Unforgettable Poland Impressions

Just returned from a 9 day trip to Armenia so the blog will be updated regularly going forward.

I’d like to offer a few thoughts about this past weekend’s pilgrimage to Poland, but I hardly know where to begin; it was a time that is as difficult to describe as it was to experience. I suppose I will just begin with what we did and then work in my own impressions, thoughts, emotions, etc.


We drove all through the night and arrived Friday morning at the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in time to see the unveiling of the Black Madonna image (done every morning at 6am with trumpets and drums and gongs). The devotion of the Polish people to Our Lady of Czestochowa I can only compare to what I experienced several years ago at the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe - grown men weep and the elderly and crippled fall to their knees before this sacred image, so much a part of their heritage and faith. Visitors circle past the image on their knees and the marble floor is worn smooth in two tracks by centuries of pilgrims doing this same, reverential gesture.


I felt moved to tears by the devotion I witnessed - the peace within the walls of the shrine and the utter abandon of the pilgrims to their mother - the Black Madonna. The holiest and simplest of men have prayed there (Pope John Paul II being one of them) and you can feel it in the walls, in the air - see it in the eyes of the people around you. It is a beautiful, humbling thing to behold. And there, sitting mere feet from the image that has survived so much so miraculously, we celebrated Mass: how does one describe that? Only as heavenly, I suppose.




Our next journey was very different, though - in the afternoon we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The emotions there ran no less deep, but in such a striking, aching way, I'm sure you realize. Silence was the only proper response as we walked through gas chambers and blocks and rooms where prisoners were tortured, experimented upon, sterilized, raped, robbed of any scrap of dignity to which they had managed to hold. The inhumanity of it all disgusts you when you look at piles of human hair - waiting to be sold, made into nets or lampshades. As you look at rooms of shoes, no larger than your little finger, once belonging to the children who were the immediate victims of the gas chambers because they were not useful - not able to slave and mine and work and starve to a skeletal state before their deaths.



One block is filled with pictures of prisoners and the basic information the Nazis gathered at first - occupation, date of arrival, date of death - before they stopped keeping records altogether. You walk past, looking into the eyes of each, knowing they are dead long before you do the subtraction - 1 month, 1 week, a few days, a year or two for the luckiest...but the luckiest, you start to think, are the ones that died right away - who didn’t suffer this inhumanity, this horror for longer than a few weeks. You start to hope that the dates will be close together - that the man or woman whose picture you are looking at died quickly. It mixes up the soul to see such things.



But the stories of the heroes help - they restore your faith in humanity, remind you what each life is worth, of the dignity even the Nazis possessed because it is the dignity of personhood - a mystery and a gift, in my eyes. For I saw the starvation cell where St. Maximilian Kolbe spent his last days and I knew then that it is true what Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning: "Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire...The salvation of man is through love and in love..." And as for mankind - I understood, at last, what he meant when he wrote: "Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips." It changes you for the better and demands you change the world.



A friend of mine said to me as we watched a car drive by the camp: "Imagine driving past this every day on your way to work." I said: "I can hardly imagine." But I can, can't I? In America, we drive past abortion clinics and think so little of the fact that we are treating humans the same as the Nazis. We are no better than Nazis if we imagine for one moment that human life can be rationalized away – the Nazis reasoned that for the good of the German people, the Jews must die; and we reason that for the good of the mother, the child must die. But doesn't this scream of un-truth? Love is the only answer;l we are too blinded (by culture, by politics, by our own ideas) to try.



Our next visit was to the Shrine of Divine Mercy and Sister Faustina's convent. How do I even start to explain that peace? There is no way to do so. It is a home for Love, itself. The grace and forgiveness and mercy there are tangible - they touch your heart and lift it out of your chest and wring it out. Then you sit back and soak in joy and love like you've never felt before.



All the while I was reminded of our last festival of praise when the FOP leader told us a quote from a saint who in a state of ecstasy asked Jesus what He did with Judas and to whom Jesus replied: "If the world knew what I did with Judas, they would abuse my mercy." Being there at the Shrine of Divine Mercy, located just miles away from Auschwitz (coincidence? - no way!) put everything back in order for me - I felt like I could understand how God can forgive and love mankind even after all we have done, and all the evil that remains in the world. It was an intensely emotional weekend – a pilgrimage that demanded much of us pilgrims – yet for many students it was the highlight of the semester so far, and I am sure I speak for all who went to Poland when I say that what we experienced there will remain with us and in us for the rest of our lives. Difficult to explain and describe, but no less life-changing for that – the Poland pilgrimage was truly all grace and blessing and I am sincerely grateful for the entire experience.



Blog post written by Cara Weiss, Fall 2009

The Essence of Traveling

Being an English major, I’ve always loved quotes so I found a few that I thought captured what it means to travel here in Europe:

"The perfect journey is circular – the joy of departure and the joy of return." – Dino Basili (I’ve found, as many students do, that I have a renewed love for our beautiful home-away-from-home each time I return to Gaming.)

"Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time." – Steven Wright
(This one is especially true for us poor college students who are too cheap to buy a bus or metro ticket!)

"Traveling is like falling in love; the world is made new." – Jan Myrdal
(How true and how wonderful! Traveling, for me, is all about falling in love – with a place, with its people, and its language, and all the fascinating strangeness that sets it apart…all this newness sort of stretches your mind, opening ideas and horizons you never imagined before.)

"For travel to be delightful, one must have a good place to leave and return to." –Frederick B. Wilcox
(I have discovered from talking to other students that, as incredible as every moment is here, there are times when we all miss home. There is a lot of goodness to be missed and many good people that we are excited to return to at the end of our stay in Gaming.)

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
(On the train to Budapest we met some American college students studying in Munich who told us stories of their travels so far, or rather – told us many variations of the same story, which basically involved them getting drunk in every city they had visited and occasionally getting kicked out of hostels. Not once did they mention a historical site or cultural experience or any of the amazing buildings and castles and churches in the cities they had visited and I had to wonder why they even bothered coming over here. We are blessed with a Faith that teaches us to see the world in a sacramental way and this is the beauty we carry with us as we travel across Europe.)

Blog posted written by Cara Weiss, Gaming Fall 2009

On Luck and Traveling

We are lucky people here in Gaming. Or, if you don’t believe in luck, blessed people. Either way, we all take one look out the window or one deep breath of soft mountain air and we know it’s true.

But not until this past weekend did I ever imagine just how much luck goes into travel. How else do you explain the stories that went around the lunch table today – on our first day back from a non-school-led trip?

What about the group that was comfortably settling into their spots on what they thought was the train to Prague and were informed by a fellow passenger, in the nick of time, that they were in fact about to depart for Moscow?

Or the two girls who unknowingly booked a hostel in a rough section of town, and arrived to find that they were on a waiting list for a room – what if they hadn’t met up with the group of fellow Franciscan students who welcomed them into their far-safer apartment-style hostel across town?

And as far as my own travels – I can hardly count the number of times we slipped through the closing doors of trains or subway cars or avoided troublesome layovers by a lucky chance. We even started our travels with a little bit of luck; we planned to take a 6:05 bus to the Gaming train station Friday morning and catch our 6:30 train (saving ourselves a half hour plus walk). However, when 6:15 rolled around with no sign of either of the two buses that were scheduled the realization that we would never make the train by walking sunk in, and the seven of us decided to try hitchhiking (a common and fairly safe travel method in Gaming).

We split up – four and three – and stuck out our thumbs at the occasional car that whizzed by. Around 6:25 three of my friends and I were picked up, but with only minutes until the train departed, we were sure our friends wouldn’t make it in time. We waited, looking hopefully up the road, as the train arrived and passengers started to board but, still, there was no sign of the rest of our group.

Then, when we were just resigning ourselves to the two-hour wait for the next train, a car pulled into the station with the rest of our group and we caught the train with barely a minute to spare.

Lucky. Divine Providence. Blessed. Maybe they are just one and the same in Europe.

Blog Post written by Cara Weiss, Fall 2009 Study Abroad Student in Gaming

Gaming Stats for this Fall's Group

I always find statistics interesting, and this fall's group is no exception.

The details for the group are as follows:

1. Average GPA: 3.22

2. Average Age: 19.5

3. 70 male students; 111 females

4. 5 most populous state representation:

- Ohio: 32 Students
- California: 16 Students
- New York: 16 Students
- Michigan: 12 Students
- Virginia: 11 Students
- Pennsylvania: 11 Students

5. The 5 most represented majors this semester:

1. Nursing: 31
2. Theology: 28
3. Education: 19
4. Business: 16, History 16
5. English: 12

What I learned in Salzburg / Munich?

Yesterday, Fr. Ron Mohnickey, T.O.R., encouraged the students to not only travel to the glorious and historically abundant cities of Europe, but also to think and reflect on their experience upon their return.

He asked them, what did you learn?

Perhaps the answer would go something like this:

I learned that....

1. Salzburg has a unique history being an independent principality of the Holy Roman Empire. This unique history includes being governed by a Prince-Archbishop, a singular combination of religious and political power. Sometimes the power was abused or the church laws spurned, as with Prince-Archbishop Wolf-Dietrich and his mistress which he had 15 children with. In following the history of the rise and fall of power, I have come to understand that humility is one of the greatest attributes which man can possess. Humility in the face of God, the church, and with one's fellow neighbor.


2. Europeans have a tender devotion towards their dead, beautifying their tombs and often keeping them attached to their churches. It has caused me to reflect on my attitude towards the faithful departed.


3. European cities are strewed with bells. This was often to remind them of their internal freedom and that the gift of life is truly a gift. Its to remind them that they are dust and unto dust they shall return. It causes me to reflect that as Americans we have an uncanny fear of death. It has caused me to savor life more and appreciate his graces in a new way. I'm more grateful now.


4. The tradition of the beer hall in Europe is quintessentially human, inviting deep and real relationships to form and for life to be celebrated.


5. In Munich, the statue of our Lady stands in the center square, reminding all who pass that her power is in her goodness and her greatness lies in service. It is Mary who really gives us a model for servant Leadership.


6. In contemplating Pope Benedict's time in Munich, I realized in a deep way that life without beauty is no life at all and that for Benedict, truth is beauty and beauty is truth.


7. I have begun to touch what a truly Catholic culture is: a kaleidoscope with God at the very heart and center. Other attributes include a deep appreciation for food and fellowship, a deep sense of one's history and customs, of habits of the heart (mores), an embracing of language, art, music, and dress, and a sense of one's roots, a way of life and of convictions that form one and teach one "how to be" in the world.


8. Living through Nazism, Pope Benedict knows that evil exists; that it is banal, and that is always flourishes without God. This allowed him to realize that Love makes the world beautiful. This is a key to his priesthood.


9. On the way home, we went swimming in the Mondsee, a crystal-clear alpine lake. We swam and played in the water with childlike hearts. I have come to learn that all of God's creation is good and brings us closer to him whether it be water, beer, churches, music, food, Mass, or even just talking and sharing. What matters is where our heart is centered and who is number one.

Hiking -- Austria's Gem

For all those with even a faith glimmer of outdoor adventure in their bones, to come to Austria and not hike is a shame. My first Winter in Gaming I asked my Father what he thought of me purchasing a season ski pass and frankly responded: How could you not?

Yes, how could you not go hiking here in the Austrian Alps?

My latest adventure along with the male RD has been to hike over Dachstein Glacier up to the summit. It is about a six hour hike up and a six hour down hill grunt. We saw plenty of mountain goats and a slough of wild flowers including the quintessential austrial Edelweiss (the picture of the white flowers).

The air was fresh, the sun was shining, and we sweated off a few days of calories as we paced ourselves up the mountain path, through the snow, climbed down a snow ladder and then climbed ropes up to the glorious summit. For all the students who come to through Gaming--whether they end up hiking locally or up one of the bigger mountain in Austria-- the opportunities are copious to frolic in the hills and experience God's beauty as it emanates through creation. I hope all who are here take full advantage of hiking for its surely once of life's simple pleasures.