made it to madrid last night! have to write superquick, i´m currently in the middle of a department store waiting for the personnel to kick me off the comp.
had an amazing experience in avila yesterday after we left the benedictines at 7 a.m. from samos. took a 4 hour bus ride to avila, then spent the afternoon exploring the churches, monasteries and plazas. took your prayer intentions with me to st. teresa´s chapel!
got back to madrid after a 6 hour bus ride and then got assigned to different families. my family has 8 children all under the age of 10! they each wanted their own american! super cute! they are uber-catholic and have already taught us a thing or two about loving your neighbor like Christ.
only thing about madrid--it´s super hot!!! i woke up in a night-sweat twice last night... hmmm, how to fix that... no clue.
went to the love & life center for english-speaking pilgrims today... very hot outside and tons of people from canada, australia, malaysia and of course, the states. tons and tons of priests and religious around joking and talking with teens... great sight to see.
please leave comments or prayer intentions if you have them! i´m thinking of you all...
pax et bonum!
-crystal
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
so much to say, so little time...
hello friends & family! i am going to try to be brief as the doors to the monastery shut for the night in just 15 minutes...
quick recap--i made it to spain on tuesday after a short layover in charlotte, nc, usa and landed in madrid´s barajas airport... landing in madrid actually looked really similar to el paso, tx--dry & mountainous. it was beautiful, too...
immediately i could sense the excitement in the air, almost like an electricity that you could cut with a knife! in the airport alone we met germans, japanese, peruvians, africans... literally, the world Church is coming together to celebrate this joyous occasion!
we took a quick trip to check in to the monastery where we met the other participants of the FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) international conference. austrians, italians, brits, americans, germans, french and of course, an american contingent... all of us youth in age yet maturing in our faith. such a beautiful sight to see the Church in action...
we have been blessed by the staff of FOCUS to have developed this wonderful schedule for the week. we have morning lauds (morning prayer) with the benedictine monks, then an hour of silent prayer, followed by a morning talk, followed by tea time, two more afternoon session-like workshops, then a lunch with siesta (woohoo!), followed by another talk with small group discussion and daily Mass. i seriously could not have chosen a better retreat experience... i almost feel guilty because we have 2 priests here with us to hear confessions any time and to celebrate daily Mass! im'reminded that in many parts of the world, people wait for weeks and months for a traveling priest to visit and bring them the Sacraments... pray for an increase in discernment of vocations!
thatś another thing: iḿ understanding more and more that to discern oneś vocation doesnt necesarily mean that that person will become a priest, nun or religious. part of undertstanding our vocation (calling from God) is figuring out how we can love others the best. for some, it may be the priesthood or religious life. for others, it may be marriage of life as a single person. but, to figure that out we have to spend time getting to know God so that we can hear His voice, guiding us and directing us where to go. i asked friends and family back home for prayer intentions to take with me to world youth day and so many of you asked me to pray for the youth, for increased discernment by our young people and for an increase of vocations... trust me, my friends and i are praying for these intentions daily!
i have been humbled by your willingness to send me your prayer intentions! truly, i know we are called into relationship with one another so that we can better live out our faith--what better example of perfect relationship do we have than the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, right?--and i am beyond moved that you would take the time to ask me to pray for you and your intentions. the whole Church joins me here in madrid in lifting up you and your loved ones and covering you in Godś grace!
one final thought, especially for the young people back home in the states: i know it is difficult to live a life of virtue, to take the harder road, the one less traveled. i know itś hard to go into our schools, workplaces, and circles of friends and profess our faith. i know itś not popular to have moral certitude based on our belief in Christ. the big, huge, monumental thing i have learned is that WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS STRUGGLE! our brothers and sisters all over the world pray the sign of the cross, genuflect before Christ present in the Eucharist and participate in the Sacraments, too. they struggle to turn the tide of culture in their countries, too. but they are keeping up the good fight and so should we! let us be built up in our faith and resolve to be imitators of Christ especially when itś not popular. we are not alone. =)
we leave tomorrow for a side-trip to walk part of the camino de santiago where weĺl be on silent hours for the day. your prayer intentions will be with me on my journey... please keep me in your prayers, i would so much appreciate it!
iĺl do my best to check-in again once we return to madrid to be with our host families sometime on sunday or monday. til then, please pray for the pilgrims from around the world who are descending on madrid... spanish tv reports estimate that there will be nearly 4 million youth present for this celebration of the faith! pray for safety, pray for conversion and pray for unity.
pax et bonum,
crystal
quick recap--i made it to spain on tuesday after a short layover in charlotte, nc, usa and landed in madrid´s barajas airport... landing in madrid actually looked really similar to el paso, tx--dry & mountainous. it was beautiful, too...
immediately i could sense the excitement in the air, almost like an electricity that you could cut with a knife! in the airport alone we met germans, japanese, peruvians, africans... literally, the world Church is coming together to celebrate this joyous occasion!
we took a quick trip to check in to the monastery where we met the other participants of the FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) international conference. austrians, italians, brits, americans, germans, french and of course, an american contingent... all of us youth in age yet maturing in our faith. such a beautiful sight to see the Church in action...
we have been blessed by the staff of FOCUS to have developed this wonderful schedule for the week. we have morning lauds (morning prayer) with the benedictine monks, then an hour of silent prayer, followed by a morning talk, followed by tea time, two more afternoon session-like workshops, then a lunch with siesta (woohoo!), followed by another talk with small group discussion and daily Mass. i seriously could not have chosen a better retreat experience... i almost feel guilty because we have 2 priests here with us to hear confessions any time and to celebrate daily Mass! im'reminded that in many parts of the world, people wait for weeks and months for a traveling priest to visit and bring them the Sacraments... pray for an increase in discernment of vocations!
thatś another thing: iḿ understanding more and more that to discern oneś vocation doesnt necesarily mean that that person will become a priest, nun or religious. part of undertstanding our vocation (calling from God) is figuring out how we can love others the best. for some, it may be the priesthood or religious life. for others, it may be marriage of life as a single person. but, to figure that out we have to spend time getting to know God so that we can hear His voice, guiding us and directing us where to go. i asked friends and family back home for prayer intentions to take with me to world youth day and so many of you asked me to pray for the youth, for increased discernment by our young people and for an increase of vocations... trust me, my friends and i are praying for these intentions daily!
i have been humbled by your willingness to send me your prayer intentions! truly, i know we are called into relationship with one another so that we can better live out our faith--what better example of perfect relationship do we have than the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, right?--and i am beyond moved that you would take the time to ask me to pray for you and your intentions. the whole Church joins me here in madrid in lifting up you and your loved ones and covering you in Godś grace!
one final thought, especially for the young people back home in the states: i know it is difficult to live a life of virtue, to take the harder road, the one less traveled. i know itś hard to go into our schools, workplaces, and circles of friends and profess our faith. i know itś not popular to have moral certitude based on our belief in Christ. the big, huge, monumental thing i have learned is that WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS STRUGGLE! our brothers and sisters all over the world pray the sign of the cross, genuflect before Christ present in the Eucharist and participate in the Sacraments, too. they struggle to turn the tide of culture in their countries, too. but they are keeping up the good fight and so should we! let us be built up in our faith and resolve to be imitators of Christ especially when itś not popular. we are not alone. =)
we leave tomorrow for a side-trip to walk part of the camino de santiago where weĺl be on silent hours for the day. your prayer intentions will be with me on my journey... please keep me in your prayers, i would so much appreciate it!
iĺl do my best to check-in again once we return to madrid to be with our host families sometime on sunday or monday. til then, please pray for the pilgrims from around the world who are descending on madrid... spanish tv reports estimate that there will be nearly 4 million youth present for this celebration of the faith! pray for safety, pray for conversion and pray for unity.
pax et bonum,
crystal
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
lost in the wilderness...
Chapter 63
A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
O God, you are my God-- for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.
So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory.
For your love is better than life; my lips offer you worship!
I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands, calling on your name.
My soul shall savor the rich banquet of praise, with joyous lips my mouth shall honor you!
have you ever felt like you're going through the motions of life without being conscious of what's going on around you? have you ever spaced out while tying your shoes, making dinner or filling up your gas tank and after-the-fact realize that you've completed your task?
if you've never been an astronaut like that, it may be hard for you to understand what's been going on with me for a while, but for the last few weeks you get where i'm at... actually, i'm not just talking about the mundane yet essential tasks of everyday life but also about my prayer life...
i haven't always been super-dedicated to praying every day but in the past four years or so since moving to houston, my prayer life has really grown... let's be real, my spiritual life grew out of necessity. i took the job in houston because i had been broken up with by a guy i dated for 3 years, and he moved on with his life pretty quickly. i was alone and sad in new mexico... never a good combination. so 600 miles was as much distance as i could put between myself and the situation at the time.
one day i just realized that God was the only one who could help me. i stumbled around for a while--after being away from the Church during college--looking for a way to get back in touch with God. ironically, my love for studying Scripture was borne out of visits to a friend's baptist church. for about a year and a half, friends and family waited patiently for me to discover what it is that i was missing and thankfully, i realized that i was missing the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. and so i came back into the Church and hit the ground running, so to speak.
ever since then, daily prayer has become part of my routine--reading Scripture, journaling, going to Adoration, participating in daily Mass when possible. i have come to really enjoy and look forward to opportunities to pray.
this past semester was really hard on me mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. i felt like i was being put through the wringer, things were coming at me from every direction. i couldn't make time to complete my reading assignments for school and always felt behind... kind of like in a dream when you feel like someone's chasing you... except in my case, the people chasing me were my professors--two priests and an italian woman! not exactly the people you want chasing you! lol
i guess what i'm trying to say is that my priorities shifted out of a need to get things done for school. i would stay up late to read or write papers, then sleep in a little bit later to make up the difference, instead of waking up to read my bible or pray. i also used to do a 3 a.m. friday morning hour at Adoration, and i had to cut that out, too, because i was just exhausted.
all of this has been in my mind all summer as i've been trying to re-establish a routine to make time for prayer every day.
i had heard of spiritual dryness but had never experienced it... until now. i'm not trying to compare myself to a saint, but i'm learning that the saints really are the best role models for Christians to aspire to... aside from Jesus himself, the saints can offer great examples of sacrifice, endurance, faith, obedience, the list goes on an on... i came across the writings of st. teresa of avila and have been reading about how she, too, experienced desolation in her prayer... for YEARS she prayed and prayed and felt nothing but her own desire to be close to God.
i feel like that right now, like i'm wandering around the wilderness searching for God without a map. like i'm turning over rocks and looking in the bushes for God, and i know He's right there somewhere. a twitter-friend reminded me that what God asks of me is obedience and faithfulness in my prayer life. hmmmm.
even though i feel like i'm going through the motions of prayer without hearing God in my prayers, i know He's there. and like st. teresa of avila, i've got to power-though this dry time in my prayer life... if she can do it, i can do it too, right?
please keep me in your prayers... i really do want to converse with God like i used to... perhaps He is trying to teach me something during this difficult time in prayer? anyway, just pray that i learn whatever He wants me to learn and that i remain obedient and faithful to His calling.
have a great week everyone! :)
~crystal
p.s. - i'm about 3 weeks away from heading out to spain for World Youth Day! please pray for me and the other FOCUS participants... i learned some things about this trip that i'm kinda sad about (mainly, we're not doing the camino after all) and i'm trying to come to terms with that... i'm still incredibly pumped about going to WYD as this has been a dream of mine for about 15 years! thanks for the prayers...
Saturday, July 2, 2011
i will wait for you.
someone i 'follow' on twitter sent this link out last night, so on my way back to the humble from hanging out with some friends in the city and house-/plant-sitting, i pulled it up on youtube and listened to it on my pathfinder's audio while on the road.
my heart started pounding and i had tears in my eyes just listening to this young woman perform at a poetry slam... i don't know where it was or when it was given. but she. is. amazing.
when i first heard it, i thought, "man, i wish i had heard this back in college when i was being a bonehead dating guys that weren't right for me." today, i'm thinking that hearing this probably would have helped me figure out what i should have been looking for in a boyfriend while back in high school!
amazingly enough, i heard it last night after i'd been reflecting on my single-ness and the eureka (!) moment i had after talking with my best friend about discerning one's vocation... she posed the thought-provoking statement that discernment is so important that without faithful people in our lives encouraging us and orienting us towards discernment of our vocation, one might not hear God's quiet call to their life's work--whether as a religious, married or single person. so i resolved not to just pray that God would lead my helpmate to me and me to him, but that he and i would be blessed with people in our lives that would help point us in the right direction, and when the time's right--in God's time--to each other.
i hope you, too, are ready to wait for whatever God has planned for you.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
san antonio, you're not so bad...
one way i can tell that i'm getting older and wiser is that it takes me about 2 weeks or so to process information, think about what i'll be blogging about and actually post the blog. i used to be able to do this on a day-to-day basis... no guarantees on the content of my blog (or whether or not my writing's getting any better), i'm just writing what comes into my head and what i feel in my heart... hope it makes sense and is worthwhile for you to read.
i've been making a lot of confessions lately in my last blog entries, and this one is no different. except, this time i'm confessing memories of relationships past which have kept me from visiting family and friends in a nearby city. makes no sense when i write it out like that...
i have been avoiding san antonio for about 4 years now, not wanting to face the familiarity of the streets and neighborhoods and fiestas and the haunting memories of the broken person i used to be when i was in said relationship. or the fact that i could literally run into someone who i don't really care to see when i'm in that city. or the worry that at any turn i would be confronted with a memory that would stir heartache, loneliness or anger in my heart. things i don't have any room for in my life now... perhaps you can see why i haven't really warmed up to the place in the past few years?
the funny thing about facing my fears it that logically, i know that fear is not of God. anxiety is not of God. anything that takes the focus off of God and redirects it back on me is not of God. i think pope benedict said it best in an address he gave to the pilgrims in st. peter's square last week--"those who believe need not fear anything, since all things are in the hands of God, who does not allow evil and what is irrational to have to the last word." i have endured much worse in this life already and God delivered me from that, so why would i--a fairly normal, rational, 30-year-old woman--be so afraid to face my fears of going to a certain city?!
really, the more i write, the more silly it sounds... ay ay ay.
well, i thought about it and prayed for courage long enough that i decided to do something about it... my aunt has been inviting me to visit her for years now and i decided that memorial day weekend i'd drive over, spend some time with her and my cousin and my cousin's kids... if i had time i'd swing by this singles convention i heard about and hopefully get to visit another cousin and a good friend while i was there. i hit the road saturday evening and got to san antonio just in time to see the hoardes of tourists who had descended on the river walk. my aunt lives really close to the river walk so i walked over and took in the sights & sounds... i walked around the west end (not sure what you san antonians call it) but i recognized some places and remembered some things from years past and was surprised that i didn't feel a thing. i am literally a million miles away from who/where i was years ago... what an amazing feeling.
on sunday i took my cousin and her kids to lunch and we got to spend some time catching up... i was truly humbled by the insights my cousin had on how our family has evolved since the passing of my grandparents and our aunt eva... the three of them were the nucleus of our family--the proverbial glue keeping everything together--so when they all passed suddenly some years ago, the traditions in our family quickly dissolved... by simply talking with my cousin about her perspective about what happened in our family, i was reminded at how essential forgiveness is in every person's life. we must start with our own family, and allow that forgiveness to pervade our relationships with our extended family, with our coworkers, with acquaintances... it should be a ripple effect that eventually touches every person we ever come in contact with.
my cousin made a comment that if you let past hurts go too long without addressing them, clearing the air and hugging it out, it gets more difficult as time passes to get the guts to do so later on. pretty soon, a once-strong relationship between brother-sister, mother-son, niece-uncle, cousin-cousin, and so on, crumbles into acquaintance status... isn't this true with our relationship with God, too? the longer we go without talking with Him in prayer, or visiting Him in Adoration, or reconciling ourselves to Him through confession, or participating in the sacrifice of the Mass, the harder it is for us to bring ourselves to even believe that He is there in our good times and especially our bad times?
i am so glad that i was able to spend some time with my cousin and walk in her shoes for a bit... afterwards, i took my cousin's daughter with me to Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in northern san antonio... i had planned to meet up with another cousin on the other side of the family who lives really far north on 281 and i needed to find a church somewhere between the two places so i wouldn't be late... if you know me, you know the decks were stacked against me to be on time. lol i looked up churches that were halfway between the two places and found Holy Spirit Church had an evening Mass... and made it just in time! [thank God!!!]
before i get into describing the church, let me start by saying that i like to take pictures of the sanctuaries of the churches i visit... there is a familiarity, a homeliness, in every church that is so comforting to me... wouldn't you know it, but i left my phone in my car so it wouldn't accidentally go off during Mass and i didn't get a pic of the sanctuary?! argh... guess that means that i'll have to go back for a pic! :)
anyway, the church itself looked fairly new and rather large from the outside and on the inside it had a great, big baptismal font in the narthex and the beautiful pipe organ that lined one of the walls of the sanctuary... i love that when you walk into a Catholic church, the architecture of the building naturally flows towards the focus of the gathering space, the altar... it was just a beautiful church--modern, but beautiful.
as the Mass progressed, i felt something--an inner peace--that i haven't felt in a long time... i've had final papers and financial deadlines for world youth day and committee meetings and all kinds of things to divert my attention from spending time in prayer and i was reminded that i need to refocus my efforts...
the most beautiful part of the Mass was when the priest began to sing the liturgy of the Eucharist... i have been to only one other Mass celebrated that way and it gave me goosebumps... sure enough, as the priest began to sing, every hair on my body stood straight up and my cheeks and ears got warm... i closed my eyes and bowed my head and prayed along... at the sanctus i heard the congregation erupt in the most heavenly "holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power, God of might!" it literally sounded like a chorus of angels singing and i felt, just for a second, what it must feel like to be in heaven. i can't even describe the feeling... it was just an amazing celebration of the Mass, i felt so blessed to have stumbled upon that parish.
after Mass, i visited my cousin on my mom's side of the family and her husband and two, beautiful daughters... i handn't seen her in about 6 years so i was really thankful that they were available and willing to have us over for dinner... as my cousin and her husband and i settled in at the kitchen island to catch up, the more we talked the more i saw an example of a husband and wife who love each other, their daughters, their family and their faith community... i had no idea they volunteered as much as they do in their parish and was excited to hear that they will be catechists next year for elementary-age kiddos... the Church needs more people like them to pass on the faith! we talked about my grad program at UST, my discernment of my vocation and my upcoming trip to spain for world youth day... when i explained that within a week of praying that God would make His plans known to me whether or not i would be going to wyd i had all but $500 in hand for the trip, my cousin teared up. she said that the trip would change my life and she and her husband promised to pray for my safety and that of my group and that we would all open our hearts to God's will in our lives.
the next day, my aunt, my cousin's daughter and i had an early breakfast at the historic guenther house... i am a history nerd so i loved walking around the old wood floors and hearing them creak, seeing the architecture and imagining what the people who grew up in the house must have been like... i wondered what life events were celebrated in that old house... [like i said, i am a nerd.]
i am so blessed to spend any amount of time with my aunt, she always has a way of looking at things in a different way than i do... and nearly every time we get together our conversation always ends up at forgiveness... just talking with my aunt about her struggles for a short while helped me realize a need for and the want to give forgiveness in many situations in my life... i know she must be trying to figure out things in her own life but she very clearly and specifically recognizes the importance of family and forgiveness and starting anew. we talked about my trip to spain and i told her about how God literally made a way for me to go in less than a week's time and she teared up, too... she said that she felt that i was doing the right thing in following wherever God was leading me, no matter how crazy it might look to people on the outside... i am comforted by the fact that so many of my family members and friends are praying for me and supporting me on my faith journey...
after our breakfast i met with an administrator from the mexican american catholic college, next to assumption seminary, about a program i'm interested in doing after i graduate from UST... i will post more on the visit once i have figured out what i feel about it... but i just wanted to say that there are amazing things going on at MACC and i hope to be a part of their campus someday in the near future!
when it all comes down to it, the big lessons i learned from my trip to san antonio were about transparency, redemption, trust, forgiveness and patience. i keep thinking about that old adage that says, "time heals all wounds," except i'd change it to say, "God's time heals all wounds."
turns out, after all these years of avoiding san antonio at all costs, it's actually a pretty cool place to visit! go figure.
i've been making a lot of confessions lately in my last blog entries, and this one is no different. except, this time i'm confessing memories of relationships past which have kept me from visiting family and friends in a nearby city. makes no sense when i write it out like that...
i have been avoiding san antonio for about 4 years now, not wanting to face the familiarity of the streets and neighborhoods and fiestas and the haunting memories of the broken person i used to be when i was in said relationship. or the fact that i could literally run into someone who i don't really care to see when i'm in that city. or the worry that at any turn i would be confronted with a memory that would stir heartache, loneliness or anger in my heart. things i don't have any room for in my life now... perhaps you can see why i haven't really warmed up to the place in the past few years?
the funny thing about facing my fears it that logically, i know that fear is not of God. anxiety is not of God. anything that takes the focus off of God and redirects it back on me is not of God. i think pope benedict said it best in an address he gave to the pilgrims in st. peter's square last week--"those who believe need not fear anything, since all things are in the hands of God, who does not allow evil and what is irrational to have to the last word." i have endured much worse in this life already and God delivered me from that, so why would i--a fairly normal, rational, 30-year-old woman--be so afraid to face my fears of going to a certain city?!
really, the more i write, the more silly it sounds... ay ay ay.
well, i thought about it and prayed for courage long enough that i decided to do something about it... my aunt has been inviting me to visit her for years now and i decided that memorial day weekend i'd drive over, spend some time with her and my cousin and my cousin's kids... if i had time i'd swing by this singles convention i heard about and hopefully get to visit another cousin and a good friend while i was there. i hit the road saturday evening and got to san antonio just in time to see the hoardes of tourists who had descended on the river walk. my aunt lives really close to the river walk so i walked over and took in the sights & sounds... i walked around the west end (not sure what you san antonians call it) but i recognized some places and remembered some things from years past and was surprised that i didn't feel a thing. i am literally a million miles away from who/where i was years ago... what an amazing feeling.
on sunday i took my cousin and her kids to lunch and we got to spend some time catching up... i was truly humbled by the insights my cousin had on how our family has evolved since the passing of my grandparents and our aunt eva... the three of them were the nucleus of our family--the proverbial glue keeping everything together--so when they all passed suddenly some years ago, the traditions in our family quickly dissolved... by simply talking with my cousin about her perspective about what happened in our family, i was reminded at how essential forgiveness is in every person's life. we must start with our own family, and allow that forgiveness to pervade our relationships with our extended family, with our coworkers, with acquaintances... it should be a ripple effect that eventually touches every person we ever come in contact with.
my cousin made a comment that if you let past hurts go too long without addressing them, clearing the air and hugging it out, it gets more difficult as time passes to get the guts to do so later on. pretty soon, a once-strong relationship between brother-sister, mother-son, niece-uncle, cousin-cousin, and so on, crumbles into acquaintance status... isn't this true with our relationship with God, too? the longer we go without talking with Him in prayer, or visiting Him in Adoration, or reconciling ourselves to Him through confession, or participating in the sacrifice of the Mass, the harder it is for us to bring ourselves to even believe that He is there in our good times and especially our bad times?
i am so glad that i was able to spend some time with my cousin and walk in her shoes for a bit... afterwards, i took my cousin's daughter with me to Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in northern san antonio... i had planned to meet up with another cousin on the other side of the family who lives really far north on 281 and i needed to find a church somewhere between the two places so i wouldn't be late... if you know me, you know the decks were stacked against me to be on time. lol i looked up churches that were halfway between the two places and found Holy Spirit Church had an evening Mass... and made it just in time! [thank God!!!]
before i get into describing the church, let me start by saying that i like to take pictures of the sanctuaries of the churches i visit... there is a familiarity, a homeliness, in every church that is so comforting to me... wouldn't you know it, but i left my phone in my car so it wouldn't accidentally go off during Mass and i didn't get a pic of the sanctuary?! argh... guess that means that i'll have to go back for a pic! :)
anyway, the church itself looked fairly new and rather large from the outside and on the inside it had a great, big baptismal font in the narthex and the beautiful pipe organ that lined one of the walls of the sanctuary... i love that when you walk into a Catholic church, the architecture of the building naturally flows towards the focus of the gathering space, the altar... it was just a beautiful church--modern, but beautiful.
as the Mass progressed, i felt something--an inner peace--that i haven't felt in a long time... i've had final papers and financial deadlines for world youth day and committee meetings and all kinds of things to divert my attention from spending time in prayer and i was reminded that i need to refocus my efforts...
the most beautiful part of the Mass was when the priest began to sing the liturgy of the Eucharist... i have been to only one other Mass celebrated that way and it gave me goosebumps... sure enough, as the priest began to sing, every hair on my body stood straight up and my cheeks and ears got warm... i closed my eyes and bowed my head and prayed along... at the sanctus i heard the congregation erupt in the most heavenly "holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power, God of might!" it literally sounded like a chorus of angels singing and i felt, just for a second, what it must feel like to be in heaven. i can't even describe the feeling... it was just an amazing celebration of the Mass, i felt so blessed to have stumbled upon that parish.
after Mass, i visited my cousin on my mom's side of the family and her husband and two, beautiful daughters... i handn't seen her in about 6 years so i was really thankful that they were available and willing to have us over for dinner... as my cousin and her husband and i settled in at the kitchen island to catch up, the more we talked the more i saw an example of a husband and wife who love each other, their daughters, their family and their faith community... i had no idea they volunteered as much as they do in their parish and was excited to hear that they will be catechists next year for elementary-age kiddos... the Church needs more people like them to pass on the faith! we talked about my grad program at UST, my discernment of my vocation and my upcoming trip to spain for world youth day... when i explained that within a week of praying that God would make His plans known to me whether or not i would be going to wyd i had all but $500 in hand for the trip, my cousin teared up. she said that the trip would change my life and she and her husband promised to pray for my safety and that of my group and that we would all open our hearts to God's will in our lives.
the next day, my aunt, my cousin's daughter and i had an early breakfast at the historic guenther house... i am a history nerd so i loved walking around the old wood floors and hearing them creak, seeing the architecture and imagining what the people who grew up in the house must have been like... i wondered what life events were celebrated in that old house... [like i said, i am a nerd.]
i am so blessed to spend any amount of time with my aunt, she always has a way of looking at things in a different way than i do... and nearly every time we get together our conversation always ends up at forgiveness... just talking with my aunt about her struggles for a short while helped me realize a need for and the want to give forgiveness in many situations in my life... i know she must be trying to figure out things in her own life but she very clearly and specifically recognizes the importance of family and forgiveness and starting anew. we talked about my trip to spain and i told her about how God literally made a way for me to go in less than a week's time and she teared up, too... she said that she felt that i was doing the right thing in following wherever God was leading me, no matter how crazy it might look to people on the outside... i am comforted by the fact that so many of my family members and friends are praying for me and supporting me on my faith journey...
after our breakfast i met with an administrator from the mexican american catholic college, next to assumption seminary, about a program i'm interested in doing after i graduate from UST... i will post more on the visit once i have figured out what i feel about it... but i just wanted to say that there are amazing things going on at MACC and i hope to be a part of their campus someday in the near future!
when it all comes down to it, the big lessons i learned from my trip to san antonio were about transparency, redemption, trust, forgiveness and patience. i keep thinking about that old adage that says, "time heals all wounds," except i'd change it to say, "God's time heals all wounds."
turns out, after all these years of avoiding san antonio at all costs, it's actually a pretty cool place to visit! go figure.
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