Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in You!

Happy feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! His love is ALWAYS burning for us, yearning us to come close and embrace Him!

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I love You!

Home

I'm home in the USA! :) Back in Milwaukee! I'll try to update a quick one soon about my last few weeks.

Praise God! What a beautiful year!

Wednesday audience May 20

I got burnt, but it was worth it. The Holy Father wore his red sunhat!

I'm in the bottom corner, with the light blue shirt.

St. Philip Neri-pray for us!

Today is the feast of St. Philip Neri. I knew basically nothing about him until today! Haha. Fr. Justin (one of our chaplains) has a strong devotion to him (he's a BIG fan). He celebrated mass at St. Jerome's which is where St. Philip began the Oratorians. They are kind of diocesan priests but they live in community.
he was very very prayerful, he counseled many people, especially popes
he had the gift of prophecy and knew who the next pope would be so he'd counsel them a great deal beforehand so they would be ready. This was especially important because it was right after the Reformation
the most amazing thing was that he often went to pray in the catacombs of St. Sebastian and once while praying he asked to love like Christ and the Holy Spirit came in a ball of fire into his mouth and to his heart and physically expanded his heart
which broke some of his ribs
haha pretty crazy
but people said when you’d go in the room where he was you could hear his heart beat because it was so big. and even in the cold his room would be so hot because of the heat his body emitted
haha yeah!
and apparently after he died they examined him to see if his heart really was enlarged and it was
but he celebrated mass at the place where the Oratorians were started then we crossed teh street where his body was and the chapel where he would say mass later in his years. apparently he would go into these great estasies during the words of consecration
that he was too embarrassed to say mass publicly
so at consecration when he would go into ecstasy the servers would leave the chapel and it would be many hours later before he would ring a little bell and they would come back to assist him in finishing mass
and also he would run past the chapel or dance past it or crack jokes because otherwise he would go into ecstasy
but yeah so it was neat going through it all with fr. justin because he knows so much about him it was like getting to know his best friend lol

for more about him go to http://www.the-oratory.org/history.html

Almost there...

Cinco de Mayo...Sarah made a makeshift pinata that was filled with peanuts. It was a mess of fun! And apparently frightening for Katie...

Monte Cassino

Archbishop Burke led the procession at our school on May 13th (Our Lady of Fatima). Archbishop Burke is the former Bishop of St. Louis and even more former Bishop of LaCrosse. Now he is working at the Vatican. (not sure which department though).

About 10 days left.



10 days.



Has it really come this far? I've been really trying to hang onto my seat as I see this year fly past me. Stop. Soak it in. Look around this city: crazy, busy, frustrating but somehow beautiful and so alive and always full of suprises.



The last few weeks:



May 2nd the girls of Bernardi took a day trip to Monte Cassino with Fr. Carola and Fr. Justin.

Monte Cassino is the first monastary started by St. Benedict. AKA the beginning of Western monasticism, as Fr. Cozzens says.

It is a beautiful monastary perched on top of a mountain above the town of Cassino, hense it's name (the mount of Cassino!).

It was bombed by the Allies during the war due to suscpicions that Germans had taken it over and were hiding there.

One of the miracles Fr. Carola half joked was that they were able to restore the monastary exactly how it was, a very traditional way, which for the 50's is basically amazing. Haha.

Fr. Carola and Fr. Justin were able to celebrate mass for us there right below the altar and right above the crypt where St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica are buried.



The saints are real, and their prayers are powerful! I am just reminded of this day after day living in this country. Start digging into the lives of the saints. They are so inspiring. They can seem intimidating, but after reading some of their autobiographies/biographies it is so inspiring to realize how real they are. They are not to be feared, but they are real people with real struggles that we also deal with, they just were able by God's grace to say yes to Him through it all.

Mother's Day I was able to attend Mass at the church of St. Anne which was very special for me to be there. I like to think of St. Anne (the mother of our Mother Mary) as a Grandmother to us all.
Especially for my family this seems extremely evident. My Grandma's name is Ruthann, my mom's middle name is Leeann, my Godmother's name Lou Ann, and all of us girls have the middle name Ann. It is a very cute and quaint chapel tucked right inside the Vatican. There is a stunning picture of St. Anne and our Lady above the altar and just reflecting with a friend of mine the significance of Anne and her role as the mother of the Mother of God.

The next weekend I think I just hung out here in Roma.

Last weekend I went to Assisi with a group, then Victoria and myself stayed overnight. We finally made it to San Damiano. That is the church where Christ on the crucifix spoke to St. Francis and asked Him to rebuild His house, for it is in ruins. The actually church of San Damiano was in ruins, so St. francis started rebuilding that first, then realized that Christ actually mean the Body of Christ. Francis renounced radically all worldy goods to give himself entirely to spreading the Gospel!

Saturday Victoria and I did our own things. I made it to mass right above St. Francis' tomb, then made the hike up to the hermitage where St. Francis would go to pray and get away from the busy-ness of the city of Assisi. There is abeautiful monastary there now. There were many Italian tourists there though, so I kept hiking up to get away. Eventually I found a small path to Mt. Subasio, so I followed it up and up. I really needed to get back soon to make it to my train, so I just prayed for a view because the trees were so thick I couldn't see anything. Not a minute later the tree-line broke and I was at the top of the mountain, which was clear of trees! I found the highest spot and had the most amazing view of the city, and the whole land around Assisi. It was so breathtaking! God's creation is soooo beautiful.

I had about 20 minutes up there and I REALLY had to get back. It was 11:20 and I said I would meet Victoria at the BOTTOM by the train station at 1pm. It took me about an hour to just get from the top of Assisi to the hermitage, and I was at least a half an hour beyond that. So I basically sprinted down (my shins HATE me!) and almost dominated myself many a time. lol. But I made it last minute!

It was so relaxing and a beautiful way to retreat for a bit and get to know St. Francis better. The next day was Sunday, Fr. Carola's birthday, and a day trip to Norcia. Again it was a very relaxing time. Some of the Little Sisters of the Lamb joined us, including Susan Verly! She is a postulant, and just graduated from St. Thomas last year. It is amazing to see her in the community, she fits so well! The sisters are so much fun. They live a beautiful life of poverty and SO MUCH JOY. :) Sister Maryanna gave me a holy card of Our Lady of Guadalupe and kept saying "You ask her to help you, but watch out...she's dangerous!" lol.

Fr. Carola celebrated mass for us at the Poor Clare's convent, afterwards they prepared us a HUGE lunch, and teh Little Sisters of the Lamb made up a song for him to the tune of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" because that is where he is originally from. :)

Then we just meandered through the valley and relaxed adn soaked up the fresh air :) We ended the day with Vespers (evening prayer) with the Benedictine monks.

This weekend just trying to see people and hang out. The seminarians went back home for graduation so it is really quite and weird.

My good friend Renae came to visit for about a week and it was sooo so good to see her. I also went to the audience on Wednesday and got BURNT. But the Holy Father was wearing his red sun hat so that was fun. :) And we were right up in the front so I got to look directly into his eyes as he went past in the Pope-mobile. What a blessing he is as a father figure for us all!

Sorry I stopped being so reflective. We are going out to dinner in a bit for one of the girls birthdays.

I look forward to seeing you all soon! I fly out on the 3rd. Please pray for all of us for our finals and goodbyes! and flights etc...

Mary our Mother

"Immaculate Conception, Mary, my Mother. Live in me. Act in me. Speak in and through me. Think your thoughts in my mind. Love through my heart. Give me your dispositions and feelings. Teach, lead and guide me to Jesus. Correct my path, enlighten my thoughts, and expand with your love my heart. Possess my soul. Take over my entire personality and life. Replace it with yourself. Incline me to constant adoration and praise. Pray in me and through me, O Mother. Let me live in you, and keep me in this union of hearts. Totus tuus ego suum!"
John Paul the Great

Today begins the 33 day of preparation for consecration to our Lady before her feast of the Visitation, May 31st, which is also Pentecost! If you have never done this consecration before, I strongly suggest you to do it.

Consecration to Our Lady consists of acknowledging that God chose Mary to be His vessle to bring Christ into the world, and as Augustine says however Christ came into the world, we should go back through this way to get to God, therefore, going through Mary!
Consecration is simply giving ourselves totally to our Mother, asking her to bring us closer to her Son, to make us holy and love Him!

Here is a bit of an intro one of my friends wrote in an email to the house last semester:

The Total Consecration to Mary is a devotion begun by St. Louis de Montfort, a holy and devout Parisian priest of the 17th century. Renowned for his ability at teaching, he also had an incredibly strong love for Our Lady, a devotion which moved him to create a method of consecrating oneself to her in a special way, now known as the True Devotion.
In this devotion, one gives oneself totally to Mary as her slave, that she may have "the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to your good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and throughout eternity." Through this consecration one begins to configure oneself to Mary, that one may be molded in her likeness, who herself molded Christ within her womb.

It is a 33 day process, with the 34th being the day of consecration. It starts today and ends on May 31st, the Visitation (and Pentecost!). A useful website to go to to get more information, as well as the rest of the prayers, is http://www.fisheaters.com/totalconsecrationmontfort.html

The website suggests reading True Devotion to Mary, but it that is not necessarily suggested for everyone. The simplest way is to just start praying the rosary every day, and maybe even just the simple prayer above by John Paul the Great. Whatever you see fit for your own spiritual life (some are more ready for certain readings/prayers than others) learn to speak to Mary as your Mother, for she IS our Mother, the Mother of ALL mankind!

TOTUS TUUS! Totally yours!

In Christ and Mary,
Sam

2nd semester finally...

He is RISEN Alleluia! He is risen INDEED ALLELUIA!

Wow I've don't a great job neglecting this this semester. I supremely appologize. I had one started from the end of last semester, and wow here I am, the middle of April!



This semester has been a whirlwind of blessings and trials but most of all perseverance.



I traveled inbetween semesters to London and Germany. The new semester started and the house has never been livlier. I love this community more day after day.

Above are Some of the boys. This is their life. (Hacky sack. ALL the time. hhaa)

We made many trips along the way. Siena again, a women's day trip with Fr. Justin and our women's chaplain a lay consecrated woman, Nina to Lanciano (Eucharistic miracle), stopped to visit a Passionist saint Gabriele, and finally the veil of Veronica. The veil of Veronica was probably my favorite. To truly see the face of Christ. I would love to explain it more. Please ask me. It perfectly matches up to the shroud of Turin and had been in the Vatican for the longest time. Now some great Capuchins are taking care of it in Monopello.

Below is all the girls who pilgrimaged and Nina, our chaplain.
Classes are another blessing (and challenge!). I'm taking 5 again. Biblical Spirituality of the Consecrated life with another girl from my grouop. Unfortunatly we have yet to discuss the consecrated life...haha.

History of the Medieval Church with a great Dominican Fr. Ditton who I had last semester. He really makes it story time and tells the history of Mother Church so well, and especially the medieval era was a particularly difficult time...he makes no excuses and does not go round about at all but just tells it straight. So great!

Eucharist with Fr. Buckles. Just like a mini retreat every class as he just speaks from his heart about his love for the Lord, especially of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Eucharistic Adoration.

God and the Poets with Fr. Murray. I had him last semester as well. So great. Enough said.

Possibly my FAVORITE has been Fundamental Moral Theology taught by none other than the papall theologian, Fr. Giertych. Anything the Pope writes, he reviews to make sure it is teaching correct theology. How did we all become so blessed to have HIM as our professor? It is so rewarding because we have learned about everything from the true vocation of men and women...for each other and for the Church. How do we live that out etc. We learn a lot about morality obviously but what makes acts morally good or morally evil, which ties into confession etc. Just really great life lessons. I do only a simple and poor way of describing it but its great.
Earlier this week it was his name feast day. St. Aldabert/Woeicych (I totally did NOT write his name right) so we sang Happy Feast day to You to the tune of Happy Birthday. :) I love my school!

Earlier this semester we had Mons. Merini over for our community night dinner. He is the Pope's master of ceremonies...aka he is is right hand man. It was so beautiful to have him here. He celebrated mass for us here in the house and we were able to talk to him afterwards and have dinner with him. He is going to try to get our seminarians to be able to serve for the Holy Father and because of him one of our seminarians was able to read one of the petitions for Good Friday at St. Peter's and my roommate was able to read the last of the first readings, from Ezekial, for the Easter Vigil mass at St. Peter's!!!!! The image below is of our Holy Father during his visit to Africa. Mons. Merini is on the right!

Below is Luke, one of our seminarians, processing (in or out?) during Good Friday service at St. Peter's. He is the one to the left below the pink camera.
Super tiny, but Steph is on the left proclaiming the Word of God from the prophet Ezekial. She is to the right of the red stuff on the top of the swiss guard's hat. Note our Holy Father on the right! :)

Other blessings during Lent was that my cousin Maggie and friend Caitlin came to visit. It was so much fun to have them around. We went to Cinque Terra which has been one of my favorite places this year to be.

My grandparents and my aunt Jackie also came about a week later. They were able to come to one of our community nights which was SO great to have them be able to enter into the community here. Also, because I have met some of the Germans, a German seminarian friend was able to give us a tour of the Vatican gardens. The German seminarians have their seminary within Vatican walls. How cool!

Backtrack a little Lent was beautiful. There is a tradition in Rome dating back to like the 500's to Pope Gregory (I can't remember which one...one of the first ones...) of station churches, which means that every day there is a particular church that everyone goes to mass at. Now it has progressed where at 7am there is an English mass, 8am the German mass, and later in the day an Italian mass. So every morning a group of us would get up...around 5ish...and walk to whatever church it was that day, praying the rosary on the way, and starting out the morning with wonderful conversations and most importantly with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The churches were always soooo packed for the English mass. And OH WHAT A JOY to have mass in English! Afterwards we would go to the Gregorian for breakfast, which is the Jesuit University where our chaplain Fr. Carola teaches. Then afterwards we would go to class. It was such a beautiful time adn community building but most importantly we learned so much through our prayer and perseverance. It's not so easy to get up at 5 every morning and WALK for sometimes a good hour, but we learned to do it only for the love of Jesus. So good so good! Now it is kind of sad because they stop after Easter, and we wake up wondering which mass we are goign to go to becasue our schedule has totally been thrown off because of this. It was so central to our Lenten prayer!

But ALLELUIA He is RISEN! Easter is such a cause for JOY and CELEBRATION. Lent is definetly one of my favorite seasons of the Church, which many people think is weird. But it is such a great time of prayer and reflection and penance, but the ONLY reason it is beautiful is the HOPE that awaits us! What a God we have! What a beautiful joy!
The cross is so central to our lives as Christians, but we must ALWAYS view the cross only in terms also of the resurrection. HE LIVES! Not just in an abstract idea, but Christ truly lives every day and He always has and always WILL. Sometimes I forget how amazing that is, but than I am reminded when praying just the simple prayer of the Glory be how amazing it is.

"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. AMEN!"
The same God of Moses and Abraham, is the same God that humbled Himself to come to the Earth and become one of US and Jesus Christ suffered as we suffer but He most importantly suffered FOR us, died FOR us, but most importantly he ROSE. We are not left in the depths of the tomb...We are given hope for our lives through His resurrection, His PROMISE to us that we can live in union with Him FOREVER!!! Praise God for this marvelous gift!

The Friday before Holy Week I made a pilgrimage with five other girls to Poland. We stayed at the Divine Mercy Shrine which was super exciting for me because it is the Shrine where a convent where St. Faustina stayed at. St. Faustina is my confirmation saint! I was able to venerate a relic of her as well as see the image of Divine Mercy that our Lord revealed to her to spread the message of His Mercy to the WORLD. Through His words, she also received teh Divine Mercy Chaplet, and later on, JPII made the Sunday after Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. There is also so much more to say about that, but know that our Lord is SO Merciful and any sin or any way we turn from the Lord He will ALWAYS ALWAYS take us back and always loves us SO MUCH! :)

We were also able to spend Palm Sunday in Wadowice where the great saint JPII was born and baptized and spent the early years of his life. Another saint whom has a great reason for my love of Christ and who had such an influence on my life and of SO MANY it was one of my favorite places to be. The faith and tradition of the Polish people is so beautiful!

I was back in Rome for Triduum...we got back Holy Thursday morning. I was able to attend Good Friday service at St. Peter's as well as Easter Vigil. Again, such a blessing to be able to be near the Holy Father during this time. He is such a father figure!

We also had a wonderful Easter celebration, and I was up early to pray morning prayer on our terrace to the rising of the sun. Right as we were praying the Canticle of Zachariah and praying the verse "and the dawn on high shall break upon us" the sun just came up from behind the building it was hiding behind. It was so beautiful and peaceful. I just love praying with this people and starting the day off with a sunrise and prayer together was the best way to start Easter Sunday morning, being reminded of Mary Magdalene seeing our Lord at the tomb! Alleluia!

Easter day we had a HUGE feast here at Bernardi with families and guests followed by mass in the house with Fr. Carola. Following was American football in the house and the best was that I was able to Skype with my family back at home! Praise God!

Tuesday evening my friend Katlyn and Sheila and I left for Medugorie. Medugorie is in Bosnia and 28 some years ago 6 children began to receive visions of our Lady, Queen of Peace on the mountains there. Today she still appears to one of the visionaries every day. To the other ones either once a month or once a year. To a war-torn country dominated by communists, our Lady Queen of Peace came to protect and show the hope of her Son.

We stayed at castle, literally. A couple from Canada had a MAJOR conversion experience from reading some of teh messages of our Lady. She was a big shot lawyer, and he was a big deal car dealer...literally owning almost all the dealers in Canada...making something like 30million a YEAR. He opened up the messages of our Lady and the one he read was
"I AM CALLING YOU TO CONVERSION FOR THE LAST TIME."
That message was enough to bring him back to church, most importantly confession and the Mass, and even on a plane to Medugorie after he sold EVERYTHING. His wife was confused as to why he wanted to move there. His response was "The Mother of God lives in Medugorie. I want to be her next door neighbor."
Wanting to give a gift to the other love of his life (besides his wife) but to our Lady, he built her a castle. This castle receives pilgrims year round free of cost. The hospitality of this couple and the constant outpouring of their lives and their love for the Lord is incredible. We were constantly eating, praying, meeting new people who were always dropping by to see the castle, praying, and eating more.
I stayed there from Tuesday night to Monday night. It was a wonderfully prayerful experience. The conversions and stories from the pilgrims there is amazing. Whatever is happening there, the conversions prove that God is WORKING and people are being drawn incredibly close to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and she is PROTECTING them! Praise be Jesus and Mary! I have never prayed the rosary so much, much less enjoy it and I only pray that I can continue this!
The main messages I can give you from here is pray the rosary, go to confession (at least once a month) go to mass (at least once a week), and pray pray pray! It is possible and it is NOT just for priests and religious. The beautiful thing is that I have never seen so many FAMILIES...parents and CHILDREN coming together for prayer. All of the visionaries are married and have children. God is working! Remember that always! And we are ALL called to love Him ENTIRELY.

Now I'm back in class and back in teh "swing of things" as they say. Last night we just had an awesome cookout with teh whole house, plus a friend of mine from high school and two of her friends, Fr. Shuster from the GB Diocese was visiting, etc. We had burgers and good American food, and ended the night with a lot of guitar playing, some John Mellencamp, and praise and worship. I just sat in the circle looking around at all these people and just thought MAN this is beautiful! If only everyone could see this! HERE is the future of the Church. So simple but yet we can just get together and have good clean fun and love the Lord while doing it!

As St. Therese of Liseux gives us the best example, it is in the little things, the little ways.

"In times of aridity when I am incapable of praying, of practicing virtue, I seek little opportunities, mere trifles, to give pleasure to Jesus; for instance a smile, a pleasant word when inclined to be silent and to show weariness. If I find no opportunities, I at least tell Him again and again that I love Him; that is not difficult and it keeps alive the fire in my heart. Even though this fire of love might seem extinct I would still throw little straws upon the embers and I am certain it would rekindle. "
XVI letter to her sister Celine

St. Therese, pray for us! St. Faustina, pray for us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, bless and protect us

Thank you for your patience and I will do my darndest to update more!

God love you! xo