Flashback 2b: My Christmas Break- Linz and Munich

We arrived in Linz and dragged our bags to the hotel. I wasn't feeling that great at the time- long, long story- having gotten sick at Klosterneuberg and was really sore, so we made it in and I just kinda chilled. A couple of the guys took off running, while Matt (pictured with the Snow White dwarf) and I just wandered a little, prayed a holy hour in their cathedral, and went back to the hotel. I took a nice, hot shower and popped a couple motrin and took a nap until the other guys got back. We went to dinner at this interest little joint. It was very American punk and rock inspired and there were a lot of young people there- the average age in the room was probably 19 or 20. We had some dinner and the waiter came over and practiced his English with us. It was quite good, since he had spent some time in Pittsburgh, if I recall correctly.

Just look at the detail in these stained glass windows- it's really quite spectacular. That being said, the ones in the front of the Church which follow... look like they were designed to be deciphered by cryptographers... the mathematician in me was more than a little intrigued, but they don't really quite fit with the rest of the Church...

The next day we packed our bags and headed to Munich.

I still wasn't feeling great but was a little better than before and was at least up for a little exploration. We got in early afternoon on New Year's Eve, dropped our stuff off, got settled in a little, and went off exploring the city. I made a point to find the cathedral, which was right next to the main square and the rathaus- the Town Hall. Before that, though, we appreciated the little wooden fort surrounding an ice rink which had both been set up in honor of Christmas and New Year's quite near to our hotel. I was a little surprised by the price of our hotel room until we got there- it was literally a 90 second walk from the ice rink and only about 10 minutes from the town center, which was awesome. At to that the fact that we were only two to a room instead of four to a room like we did in Linz, and it was well worth the extra expense. After converting from the Euro, which hurt a little during the trip, it came out to about 85 or 90 dollars per person per night for the hotel room, which, given the central location and the fact that it was New Year's Eve in downtown Munich, was quite reasonable. We found a nice place to eat for dinner then just hung out and wandered around, engaging in some good people watching and firework dodging.

That was the really interesting and memorable part of the evening. New Year's Eve is an excuse for everyone under the age of thirty in Munich to spend all their money on fireworks and shoot them off, at the sky, at the spire of the rathaus, at the roof of buildings and other people, whatever. We enjoyed watching this in the main square until one misfired near us and sent jets of red flame shooting toward us. Thankfully we were already mostly behind a large column and just inched back a bit and missed getting nice and singed. It provided an occasion to get talking with the couple standing next to us, though, who were a retired couple from the Southwest somewhere- New Mexico, maybe. They made a pact to visit someplace new and exciting with each other every New Year's as long as they could. They were excited to hear our story, since it turned out they were both Catholics. It was a very providential and enjoyable conversation.

After things got a little too hairy, we went and prayed and listened to an organ concert. After that, a couple of them stayed and prayed, one went back out into the chaos, and I ducked back to the room. I didn't feel like dying that evening and it was 11:30 already. The fireworks and firecrackers were being shot off and thrown in full force. It was to the point where people were actually hitting the outside of the Church during our holy hour and organ concert and I didn't feel like sticking around to get hit- I had seen it and enjoyed it, but it was time to call it a night.

We just relaxed the next day, really. There was a little sight-seeing, but nothing particularly of note. I don't think I even brought my camera with me. Our last day before the night train home we bought a subway pass and took off for the BMW headquarters and museum. It was a pretty cool tour- I learned a great deal about car manufacturing and cars in general. At the end they had a new exhibit on prototype cars, and I have a few good pictures from that. After that, we took a short walk over to the Olympic Village from the Olympic games in Munich. The pool there is still a functioning natatorium, which is kinda cool, though we didn't go swimming. They also had a plaque and monument to the Israelite athletes killed in the act of terrorism at the olympic games. Finally, we made our way to the train station, ate some dinner en route, and got on our train home.

Here's a picture of the cathedral, then one of the stained-glass inside, to give an idea of how tall this church really was. The window went most of the way up, and the whole things was decorated. It must have been immensely expensive and taken untold days to complete. Following that are the rathaus and a nice picture of both the cathedral and the rathaus.

Here we are enjoying dinner in a German pub.

It finally snowed for me! I was so excited. Living in Rome now, we never get a chance to see snow, except on the distant mountain tops. I was beginning to go through withdrawal, so it was nice to get to stomp around in it a little before heading back to Rome.

Here are the shots from the BMW Museum

I was impressed to see that they had an exhibit on this... lest we forget...

This was one of the more unusual concept cars. It kinda looked like it belonged in Star Wars. One of the guys mused about whether his bishop could be persuaded that such a car was a necessary business expense for a priest... I suspect not... [:)

Now this one was awesome. The 'skin' on the car molded and reshaped itself according to the current action of the car. The headlights actually blink open, the door pulls ajar with the skin reshaping around it, the seat readjusts from within, the dashboard just opens up- no latches. It had a very organic feel to it. I'm not sure if I'd want to own one like it, but it was pretty awesome to see, nonetheless.

Then we were off to the Olympic Village.

May they rest in peace...

Overall, it was a really great trip. It was nice getting to spend some quality time with some classmates and it was a very culturally and spiritually edifying trip. That was an interesting element of the trip- we hear all too often about how spiritually dead the Church is in Europe, but we didn't quite get that impression in our travels. Admittedly, Austria is supposed to be almost entirely Catholic so there should be a lot of people attending Mass, but I was very impressed by the numbers of people who showed for daily Mass, even. The cathedral in Vienna was completely packed for the daily Mass at noon, and not just with old people. There were a lot of younger people, as well. It was very impressive and spiritually heartening to see, truly. I'm quite certain things aren't great in Europe, but the Spirit is still moving strongly amongst His people. Praise God.

Flashback 2a: My Christmas Break- Vienna

So after the Christmas festivities died down, I and three of my friends got ourselves packed and took off to the airport the afternoon of the 27th. We departed for Bratislava, at which point we were picked up and brought to the monastery at Closter Neuberg, just outside of Vienna. To give the history of the place could take hours and endless blog posts- I would recommend looking it up if you get a chance at some point. It's really rather fascinating. The monastery is extremely well-endowed, both from previous emperors and rulers as well as from the money the city of Vienna pays them regularly for use of their land. Apparently, or so I was told when I returned to Rome, Closter Neuberg owned about a third of the land on which the city of Vienna was built, all the way down to the Danube, so the city pays the monastery well for use of their land. The men who have committed themselves to the service of God at Closter Neuberg are known as 'canons'. It is a distinction with which I am still not entirely familiar, since we don't really have such a system in the United States, but they are priests who live in community at the service of the diocese. Almost all of them have a parish for which they are pastors or associate pastors, and they divide up their days praying, working, and recreating at the monastery and celebrating the sacraments and serving the people at the parish. A couple of them are in Rome studying for various higher degrees of education, and we actually got hooked up with the place by one of them, to whom we are most grateful.

The 'canon' system seems like a fascinating idea- it seems to be a problem plaguing the priests of every diocese of the states (and perhaps the world) that there is not enough fraternal support or accountability. Here at the North American College we've been advised repeatedly that, to stay strong as a priest, we need to maintain a good, faithful prayer life and maintain true, mature friendships with other priests. The canon system seems like a beautiful way in which to do just that, while still serving the diocese. Whether this could ever happen in the states is beyond me, but it seems like some movement in that direction could be one answer to a few of the problems facing the Church in America today.

There were a huge number of pictures taken on this trip, so forgive me if I do not comment on all of them. They begin with our entrance late late in the evening our first night there and work through our tour of the grounds the next day, as well as our couple day trips into Vienna. Those that follow immediately are all from our first day or two at Closter Neuberg.

We met a heavy, mechanized gate upon arrival. The complex was EXTREMELY well protected, to defend all the priceless items I will describe shortly.

Yeah, this was just in the Kaiser's Sitting Room, essentially, not in a chapel or anything. [:)

Here we saw one of the only full tapestry sets left in existence, apparently. It's worth more than its weight in gold, and tapestries weigh quite a bit!

These last few pictures have all been from the Kaiser's suite, which he had them build when they built the monastery. He ended up staying... wait for it... wait for it... a whopping one night. This is a picture of the radiator from one of the Kaiser's rooms. It looks more like an altar...

Ambrose, our tour guide and a novice with the canons, continued the tour and eventually we came to the monastery's schatzkammer, their treasury/vault. They have acquired a number of priceless artifacts over the many years from various civic and ecclesial authorities. This is the entrance room, with various vestment sets and precious vessels. They also have the second oldest German bible in existence- as in the second oldest hand-written one, not printed. They used to have the oldest one, but they gave it away, I think.

In the next room, which was in many ways like a sacristy, they housed many of their priceless vestments and their national treasures.

This was made of woven silver and gold. Seriously. He let us touch it. It felt like it must have weighed as much as a suit of armor.

Here is one of the national and Church treasures- the skull of St. Leopold, patron of Austria. He was the Margrave of Austria (essentially the Lord in service of the Kaiser/Emperor) and founder of Klosterneuberg. He was a man of great piety and justice, who actually turned down a possible succession to the throne as Kaiser. Students in much of Austria actually get his feast day off from school.

This monstrance is just about solid gold and semi-precious gems, if I recall. It's much too heavy to use for benediction. This, like the skull of St. Leopold and the next item, is kept under four separate locks and security system.

This is the royal crown of Austria. It's in the keep of the canons at Klosterneuberg. They actually possess a papal bull stating that anyone who removes it from the monastery for more than twenty-eight days is automatically excommunicated! Obviously, it's not used any longer. The most recent use was for the funeral of Empress Zita of Austria in the 80s or early 90s, though I could be wrong on that.

Here I am, posing with Saint Ursula and companions, virgins and martyrs. They just had her kept in a closet in their Schatzkammer. It was really quite stunning.

Alright, then we moved on to the Church proper. The odd picture of the glass box is the Kaiser's booth for Mass. He came periodically to attend Mass here.

As a side note, if you can't tell from the pictures, the dress code at the monastery was cassock for everything, so we brought ours along for our time in Klosterneuberg.

These next pictures are from our time in Vienna proper. The first is from the inside of the cathedral, Stephansdom. The second is shot from the top of the tower of the cathedral- notice the unusual roof. It's very distinctive and makes this cathedral probably one of the easiest to pick out in a photo album of random churches in Europe.

Here is the Hofburg Imperial Palace (or at least one small angle of it- each side and angle is very different and beautiful in its own right), old residence of the Kaiser.

This next one is difficult to see, but it's the altar piece for the Church of St. Michael right across the way from the Hofburg. It depicts, if you look carefully, the casting out of the fallen angels from heaven. It's called something like "The Overthrow of the Angels". It was a pretty cool piece, but the lighting was very bad for pictures.

Here we see all the decorations for Advent and Christmas.

Our last day, I got a shot of Klosterneuberg from afar. Then you see my traveling companions chilling in a park in Austria, and finally the tomb of Franz Joseph in the Imperial crypt underneath a Capuchin church in Austria.

Then we took off by train for Linz and Munich...

Flashback 1: Pictures from Midnight Mass and All Things Christmas

Alright, I've finally staked out a little time in which to update my blog, and there is just SO much updated to perform. I'll begin with Christmas, work my way back to the Spaghetti Bowl and Thanksgiving weekend, then catch everything else I missed.

Christmas really was a very blessed time. We were all a little homesick, so we spent a lot of time together, watching movies like The Muppets' Christmas Carol (which is one of the best Christmas movies of all time, no exaggeration), and just spending time together. We played cards, waxed philosophical, and wandered the city a bit. It was very enjoyable. Christmas Eve, as I said before, we all attended Midnight Mass with the Holy Father. It was actually 10 PM Mass, since the Pope was starting to feel his age a bit. We showed up around 6:30 and waited outside at the side entrance by the sacristy for an interminable amount of time due to a misunderstanding, but we finally got in, got practiced, and sat waiting for Mass to begin.

Mass began and proceeded as usual, but then we heard an audible gasp and the procession stopped. The sound of a couple women stifling screams was clear. If I am being honest, I have to admit that my first thought was, "Dear Lord, who shot the pope?" We waited in suspense, being on the other side of the main altar, unable to see anything which was occurring. Finally, we heard the sounds of cheering and knew that the Pope was fine. The Mass continued and went beautifully. It was such a graced experience, not just being able to attend Mass with the Holy Father but to be able to sing for him was great. My Italian has been improving- I could understand a not insignificant part of what he said in his homily. Had I been more alert and not so close to wanting to fall asleep after a long day I would have understood a fair bit more, no doubt. After Mass we returned to the college and had an early Christmas breakfast while quickly discovering what had happened to the Holy Father- that he had been knocked over by that agile but mentally-disturbed woman now made famous in that youtube clip. Here are some of my pictures from the event.

Here you can see how close we were seated to the high altar. The Pope sat in front of it, so we couldn't see his face for much of the Mass, but that's definitely ok. We had a spectacular view for the Eucharistic prayer and consecration, which was great. You can really see the great love the Pope has for our Lord in the reverence with which he prays the Mass.

Ok, before anyone says anything, this was not during the Mass. I hate hate hate hate hate it when people take pictures during the liturgy, but this was after the Mass had ended and the organist was playing the recessional. Everyone was snapping pictures and I figured I would sneak a quick shot in myself before my prayers after Mass.

Finally, this was the view of the Christmas tree and the giant Nativity scene in St. Peter's square, which was unveiled earlier that evening. I would have gotten closer, but as you can probably tell from the picture, it was raining heavily after Mass and I didn't want to soak my cassock.