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

Forgiveness and the hand that never leaves

Austria has traditionally been thought of as the "crossroads of Europe" and indeed it is. So when the study abroad students come out to Austria, not only are they immersed in Austrian culture, but also the history, politics, traditions, culture, and ideas from all over Europe.

Moreover, each semester the students not only travel in Europe, but they also venture to other parts of Eastern Europe and former Soviet bloc countries. For example, each semester the students have the opportunity to participate on the school sponsored trip to Poland where they visit, the former Pope John Paul II's hometown, the concentration camps of Auschwitz, the famous Marian Shrine of Czestochowa, the city of Krakow, and the Shrine of Divine Mercy. On this pilgrimage, students have the opportunity to ponder and even touch, taste, and feel the life and work of the former Pope John Paul the Great.

In my readings about the life of John Paul II, I have always been fascinated by the story of his miraculous survival from the assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Agca who short John Paul at 5 PM on May 13, 1981.

Why this time and date? 5 PM and May 13 seem insignificant when isolated, but if we travel to the other side of Europe, the puzzle becomes a little clearer. For this is the exact moment and day on which three shepherd children had first reported seeing the Virgin Mary in Fatima in 1917.

Agca's bullet missed John Paul's main abdominal artery by 1/10 an inch! Later Agca remarked that he was a good shot, he aimed true, and had his escape planned impeccably, and yet in the end, all was thwarted. What happened?

JPII said: "One hand fired the shot, and another guided the bullet." The other hand he said was the Virgin of Fatima, or Mother of Christ.

After the bullet was extracted from his body, he had it sent to Fatima where it was placed in the crown of Mary, the mother of God. Every semester, students go and pray in front of this statue where they recall God's Divine Providence, his tender loving hand, and the importance of forgiveness.

Ah yes, that fearful word, forgiveness.

JPII, in an example to the entire world, visited Agca in prison where he told him that he had forgiven him from his heart.

Many years later, in 2005 when he was hospitalized for difficult breathing JPII received many letters and notes. One was from Agca who wrote from the Rebibbia Prison wishing him good health and a quick recovery. Furthermore, when JPII died, one of the first requests to attend his funeral came from Agca. Naturally the prison officials turned him down, but it still a touching and moving story nonetheless.

As so you contemplate John Paul II (The Great), remember this story of forgiveness and of love, and of Divine Providence, it is good for us all to remember the hand and heart that never leaves you or any one of his beloved children.