Full of Thanks! And the start of Advent :)

be sure to read the two new posts below this long one...

Wednesday night

Nothing really beats good ol’ American food. We’ve been missing it a lot lately, especially the meat. Simple delights like hamburgers are rare here, unless you frequent McDonald’s or Burger King (which I am somewhat ashamed to say, I think I’ve had more fast food here than I have back in the States!).

Wednesday night we did not have our normal community night because we were celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday. Since we discovered the Bernardian grill, we decided we definitely need to put it to use more.

After Italian class on Wednesday, four of us divided up and went on mission to buy groceries. Kalynn, Thomas and I went to the nearest grocery store from school and our mission began. Chicken (do we get bones or filets?), ground beef, parmesan, hamburger buns, mustard…wait, there is no mustard ANYWHERE?

After a bit of a zoo trying to find the necessary items, checkout was another adventure. We have this wonderful system of tickets to use, but the problem is the majority of them come in 1 and 2 Euros. Thomas and my total came up pretty high, so the poor cashier lady was stuck recounting our tickets about 5 times and we just felt so awful for making her go through all this work.

Then we trudged the 25 minute walk home carrying all our groceries.

When we walked into Bernardi, the smell of garlic had already permeated the building. Oh joy joy! (simple fact: I am absolutely in love with garlic.)
Joseph was already cutting and washing and heating things up. The grill had started. The fun began!

Since the boys were doing all of the cooking (I seriously feel so much more convicted to work on my cooking skills here with all these men already know all this stuff!) I was able to start studying for Italian.
The minutes ticked by.
My stomach growled.
The smell of garlic krept up under my nose…
Until finally…
DING DING DING!
(Yes we have a dinner bell and YES I love when I hear that noise!)
Fr. Justin was even there (he had brought a football as well for our Thanksgiving festivities-praise the Lord!) and led us in prayer and finally we could feast!
And feast we DID! There was SO MUCH FOOD! It felt so 4th of July…so American…so GOOD!!!! There was about 5 pounds of carbonara (an Italian pasta, with egg, parmesan, and bacon), a multitude of spicy hamburgers, and Joe’s AMAZING soy-something-of-goodness-chicken marinade.
I ate SO much.

(the group breaking out into song...)

Only about twenty minutes into dinner someone broke out into song.
Which broke out into another song.
Which turned into Build Me Up Buttercup, which turned into Disney song marathon (of which Fr. Justin knew EVERY song),
which turned into Piano Man (Alison and I dominated by knowing every verse-good thing we keep that Vosters' wedding tradition!),
which turned into American Pie,
which turned into Bohemian Rhapsody (and Paul’s amazing air-piano and air-guitar skills),
and simmered (I’m not even kidding you) not until about an hour and a half later with Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls (I’m not sure why they weren’t too thrilled about those choices).
Fr. Justin had to get back to the NAC, so of course we led him off by sitting him in a chair and all standing around him singing “Happy Trails” to him and as he walked away “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music. A few songs drifted from there, ending with some Christmas ones, but it was by far the most memorable community night ever.

We basically ARE living in a musical.
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Thursday night
Thanksgiving in Italy!!!

We ate a 35 pound turkey! It was the hugest most amazing sight ever. Manuel (our Peruvian chef) is my new hero. He also made riced potatoes. I was SO excited to have a bit of Grandma Eunice there, Italian style.
We sang Albequerque is my Turkey! (mom teaches this song to her preschoolers-it was a hit! Fr. Carola was even a big fan!)

Fr. Carola told Paul, Eamon and I that for our penance for Advent, we couldn’t sit by each other or even at the same table because we were causing such a ruckus. He even joked that I better lay off the wine! (I had hardly drank any-ha).

It was very difficult to focus in class that night…even if it was only 45 minutes long because I missed the naps I usually take on Thanksgiving! Afterwards the girls I’m in class with (Alison, Claire and Katie) made our usual stop at the Irish pub down the road, the Scholar’s Lounge for their happy hour…aka partaking in the goodness that is an English speaking pub, funny Irish accents, drinking Strongbow, and reflecting on the week.

We were excited to be able to end our evening there by watching a little of the Detroit-Tennessee football game! Claire’s family is a die-hard Detroit fan, and their Thanksgiving tradition is to sit around the TV watching the Lions lose! (Ha that is actually HER QUOTE not mine!) We were all SO excited just to see football, especially on Thanksgiving! Also, the rest of our group was able to go out and play a football game, but we couldn’t since we had class. You’d think Fr. Buckles, being American, would cancel class. But alas, he only cut it in half.
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Friday
A Dutch Monsignor and an Italian Dinner
I just studied all day, preparing for our midterm in Martyrdom on Tuesday. In the evening I went to mass at the San Lorenzo youth center. Monsignor Everardus de Jong from the Netherlands was celebrating mass. After mass we were able to talk to him. He was excited to hear I was from Wisconsin. He had studied at Catholic U in DC where he got his PhD, and visited a friend at the Norbertine Abbey in DePere! When I told him I was from a nearby town of Green Bay, he got SUPER excited and exclaimed “AH the dairyland! You are the state of milk, cheese and eggs! Just like Holland!” and was so excited and began pointing at the map showing where he was from. I told him my Grandpa still like to speak Dutch a little, but when I told him my last name, he was disappointed because it didn’t sound Dutch. Haha!

Then my friend Katherine who is from St. Kate’s back in St. Paul invited me over to dinner at her apartment. She’s doing a home stay here and lives with an old Italian woman. It was a super cute cluttered apartment, and Katherine and I enjoyed a lot of mozzarella and tomatoes.

I came back and was able to Skype with my parents because it was my dad’s birthday! It was awesome to talk to him because I’ve been busy studying the past two Sundays and haven’t been able to catch him on the phone when I’ve called mom. Then I stayed up til 2am talking to everyone else in the fam because they all were coming home from Milwaukee to celebrate dad’s birthday. I also was able to be the first to wish Jen a happy birthday because TECHNICALLY it already was her birthday HERE because it was 2am here, even if it was only like 5pm there.
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Saturday
Saturday morning we had mass here at Bernardi (the joys of having a chapel right here in our house and of knowing priests studying at the North American College! Mass in English praise the Lord!) Afterwards the boys wanted to teach us this game they really like to play. It ended up lasting for almost 3 hours and I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep so I took a nap, studied a little, Katherine came over, and we got ready to go to St. Peter’s.

The Pope was having first advent vespers! It was beautiful. There weren’t that many people who knew about it, so we were scooted towards the front row, so when Papa came by, we were very close. St. Peter’s was looking very festive and ready for Advent, and the Pope’s vestments were absolutely beautiful. It was a wonderful start to the season!

On the way out I ran into Cosima, a girl I have met a few times who is from Germany as well as the Sisters of Mercy from Alma, Michigan.

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Visits with Old Friends

Afterwards I went to the Pantheon. Stacey Wilson, a friend from high school who has been studying in Florence this semester, and two of her friends were visiting Rome for the weekend. It was SO neat to see her here! We found a cute restaurant right by the Pantheon, which was all decorated for Christmas with pretty lights. Wow it’s so amazing to be able to meet people you spent a good number of your earlier years studying with and just pick up again in a foreign country! We went all out with dinner, wine, desserts for each of us to share, and ended with grappa! (The girls studying in Florence were also studying Italian cuisine so we had to experience the grappa—which is basically what remains of the grapes at the end of making wine. Basically it is the most alcoholic part of the wine making process. This is what I made of all of it anyway.)

Well what the girls had usually had grappa in, because it’s so strong (40% alcohol), was just a little shot glass or some sort of snifter. Well the waitress came out with four champagne flutes full of grappa!!!!!! It was intense! Needless to say, we could NOT finish it! It was quite the experience though. J All in all, it was a nice relaxing long dinner…we spent four hours at the dinner table! It was just a typical Italian dinner, and so enjoyable to be able to catch up with Stacey and show her a bit of Roma.

First Sunday of Advent with the Missionaries of Charity

(Sisters making some sort of cookie)

This morning (Sunday) Kalynn and I woke up bright and early to go to the Missionaries of Charity, since we couldn’t go on Friday. We got there about nine, and started sweeping and mopping. We were worried about finding a mass to go to during the day, but praise be to God they had mass there at 10am!

It was so wonderful to be there for our first mass of the season of Advent! Some of the men were especially making a bigger ‘to do’ about getting ready, putting on the nicest clothes that were around, combing their hair, etc. And what more of a blessing was there when we walked downstairs and found two of the Little Sisters of the Lamb were there as well! One of the sisters told me that she heard my friend Susan Verly was doing very well as a postulant because one of the sisters from Rome went to visit their convent in France where Susan is. Apparently they were at the MC’s because they knew a man that now was living at the house. He used to live on the streets outside of their convent and they ministered to him there. They introduced him to the Missionaries of Charity and the house and he has been happily living here for quite some time and the Little Sisters come to visit him every once in a while.

It was such a blessing to be able to be there on a Sunday, especially on the first Sunday in Advent, to see the men so in love with Jesus and wanting to be at mass and live their faith by celebrating the sacraments. It was a wonderful experience of community, of coming together with a common faith and giving time to praise the Lord for the blessings they have in their life. I was getting so choked up because I was truly seeing the fruit of the sisters’ ministry and vocation. Yes, the sisters work to provide shelter and food and health for the men, but the TRUE fruit of their ministry is the seeds of faith they sow that grows into a true love of Jesus. The men here are brought to life not just physically, but especially spirituality. Here they have regular prayer and mass, and from the nourishment of the sacraments they love and serve each other more. The joy they all had at being there was very evident, and reminded me of the simple yet profound love of Jesus and how I need to be reminded of this beautiful poverty. Especially at the start of Advent, this was a great reminder of how to better prepare for the coming of our Lord at Christmas!

May God bless your Advent season and may you see Him every day, especially by coming to Him in prayer and Thanksgiving for the many gifts He has given you, of life and love!

God love you!

Into the Silence

This weekend we went on silent retreat as a community. Yes…silence. I had never been on a silent retreat before and was excited to have this quiet time. Being in such a busy city with so many amazing things going on, I wanted to have a weekend to be quiet just be with the Lord.
It was kind of funny because I’m definitely not a quiet person. A few of the others and myself were kind of nervous about how the retreat might go, and if we could keep silence through it. I was mostly thinking I would randomly break out in laughter at dinner or some other point.
The retreat house is on a hill looking over a beautiful lake, and across the lake is the Pope’s retreat house. The hills were filled with shades of green, orange, red, and yellow leaves on the trees. I’m not really sure if there can ever be a “true fall” here, since the leaves don’t actually seem to be falling off the trees any time soon!
Right when we got there we had mass, followed by dinner. We got all of the talking we could do out, and once we left the room, we began our 36 hours of silence.
The weekend was beautiful. Fr. Carola, our chaplain, led five of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatious of Loyola. We had a lot of time then to reflect on those readings from scripture, celebrate the sacraments, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, enjoy the outside, and listen to the Lord.
It is quite an amazing experience learning to step back from the business of life and just speak with the Lord and most importantly, to listen to Him speak to your heart. It was even kind of awkward emerging from silence on Sunday during lunch, because I was just getting used to it. But the awkwardness quickly lifted and the room roared with laughter and excitement as we all shared our experiences and the joys from the weekend. Dr. Cavanaugh noticed that we were especially chatty at dinner that night, and joked about how we were trying to make up for our lack of talking all weekend.
The Lord really blesses the times when we make the decision to take time away to pray and listen to Him. I am so happy we were given this opportunity, and hope to do it again!

Universality and Mission

My recent blog from the Catholic Studies blog:

During my experience here, especially in my classes, I am constantly struck by the universality of the Church. Three of the classes I am taking are with students from the Angelicum and there are students from all over the world. There are students from India, Africa, Poland, the United States, South America, Germany, and the list goes on! It’s so wonderful to see how the Church is so diverse in Her peoples, but immensely unified in Her Truth.

We are so diverse in our nationalities, but also in our vocations. While the majority of the students at the Angelicum are religious brothers, sisters, and priests, there are a number of laity as well. Some of them are married, some are single. Some have law backgrounds, and some interested in art. Even among the religious, their charisms and apostolates are varied. The thread that binds us and makes us whole is the Truth and love we find in Jesus Christ and the Church He founded. It is so inspiring to see the way the Lord calls each of us. He has a specific vocation for us all.
The first is holiness. He wants us to be a part of His mission in life, so He calls us to Himself, to imitate Him in our striving to be holy in order to gain eternal fellowship with Him in Heaven.

Our second call is to our specific vocation as either a call to religious life, marriage, or the single life. God asks us to draw closer to Him by giving ourselves more to others…taking the holiness we’ve drawn from Him and give it back to Him by giving Him our lives to make them fruitful. While these vocations are all so different, they compliment each other so well.

And I think I can say the third call is even more specific, to the vocation each of us have in the mission given to us in Jesus Christ. For some it may mean going off to proclaim His Truth in foreign missions, some of us to stay at home and proclaim Him to those at home. It may be through teaching, being a doctor, a counselor, an artist…whatever gifts we have been given we are to use for the greater glory of God!

This is the most exciting thing I see about my time here—seeing the universality of the Church and Christ’s specific calling in each of our lives. May we always seek to strive for holiness and listen to His very specific calling in each of our lives, to “Come to the Father” and allow Him to lead us completely.

God love you!

A Dominican Experience in a Franciscan Home...aka Assisi!

This past weekend we went to Assisi. It was wonderful to be able to get out of the city for once and see the countryside! We left on a bus from the Angelicum early Saturday morning. Fr. Benedict, one of the Domincan priests, was the leader of our bus. He is an extremely joyful Dominican from Colorado. He became fearless leader for the trip.

Right when we got there we attended mass at St. Mary of the Angels. There were seven thousand pilgrims from Rome there. It was wonderful to see all the youth there. They led the music for mass. It was the first time at a large Mass that I had heard guitars and more modern music. I enjoy the traditional music, but this was quite refreshing as well.

All the pilgrims were quite packed towards the front of the church. Behind us stood the little church where St. Clare had her hair cut off. It separated the church of St. Mary of the Angels in too. It looks quite cute and a big comical stuck in there, but so precious that they wanted to persevere such a remarkable little chapel, especially the history of such great saints as St. Francis and St. Claire!

After Mass we started the pilgrimage up to the Basilica of St. Francis where his body is. Fr. Benedict had the Angelicum flag wrapped around him like an Olympic champion. Bryant and him found some sticks and hung it high.

The hike and especially the view from the basilica was absolutely beautiful. The sunlight and the fog shining down on St. Mary of the Angels made it look just like Heaven…or about what I would imagine Heaven to be. It was so wonderful to be able to see the extensiveness of countryside. I really do miss that in Rome.

All day they had adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the basilica. Seven thousand youth, religious, laity were all gathered together in prayer right over the tomb of St. Francis. It was such a blessing to be able to visit St. Francis and see everyone else there also desiring to get close to this inspiring saint.

I managed in my time of prayer to lose the rest of my group. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to see the other churches of Assisi and did not know how to get to them on my own. This came as a blessing in disguise, because I was more free to also take in all the beautiful countryside of Assisi. I ventured off on my own and was able to soak up the Italy I truly enjoy—seeing the little houses perched on the hilltops and being chased down by a dalmation guarding his house. (Okay so I didn’t enjoy that too much, but it was quite amusing).

After a refreshing day of exploring the hills that St. Francis called home, we ended with a candlelight prayer vigil. We processed down the hill singing and praising God with the light of Christ guiding our way.

I cannot wait to go back and visit more of St. Francis’ home!

Viva Roma

Video for Catholic Studies talent show :)

Siena, the Beach, and Hail

-St. Catherine of Siena's church in her house

Backtracking two weeks ago...I went to Siena with our group! We venerated the relics of St. Catherine Of Siena (only her head...Rome has the rest of her body) ;) and were able to celebrate mass in the chapel of her house! What a blessing. :)

Sunday we went to the beach in Ostia. What an amazing time. And I'm pretty sure it was snowing in Fargo and some of Minnesota that same day. We all had a good laugh at that.
We also built a sand basilica to "study" our art and architecture skills. Bryant managed to throw it into our slideshow at the end of class, and our professor had a good laugh and was glad she was there in spirit.

That night I got to talk on Skype with my parents and my grandpa Art which was such a joy and absolutly HISTERICAL. Skype is a way to talk to people on the internet. You use a microphone and a camera so you can see and hear each other. Grandpa could not grasp the fact that he could see and hear me and that I could tell he was wearing his Simon's Cheese hat when I was an ocean away. And then to hear that I had been at the beach that day-well that was something else! Everyone here who was in teh computer lab had a good laugh and thought it was pretty cute.

Last weekend was a wonderful relaxing time. Thursday (October 30th) we went to the Colosseum for our Martyrdom class. In the evening, Thomas, Katherine and I ventured out to go to mass at St. Peter's. The Pope was going to make an appearance after mass and address and welcome in the new school year for all the Pontifical Universities. (That includes the Ang where I go).
Needless to say we were pretty excited about that! But not minutes after having left Bernardi there was a CRACK and it started to rain...ten minutes later that turned into a downpour, followed by antoher CRACK nad HAIL!!!!!!!!! Yes we trudged to St. Peter's in the hail! The best/worst was that the rain was coming more horizontally so that every INCH of my pants were soaking wet. Thomas' poor cassock was drenched and luckily Katherine had wrapped her Bible etc. in a plastic bag otherwise they would have also been drenched. Needless to say we were shivering and a pool of water quickly formed around our feet beneath our seats. We shivered with cold...but then again, we saw the Pope! :)
Later that night we watched Gladiator-we all felt pretty sweet about having visited that site earlier that day.
Friday Besides serving with the Missionaries of Charity, I took a wonderfully long nap and at night went to the Youth Center again for mass. Afterwards I was able to meet a lot of wonderful people from all over the world again. A missionary group is here studying for 9 months with the Emmanuel community. I happened to meet a guy from Australia who worked with a girl I know from St. Thomas this summer on stuff for World Youth Day. Small world!
After mass and fellowship, we had a time of praise and worship, adoration and confession. It reminded me of Cor Jesu and an SPO prayer meeting put together. It was beautiful! :)
Saturday was the Solemnity of All Saints! We went to mass at a church nearby, then Joe, Hannah, lizzie and I cooked a feast for lunch! We even made bruschetta--YUM!

Sunday morning Katherine and I went to the flea markets in Trastevere which you can get so much for so cheap! It's crazy. It was quite the experience. Katherine got boots for 5 Euro!
We went to mass then came back so I could work on my first paper I've done since the spring!

It was really strange being here for the election. A lot of people stayed up to keep updates on what was going on. It'll be weird with changes going on and me not being home until June. I keep praying though that the Lord will have His hand in this time for our country.
Keep praying for the respect for life.

This morning we went to the Mamertime Prison, which is where Peter and Paul were imprisoned, and where Peter baptised many prisoners, and where an angel led him out so he could escape. But while he was walking, he met Jesus on the road, and asked Him "Lord, where are you going?" (Quo Vadis?) Christ said he was going to Rome to be crucified a second time. Peter knew this meant he had to turn back. He went back into Rome, and was crucified upside down.

Tonight I think I'm going to watch Power Rangers in Italian :) Thomas found a DVD for 1 Euro, and a lot of us were reminiscing about how much we loved that show. It should be interesting!
Friday we'll serve at the Missionaries of Charity (MC's) again, and Saturday there is a trip with the Angelicum to Assisi!

I pray all is well for you!
God love you,
Sam

Hill outside an Abbey we visited after Siena

the Key to Cutting Cantaloupe...don't let it fly into the garbage

Last Friday Kalynn and I started serving at the Missionaries of Charity here in Rome. I have been very excited about starting to do some service here, especially being able to work with these sisters. They are working on the canonization of Blessed Mother Theresa, who has been such an influence on the world, and especially to me and in my seeking of my own vocation. Our first visit with Fr. Carola we were able to visit the room Mother stayed in while she was in Rome.
Friday morning we managed to use the metro, which was the first time I’ve really done it outside of being in our big group. It is pretty easy, but gets a little daunting when we have to switch lines at Termini, which is the busiest and most chaotic stop of all. Most of the time you are sandwiched in like a bunch of sardines. It is borderline ridiculous but also hilarious watching it all happen.
We made it to the sisters at 8:30 am on Friday, greeted by one of the men from the home. The sisters at this site run a house for men, most if not all who are immigrants and couldn’t go back to their homes. We quickly meet Sister Gabriella, a short Indian sister who is about a foot shorter than I am and was busy cutting up broccoli.
Sister Gabriella orders us to both put on aprons and we will dig into work right away. I have never served with the Missionaries of Charity before, but Kalynn has on many occasions and gave me the heads up of not knowing what to expect—every day is an adventure with these sisters! I put on my apron and awaited my mission for the morning.
I stayed with Sister Tobit and cut up vegetables and cantaloupe while Kalynn was sent off to do a variety of tasks—starting out with helping serve breakfast, cleaning windows, tidying up the men’s room, washing clothes by hand, and ending with helping serve lunch. I struck up conversation with Sister Tobit and kept her amused at my lack of cutlery skills. A good part of my cantaloupe slices lept into the garbage before I was able to grab them.
Sister Gabriella came bustling back every once in a while to make sure everything was going okay, and shook her head at me and wondered why most of the food looked discarded. Sister Tobit stifled a laugh and muttered “God is merciful!” to help me feel better about my lack of talent in the kitchen. She also told me that no matter what I study or what I will do in the future, I must know how to cook and clean. These are the essentials of life.
Wow, do I have a lot to learn! It was beautiful morning and I look forward to all the Fridays to come that we are able to spend with them.

God love you,
Sam