Fr. Ron enjoys the Children at Christmas

For all those who are about to come to Gaming, Fr. Ron Mohnickey TOR is the director of the Austrian Program and a ham as well. He is well renowned for his beautiful liturgies, excellent spiritual direction, and keen sense of humor. He is practically a travel expert on just about anything and a wonderful homilist.

The list could g0 on an on....

However, one of the tidbits that people usually don't see from a distance is his great love for children and appreciation for family life.

This Christmas he paid us a family visit in the evening and ended up reading the children a bedtime story. Here is Fr. Ron in one of his more "tender" moments:

Snow, Snow, Snow

It was only a last week week that the first real snow of the season hit Gaming. With it being Christmas week, this raised the spirits of all as a carpet of snow enveloped our little village. The kids had a blast sledding, making snow angels and pushing each other in sleds.

Rewind to two weeks ago and it was in the middle of mid-terms. The students needed an outlet and we did too. So, we decided to head up to one of the nearby ski slopes which had some snow but still wasn't officially open.

Prof. Klapicova and her husband Stefan, female RD Jess Michaud, and my wife Niki and I packed three vehicles with students and cruised the 35 minutes to the base of the slope.

We then put on some layers and headed up the mountain on foot. We hiked to get a view of the area and then hiked around to the backside of the mountain where we got a beautiful view of a canon and the local mountain goats (gams). By the time we were back down the mountain, everyone was invigorated and ready to head back home.

Snow, its so refreshing, its so redeeming. Take a moment and thank God for snow!

"Little Vince" - Guitar Prodigy

For those that know the male Residence Director in Gaming, Vince Granando, you know he is a man of many talents and abilities. One of those is namely, the guitar. Vince travels around Europe assisting the Philippino community in retreats and praise and worship as well as serving the students here in Gaming with Praise and just fun campfire songs and "the works."

One of Vince's longtime favorites is the song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, a song that proved to be a theme song to many students this past fall.

It just so happens that Vince has inspired not only students but other little children as well:

Check out this perfect video (passed on by one of the fall students) of "Little Vince" jamming to the guitar.

Breakfast Under the Stars, Fall 09

For the past 3 1/2 years, the Austrian Program faculty and staff have been cooking breakfast for the students on their Reading Day, or free day before finals.

After 15 weeks of surviving off of Austrian breakfast -- bread, yogurt, muesli, deli meats, and fruit, its a nice and welcome change to have some extra cholesterol, namely the kind that clings to American Breakfast food: sausage, scrambled eggs, homemade waffles, syrup, fried potatoes (from real potatoes), and real fresh ground coffee.

How could it not be a huge success? Humorously, one student remarked, "this is the highlight of my semester!" We turned to him and wryly responded, "I hope not!"

See pictures below of the now infamous Austrian-American Breakfast night:

Thanksgiving for the gift of New Life

Today in America it is the great feast of Thanksgiving. In Europe, and in Austria, its business as usual.

The students even have class so the faculty teach and the staff work. So the real celebration takes place later in the day: Thanksgiving Turkey dinner, formal Austrian Dance, and more.

But as we work and celebrate from afar, our hearts are still uplifted in thanksgiving for the many gifts and blessings of God: the gift of family, friends, the gift of holy mother church, the gift of a work, children, and most of all, the gift of life.

Aptly to this last point, today especially we offer thanksgiving for the gift of new life. This week, Professor and Mrs. Asci welcomed their 6th child into the world, a beautiful little girl with a just as beautiful Italian name: Caterina Lucia Marie Asci. Now the family is evenly matched with 3 boys and three girls.

Mother and baby are doing well and now back at home. So, as a Kartause community, we have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving day, especially the precious gift of a new life.

To send a note to the Asci family, you can reach by e-mail at dasci@franciscan.edu

Baby pictures of Caterina Lucia Marie:

Ridin' the Waves of Life in Greece

One of the more popular places to visit in Europe amongst the Franciscan study abroad students is the island of Santorini Greece. Through word of mouth, it has recently grown in popularity. Not only is it a favorite destination because of the Aegean Sea, famous Greek Food, notable night life, and breathtaking sunsets.

It has also grown in popularity because of a less obscure but nonetheless just as attractive leisure activity--that of 4-wheeling around the Island. So, not only do the students ride the waves, but they literally ride all around, enjoying the scenery, food, local people, and natural surroundings.

The price is right and the returns extraordinary. Below is a picture of two of our students speeding away... their faces show their love of life and of God's extraordinary creation.

The Cross is the Logo of Europe

With all 200 of us just returning from 10 days in Rome and Assisi, our heads are spinning as we cope with the fact that there is only 22 days left in the semester!

But, one of the neat aspects of pilgrimage to Rome is its close connection with the cross of Christ. In this vein, I stumbled across this article in the (Daily newspaper Die Presse, 6.11.09) about the Cross and Europe. It is written by Dr. Martin Kugler, friend of the Kartause Gaming, who has studied history, political sciences and communication. He is director of Kairos consulting agency for non profit projects.

Its a nice read and a good way for us to ease back into the academic setting and rhythm of life:


In 1960 Cardinal Konig of Vienna awoke from a coma after a serious car
accident in former Yugoslavia; he looked at the wall of the hospital room
and saw a picture of Tito. For the young archbishop this experience was
the beginning of an internal process that led him to a special solidarity
with the Christians in communist countries. For us the picture of this
situation can help clear up a misunderstanding with which policies &
politics are made today in Europe. It is the mistaken belief that real
religious freedom is given if a society is free of religion, or - rather
more diplomatically worded: Secularism is the proper way in which the
state expresses its neutrality. This misconception, currently propagated
by a judgment of the ECHR, is based on two false assumptions that, if held
in a prejudice-free and reasonable discussion, could be easily disproved.
First, the talk of the value-neutral state: It is simply naive and the
result of an illusion.

Secondly, the assumption that a public without any presence of religious
life or religious symbols would be more "tolerant" or more appropriate to
freedom of conscience than a "Public Square" which permits or even
encourages statements of religious belief.

The first of the two conditions of our misunderstanding is rather a joke:
value-neutral state? Against fraud and corruption? Against xenophobia and
discrimination? Sins against the environment and sexual harassment in the
workplace? A state that bans neo-Nazis, allows pornography, favors
certain forms of developmental assistance , but others not. . . all due to
neutral values?

Someone is trying to make a fool of us! Goethe already railed against
talking about the nonsense of "liberal ideas". Ideas should possibly be
good or right and our attitude towards people with other ideas should be
liberal. As a historian, I can only interpret this talk of a
value-neutral state thusly: It is a somewhat belated over-reaction of
European intellectuals against the alliance of throne and altar of the
past.

The second assumption one must take seriously, however: The great Jewish
legal scholar, Joseph Weiler, said (given the debate about the reference
to God in the European Constitution): As a member of a religious
minority, he felt better off in a society that respects its religious
symbols, than he would in a secular society, which would deny its roots
and even work zealously against any expression of faith. One might add:
The removal of the cross in a public hospital and the resulting blank
walls are a sign which carry its own symbolism and send signals to dying
patients, who look out for them.

Of course, the atheist parent might feel his or her child being molested by
the cross in the classroom. But this is inevitable. I may also feel
annoyed when upon entering a post office I catch sight of a photograph of
the Austrian Federal President whom I have not voted for. Or if I am on
the way to my daughter's nursery school looking at posters of the
municipality of Vienna co-financed by me. Influence, ideological signals,
visual presences - also sexist – will always exist everywhere. The only
question is how and containing what. The state should intervene only very
moderately. And if it does, not by bans that imprison religion into a
ghetto. The cross is now less than ever a sign of restraint, but one of
identity and cohesion of Europe. So not only Cardinal König was missing it
in the Yugoslavian hospital room. Equally would I and also friends
alienated from the Church miss it: On the mountain peaks of the Swiss
Alps, on the rooftops of the Burgundian churches and the ambulances cars
of the Red Cross. To the Christian, the cross is claim and mystery. But
for Europe it is the most successful and best logo of all times. It should
remain visible.

(Daily newspaper Die Presse, 6.11.09)

Costume Party Winners

At the Fall Festival Costume Party this semester, two students, Heidi Drury and Chris Franzonello, decided to dress up like Professor Asci (Theology Prof) and his wife Michele who is 9 months due and ready to go at any moment. They took Gold prize in the contest and were certainly "the talk of the campus" for the next 48 hours.

Also, see some of Heidi's study abroad pictures from Rome, Sicily, and Austria below:

Wants and Needs

Perhaps the most recurring theme of my semester thus far has been wants versus needs. Or, better put – things I think I need versus things I actually need.

Traveling has a way of putting that sort of thing in perspective: you discover the essentials and your own creativity in obtaining them. You learn to separate the things you need – like sleep – from the things you don’t – like a bed.

One could argue, for example, that the litmus test for how badly you actually need a restroom comes when you see the “service charge” machine blocking the door. You stop and evaluate: a Euro, a Euro-fifty? Hmm, that’s a half of a meal or better yet – a whole loaf of bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How often one finds that one did not really need to go that bad!

You learn the tricks, of course: that McDonald’s doesn’t charge for restrooms, that a scarf makes a fantastic pillow, that (as a friend of mine warned me before I came) travel-sized Febreeze is your best friend, that chewing gum can make you feel full…and all those remarkable insights that come with the challenge of traveling.

Returning from ten-day break, for example, my friends and I spent two consecutive nights sleeping in airports. Airports are not bad--when they’re heated, that is. But you learn: you find the warmest hand drier in the bathroom and spend a fair amount of time underneath it. You buy the cheapest, hottest drink (usually tea) and just hold it. You walk around. A lot. You turn the scarf that was a pillow into a blanket and master what my friends dubbed “yoga sleep” – any number of ridiculous positions that manage to conserve body heat.

It’s incredible what you get used to and how quickly you get used to it. Like cold showers, or the kind (in some hostels) that shut off randomly. You perfect the one-minute shower (my family should be happy to read that) simple to avoid having shampoo left in your hair all day.

Yet I do believe that these are some of the most formative situations I have encountered. It takes a sense of humor, an attitude of humility, and a disposition toward simplicity to make it back to the Kartause each Sunday and be able to say: “That trip was a blessing and I was changed for the better by it.”

Blog post written by Cara Weiss, Fall 09 Gaming Student

Students Hang Glide in Switzerland

This past weekend, several groups of students packed their bags and headed to Switzerland. Some hiked, some tasted cheese, other just imbibed the breathtaking scenery. But still others were not to be satisfied without some intense thrill.

This they achieved through hang gliding; check out the pictures below:

Eucharistic Miracles in Europe

With Europe at their very fingertips, the Franciscan University Study Abroad students travel to all corners of the continent. But, many go not just to see but to experience. They go as pilgrims, searching for meaning; they search the Lord with restless hearts. They search for signs of God's love and presence in the world.

In particular, many go and visit patron saints, shrines of the Madonna or to sites of Eucharistic Miracles.

Regarding Eucharistic Miracles, students often travel to Orvieto, Lanciano, Seefeld, Santarem, Siena, or Walldürn to see the miracles and contemplate their meaning.

While the history is vast and spectacular, I want to point out an interesting YouTube video which my mother-in-law passed on about a recent scientific study on a Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires and its relationship with the miracle in Lanciano -- or Oriveto (I forget which one it was!)

Check in out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbg_dhI4XCs

It's in Spanish, but the English subtitles do just fine.

Food Cravings in Gaming

With the student's 10 day break completed and everyone back at the Kartause, it seems that everyone is craving home-cooked food. Southerners are missing their cajan cuisine while mid-westerners are dying to have just some plain old meat and potatoes -- just as long as it isn't pork! City goers, in their typical cosmopolitan fashion, miss their Thai and Chinese specialties.

But, with the change in weather, even the faculty and staff are missing some of their familiar favorites. Prof. Seifert-Wolter was making pumpkin soup last week while Niki and I made a pot of Chicken Noodle yesterday evening. But surely it isn't only soup that we crave. For example, over the break, I was craving Italian Risotto, perhaps because it reminded me of sun, shore, and leisure; my wife's request, a complementary Chicken Marsala.

So, we stopped dreaming and started cooking: Italian risotto with prosciutto and white wine, chicken marsala, steamed broccoli (al dente), a fresh salad, and a zesty white wine. We were happy people that evening!

See pictures below:

First Snow of the Year: Oct. 14!

With all the students on their 10 day break -- many enjoying the warm weather in Greece -- I think they will be shocked with the cold temps that have recently blown in!

Just last week, we had record high temperatures here in the Austrian Alpines; however, in a matter of two days, we are now near record lows!

So, we went from wanting to go swimming to needing to bundle up. In other words, we went from Fourth of July to Christmas in two days!

Check out the first snow pictures of the season below:

The other question regarding Student Life is with the snow, how do we finish up the intramural football season? With the students eager to play, I'm sure we'll find a way, or at least invent one!

Feast of St. Bruno: Oct. 6

Since the Austrian Program of Franciscan University is located in a restored 14th century Carthusian monastery, it only seems natural for the University to celebrate the Feast of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order.

Each year, the St. Bruno's feast occurs on Oct. 6, after the Feast of St. Therese and right before the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Besides celebrating a solemn mass and venerating the relics of St. Bruno, all of us are invited on this feast to contemplate some of the lessons which St. Bruno and his companion followers leave to us Americans who inhabit their former residence.

The Carthusians are well noted for their rigor and discipline, but often outsiders forget that these negations are almost imperceptibly swallowed up by beauty, harmony, and transcendence.

Philip Gröning, Director of the Film, Into Great Silence, about the Carthusian Order says, "This is what a [Carthusian] monastery is, it's getting rid of all the superfluous stuff, and then things become much more transparent--time becomes transparent, objects too. There's this transparency, this inner freedom that comes, which is felt as joy, of course."

Indeed, in the film, are a pair of scriptural texts to which the film returns again and again. One is a text emphasizing discipline and self-denial: "He who does not give up everything cannot be My disciple." The other is a prophetic utterance evoking ecstatic self-surrender: "You seduced m, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced." {This section as well as others in quotes are taken or summarized from Gröning's interview with Decent Films Director, Steven D. Greydanus.}

So, the Carthusians remind us that discipline and joy are not mutually exclusive. So like them, we also have to find moments of discipline and structuring ourselves, and we also must find ways of abandoning ourselves to what life is. And finding this balance is one of the major human requirements.

The Carthusians also epitomize "living by faith." Gröning observed that "They feel like they are in the hands of God, and this is good."

Finally, the Carthusian Monasticism remind us that "a monastery is something that is letting go of things in the beginning, letting go of more and more things, and then a certain liberty and a certain joy will come up."

From Gaming, Happy Feast of St. Bruno!

This Semester's Crew

The picture of the bishop was taken during the opening Mass of the Holy Spirit on August 27. At this Mass, Bishop Küng of our Diocese (St. Polten) delivered a moving homily encouraging all the students to call upon the Holy Spirit to show them the true path which they must walk on the journey of life.

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.