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.

Merry Christmas

Buon Natale a tutti! I have much on which to catch up on this here blog- these last two months have been quite busy. We had Thanksgiving and our New Man weekend, which was awesome and exhausting- a wonderful experience I'm glad I will never have to endure again. We sang Christmas carols around Rome and at our university. In house, we celebrated our college's 150th anniversary on December 8th and had our annual Christmas party. We new men got assigned to our apostolic outreaches for next semester. Last but certainly not least, we celebrated Christmas itself, at Midnight Mass with the Pope for many of us. I would put pictures up and tell you all about the going-ons over here now, but I leave shortly for the airport to catch a flight to Vienna with a few of my friends. We will be staying at a monastery on the outskirts of Vienna for a few days, then we will spend a day in Linz and a couple days in Munich. Once I return, I will do my darnedest to get caught up a little on the blog, assuming I accomplish all the other work I have to do to survive over here. I pray you all had a very Merry Christmas and continue to do so as the octave progresses. More later. Praise God!

Happy All Souls' Day!

Hello all! This last weekend was a college travel weekend, and most of the house scattered to the four corners of the continent. I was originally planning to travel to Venice this weekend with my DBs (Diocesan Brothers- I'm slowly picking up proper "seminarian lingo" over here), but our plans fell through, so I spent a quiet weekend here, which was ok, since I got a fair bit done and got some good fellowship in with the other guys who stayed behind.

For All Saints' Day, I went to a High Pontifical Mass celebrated by the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, which was quite an experience. I had only been to four or so extraordinary form Masses before this, too, so it was a relatively new experience for me still. It was very beautiful- the singing was very well done. They had all their relics pulled out on display for veneration. I didn't end up taking pictures, which I am always a little hesitant to do during liturgies, but if you really want some good shots the blog http://www.orbiscatholicus.org/ is a good place to look. It's difficult to quite gather how beautiful the church was from most of the shots, but some of them are really quite excellent.

This morning I and a number of the men from the house went to celebrate Mass and pay our respects at the College Mausoleum at Campo Verano. It was a simply enormous graveyard- so big it had map stations and, apparently, guided tours and bus lanes through it! The resting place for our deceased college brethren is one of the simpler plots there, but it's still very nice. I'll get the pictures up from this morning when I can. Obviously nowadays a seminarian would be sent home to be buried if he died over here, but in the past that simply wasn't very feasible, or so I gathered- that long ride on a boat was perhaps too much for the body. Many of them were younger than I am now- the ages were also posted on their marble plaques in the mausoleum, with many of them being 22 or younger! It was very humbling on this Feast of All Souls' to think that all these young men, all these intercessors, had already made the greatest leap of faith- that great leap from life through death to life everlasting. It's encouraging, in a way; even though they were not martyrs, there is a certain example of courage in a Christian death, I think. It calls us all on to live our faiths, for we do not know the hour or the day when Christ will come again for us individually.

Other than that, not too much to report. We ended up missing our first hour of classes because of the trip this morning, but we were able to catch breakfast at the cafe in our university, which is really quite excellent. Their prices are really reasonable, too- even translated back into dollars (which is almost heartbreaking some days with the current conversion rate), the prices were no worse than they would be in a coffee shop back in the states. I ended up paying 2.60 euro for breakfast of a blood orange Fanta and an apple pastry. That was really good, too, especially considering the fact that pop is a LOT more expensive over here than it is back in the states. I also made my deposit for a retreat I'm planning on taking after Easter with 44 other guys from the college and the head of spiritual direction here at the North American College. We are going to Ars, the town where the patron of this Year of the Priest, St. John Vianney, spent his days hearing confessions and ministering to his people in superabundant charity. May John Vianney intercede for all of us seminarians and help us to become priests like he was, priests in the likeness of Our Lord.

Beginning of Week Three

Once again, it's been much too long since my last post. I have simply been too swamped with school to be able to post anything of significance. Thankfully, there hasn't been quite as much excitement around here to report. Friday we had our Halloween Party/Costume Contest/Oktoberfest all rolled into one here at the NAC. That was a ridiculous amount of fun. The second-years hosted for us and they put on quite a presentation- they will be big shoes to fill. They even set up a haunted house, of all things! They did a really nice job with it, too! I was thoroughly impressed, from the mad doctor operating on his "patient" to the Exorcist-like possession of one of the second-year men on his shaking and moving bed. Quite frankly, I think the empty corridors and the backstage area they set up for the haunted house are scary enough in the dark without any additional help. The costume party goes utterly beyond description, so you'll just have to ask me in person sometime if you really want to know what seminarians do for a Halloween costume party. If it's any clue it was hosted by the crew from the movie Anchorman with a North American martyr, a flower child, and the physical embodiment of the vice of Entitlement as guest judges. We had a statue, a mime, a dinosaur-impersonator, a Mexican wrestler, a NASCAR chaplain, and a number of buddhist monks in the contest, among other things.

What else? Tuesday the guys in my class from Franciscan went again to Sant'Onofrio to visit the rector there, who is a friend of the head of the pre-theologate program at Franciscan, Fr. Ken. That was pretty nice. He gave us a tour and we got to talk for a little while. I took a couple pictures of the event, but sadly technical difficulties have resulted in their mysterious deletion. I suppose it's just as well that I didn't take pictures of the festivities Friday, either, then. *sigh*

Other than that, things are really just business as usual around here. The first two weeks of class have been good, insofar as they can be. I still feel the need to slam my face into my desk repeatedly every morning, but that urge is occurring less frequently and becoming easier to resist. Taking classes in a foreign language is a very good way to develop virtue, I've discovered. We have about 19 credit hours of class this semester, but there isn't as much homework as there would be in the states. Homework really becomes independent study over here- we get out what we put in. The professors don't check to see if we've done the reading; all that matters is whether or not we can pass the test at the end of the semester. I'm trying, so we'll see how it goes.

Ah, and everyone over here seems to be catching some sort of cold or flu; I heard back home there's been a lot of swine flu going around, so maybe we've caught it here, as well. Amazingly, I'm still in good health, so praise God! I would write more, but I have to get back to work. I'm going to make a real effort to get a post up on Sundays, maybe, from here on out. Now that things are much calmer, maybe I'll get some pictures of random sights from around town or the college posted. I hope all is well back home. Remember to feel free to leave prayer intentions if you think of it; believe me, we spend enough time in prayer to be able to offer everyone up at some point, so please don't hesitate to ask. May the grace of God be with you all.

Monte Cassino

Ok, so Saturday I took a day trip with one of the third-years I knew from Franciscan. He was looking for someone to go with him and I would have just spent my day back at the college, so I was happy to go along. Montecassino is an old* monastery founded by Saint Benedict himself (his first and most important, if I remember correctly, though I could be mistaken on that). "Old" is used rather loosely, as the place has been destroyed and rebuilt roughly five times since it was first founded, most recently at the Battle of Monte Cassino during WWII (where sadly we Americans bombed it to smithereens, but that's how it goes sometimes- I heard from another guy there that one of the bombs that fell immediately next to the high altar and down into the crypt with the bodies of Saints Benedict and Scholastica did not explode and is still there to this day- praise God for that). It was a beautiful example of how nice modern art and architecture can appear, when we so desire. The place was stunningly beautiful. We took a 110 minute train to Cassino, a small to mid-sized Italian town at the foot of the mountains. From there we took a bus up the mountain to Montecassino. The morning was beautiful in its solitude and quiet- there was a heavy, low-lying layer of clouds which hung around the base of the mountain, so that, by the time we got to the monastery, we could not see anything- the noise and distractions of the city were hidden from view and quickly forgotten. Saints Benedict and Scholastica are both entombed in Montecassino, so we prayed at their tombs for a few quiet moments. The chapel there was stunning- I'll let most of the pictures do the talking and comment only where necessary. I've very glad Riley invited me to go with him- it was a perfect day trip and a good end to our time of orientation and acclimation.

Ok, I couldn't help putting this picture in my post- the juxtaposition was

too beautiful to resist. If you look very carefully, you can see Monte Cassino through the graffiti-covered window of the train just above the "I", partially covered by the train line outside.

Again, I couldn't help it. Welcome to Europe, everyone!

Here's a better view from just outside the train station.

And we arrived here...

The solitude on the hill I mentioned- this is actually quite a good shot- that's

really how shrouded we were in the clouds.

Ok, notice the statues of Benedict and Scholastica. When you see the picture of Our Lady, that's the rear of the main altar, the spot in the main chapel where Sts. Benedict and Scholastica are venerated. Also, the very golden chapel is the crypt church underneath the main church. It's where the bodies of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica are. I tried to get shots of them, too, but they weren't great. It was a good thing another tour group got down into there to pray- it appeared that the lower chapel was not always open. Notice the incredible marble work on the altars and walls, especially the Blessed Sacrament altar (the first one you see in the set of pictures right before the main altar). It's incredible what we can do with modern technology. The final shot is of the Polish graveyard from the war down the mountain a little from Monte Cassino.

Ok, here begins my commentary silence. Enjoy!