Gaming student starts Online Catholic Shopping Website

Gaming Fall 2006 student, Ben Olsen, has recently launched his Catholic online shopping webiste called GivingCart. In just over three months since the website has launched, GivingCart has raised over $5,000 for catholic causes!!

The webiste is designed on a win-win system. The shopper goes to GivingCart and then from there can shop at multiple stores, many big name stores such as Gap, Staples, Travelocity, Priceline and hundreds of others. When a shopper makes a purchase, a certain percentage is donated to their catholic charity of choice, and another smaller percentage goes to supporting the company and the people who work for it. In other words, shoppers buy like normal and the big companies support the catholic causes through financial "donations." It's ingenius, its using modern technology for a great cause!

Niki, my wife, recently wanted to purchase a few pair of pants from Gap.com. Since we are here in Europe, we mainly do online shopping and we decided to give GivingCart a shot. So, we went to the website and made the purchases. It was extremely easy to do and we were able to secure about a 5% donation to my local parish back in the States! Unbelievable!! I will be sure to use them again!

I encourage all readers to check out there user-friendly website and pass it on to their friends: http://www.givingcart.com/

Sr. Katherine Wiley - Spring 07 Gaming Student

Katie Wiley was here in Gaming in Spring of 2007, just one year ago. Today she is with the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia in Nashville, TN. While many other religious orders in America are declining, the Nashville Dominicans are growing at leaps and bounds.

Check out this interview with the Nashville Dominicans entitled "Young Nuns" which includes Sr. Katherine:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1123/cover.html

Christians are out there in the streets!

A very interesting article that fits in very well with our life here in Europe:

Appeared in: Daily "Heute", Column "Answers" by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn (Vienna), 25th January 2008

Something is happening in our old Europe. Christians are answering back instead of putting up with all and everything. They go out on the streets to demonstrate. Not with loud slogans and even less with violence. Peaceful and friendly they come in big numbers. Such big numbers, that
some media want to play them down.

In January in Madrid a huge "Family Day" was celebrated. This peaceful demonstration addressed the anti-family policies in Zapatero’s government which introduced "express-divorce" and "gay marriage". Almost two million people gathered – many European media spoke of only 150.000. Pope Benedict was invited to give a lecture at Italy’s biggest university. Some professors and students protested and threatened to disrupt the speech, claiming that the Pope was intolerant and ultra-conservative. The Pope called his lecture off. Last Sunday about 200.000 people – among them many young – came to St. Peter’s square to show their support for the Pope in a peaceful and cordial manner. Jesus told his disciples to turn the other cheek when hit. But he also questioned the one who acted unjustly: "Why do you hit me?". Christians in
Europe begin to question their allegedly tolerant adversaries: why do you hit the Church, that is, us? Are we doing something bad when we defend the family, stand up for the right to life and thus help Europe to have children, that is, the future?

Lent, a way to true freedom - Pope Benedict XVI

"From the outset Lent was lived as the season of immediate preparation for Baptism, to be solemnly administered during the Easter Vigil. The whole of Lent was a journey towards this important encounter with Christ, this immersion in Christ, this renewal of life. We have already been baptized but Baptism is often not very effective in our daily life. Therefore, Lent is a renewed "catechumenate" for us too, in which once again we approach our Baptism to rediscover and relive it in depth, to return to being truly Christian. Lent is thus an opportunity to "become" Christian "anew", through a constant process of inner change and progress in the knowledge and love of Christ. Conversion is never once and for all but is a process, an interior journey through the whole of life. This process of evangelical conversion cannot, of course, be restricted to a specific period of the year: it is a daily journey that must embrace the entire span of existence, every day of our life… What does "to be converted"
actually mean? It means seeking God, moving with God, docilely following the teachings of his Son, Jesus Christ; to be converted is not a work for self-fulfilment because the human being is not the architect of his own eternal destiny. We did not make ourselves. Therefore, self-fulfilment is a contradiction and is also too little for us. We have a loftier destination. We might say that conversion consists precisely in not considering ourselves as our own "creators"
and thereby discovering the truth, for we are not the authors of ourselves. Conversion consists in freely and lovingly accepting to depend in all things on God, our true Creator, to depend on love. This is not dependence but freedom."

Student Reflection

It is hard to believe that a person can experience so much in two weeks. Just a little over two weeks ago, I ventured to Gaming, Austria, for what I was told would be the semester of my life. I came excited, nervous, expectant, and unsure of the road ahead. I was venturing into unfamiliar territory. I did not know the language, how to use the Eurail pass, the people I would spend the semester with, or whom I would travel with around Europe. I had many uncertainties.

I guess some of these uncertainties remain, I still do not speak German and I have no idea how to use my Eurail pass! However, what I have experienced in my short time abroad has made me so excited for the road ahead.

We have visited a few cities here in Austria: Melk, Vienna, Salzburg and of course Gaming. We visited the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI—Munich, Germany. In all these experiences I have thought that it could not get any better, but I continued to be amazed by the richness of our faith and the vastness of our world. God has satisfied my heart in ways that I was not even aware I was hungry. I am excited to see the rest of the semester to unfold.

Post written by: Emily Kovar, Spring 2008