiful, but not nearly as beautiful as the peace we had just experienced in Lourdes. However, we took our funny tourist pictures by the tower and then called it a night. We were planning on spending the entire day in Paris on Sunday, since we hadn't really explored the city yet, but found out in the morning that the only train we could get a reservation on was leaving at 11am. It took a lot to surrender this to God, but it ended up working out for His glory. We were able to go to Mass in the morning before we left, at the shrine of the Miraculous Medal. It's the place where Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Laboray and gave her the miraculous medal and its promises. St. Catherine's body is there, along with St. Louise. It's a very pretty church, and Mass in French was beautiful. I'm almost positive that the priest we had was Haitian, because he was black and his French was very choppy, not smooth and flowy like a native French speaker. He could have been African as well, but something in my gut told me that he was Haitian and that this was another sign from God that my vocation is in Haiti. We spent some time after Mass praying in front of St. Catherine Laboray's body, which I'm pretty sure didn't have any wax covering. She looked like she was just sleeping peacefully.

We then went to the train station and started our long journey back to Austria. Because of the train situation, we had a 5 hour layover in Munich on Sunday night. Luckily, anywhere in the world a McDonalds is always open, so we hung out there for most of it. We had an actual sleeper car on the way back, meaning real beds! It was so nice, after pretty much not sleeping for the last 3 days. We got back to Gaming at 8:15 in the morning on Monday, right in time for class. I'm not really sure how I made it through the day since I was so tired, but it was totally worth everything. Mama helped us on each step of the way and gave us the graces we needed to make it through. I learned how long a human body can survive without a real meal. We ate bread and Nutella for most of the trip, having one dinner at McDonalds in Paris and a crepe in Lourdes. I decided I wasn't leaving France without having a croissant, so luckily I found one in the train station just before we left.

The trip was the most stressful one during the whole semester, but we got the fame back on campus of being one of the only group of students ever to do that trip in just a weekend. It was challenging, but it strengthened my trust in God and my complete surrender to Him in every situation. We never got to see the church of Notre Dame in Paris, but we definitely spent time with the real Notre Dame, both in Lourdes and along every step of our journey.

London Calling

Our first free weekend to travel was in the beginning of February. A group of my friends decided to go to London, since the flights were cheap and it was somewhere we had always wanted to go. I wasn't planning on it being a religious experience, since it was a secular place we were going. Yet, God always works in funny ways.

Since it was our first time traveling on our own without the help of the school, we were all a little nervous. We had to take the bus from our school to the train station, then 3 different trains to get to Salzburg, then a bus from the train station to the airport, and then fly to London. Although we had a lot of quick connections, we were able to make it to Salzburg no problem. Phew. We decided we were going to sleep in the airport, since our flight was really early the next morning and we didn't want to pay for a hostel. We found the bus no problem to get to the airport, and by the time it dropped us off it was around 11:30pm. We were surprised at how small the airport was, and how deserted it seemed. Don't airports usually stay open all night? We walked up to one of the sliding doors and it didn't move. Ut-oh. We tried another one and it didn't move either. There was no one inside and all of the lights seemed dimmed. The airport must have been closed! Here we were, in the middle of the night, in the outskirts of the city with nowhere to sleep.

We saw a sign for a hotel next to the airport, so we walked over thinking we had found our solution. But the door was locked and there was no one at the reception desk. As some of us started to freak out, we said a prayer of protection and guidance. We knew there were benches outside of the airport doors, and although it was a cold night in the middle of winter we began to accept the fact that we would be sleeping outside. We made each other feel better by saying that it would only be for a few hours, that we could huddle together, and that it would be a good way to really experience how homeless people live in order to get a greater appreciation for those things we take for granted every day. We trusted in God and gave the night to Him and His will. If it was His will for us to sleep outside, then so be it.

We walked over to the benches which were outside of the main doors of the airport. To our surprise, we checked the doors one more time and they opened!!! We all stood there stunned for a moment. We hurried inside praising God with smiles of disbelief on our faces. We realized that the doors we had been trying earlier were off to the side, that they must close those and only keep the main doors in the middle open. But God wanted it to be that way. He wanted to break us down, to have to give everything to Him and trust completely in Him, before He could bring us into the airport. It was an important lesson we needed to learn at the start of our semester before we started traveling the globe. I'm so glad it happened that way, because I gave every trip after that completely into God's hands. He wanted us to give Him that yes, to follow His will even if it meant sleeping outside in the cold. To accept anything and everything put in our path. I smiled as I curled up on the hard airport bench I would call my bed for that night, thinking of all of this and praising God for all He had done for us. Who knew I could ever be so thankful for an airport bench?

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful compared to this- a time of growth in friendship and a realization of the joys and challenges of traveling abroad. London is such a historically rich city, and it was a childhood dream come true to be able to go there! Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the double decker buses, red telephone booths.. we saw it all :)

Stateside

Whew, has it been 4 months already? This semester has flown by. I apologize for not keeping this blog updated during most of the semester. It was my intention, but I didn't realize how exhaustingly busy I would be. I didn't even have time to process my trips in my own mind, let alone write it down and post it. So, as I slowly complete this process now in the States, you all will hear about it here! :)

I learned many things while I was abroad. Too many to count, in fact. I've seen so many places, met so many people, and been taught so many things that have all changed my life for the better. I fell even deeper in love with the Catholic faith- with the Church, with Scripture, with the Pope, and with the little ways God calls us on to holiness every day. I've opened up to the Holy Spirit in new and powerful ways, and have a whole new outlook on my prayer life. In short, my soul has come alive. Just like the hills ;)

I learned a lot of practical things too while traveling. Like, how to fall asleep on an airport bench and a train seat. How a human can survive on just bread, Nutella, and water for 3 days and not die. How McDonalds is the best place to sleep in an airport because they have couches. How the best thing to do after sleeping in an airport is to go to the duty free shop selling perfume and spray yourself with a sample... it makes both you and everyone around you feel better!

But, the most important thing I learned out of all of this is that Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist is infinitely times greater than any place I visited. I may have had these awesome experiences, but we can receive Jesus, the King of the Universe, into our bodies every day at Mass. That's greater than anything else in this world, and doesn't require a plane ticket! So rejoice, because He is our King :)