As I made my way through UK customs from Cinque Terre, Italy this past weekend, the officer who checked my passport asked what I have been studying during my semester in London. “I am an English and Theology double major,” I replied. “What is theology?,” she questioned, holding my gaze. I smiled and explained that I study God and religion within the Catholic tradition. She nodded, flipping through my passport, and remarked, “You’ve been doing a lot of traveling since January, haven’t you?” “I have,” I responded. “I’ve been very fortunate.” “But you’re almost done?” she asked, noting that I am scheduled to return to the U.S. at the beginning of May. I replied, “I am. It’s hard to believe!” and she handed my passport back to me, freshly stamped, and advised me to remain a student for as long as possible. Over the course of the semester, I have become accustomed to explaining why I am where I am in removed, typically impersonal interactions with airport authorities. “I am here on vacation until Sunday” explains my purpose for entering various countries on weekend adventures, and “I am studying in University for five months from the States” clarifies my reason for re-entering the United Kingdom. Never before, though, had an officer asked me what theology is or commented on my travel schedule or offered life advice about continuing education. My interaction with this woman offered the opportunity to reflect upon several ways I have grown during this special semester studying in London. First, my semester abroad has invited me to locate my faith on a global scale. I have attended Catholic Mass in English, Latin, Norwegian, French, and Italian this semester. I met the challenge of adapting my prayer and worship routine to the fast pace of a semester abroad, forming supportive friendships with wonderful people doing the same and being intentional about faith decisions such as choosing Lenten devotions that have supported my goals for personal growth during the semester. I had the immense privilege of attending Easter Mass at the Vatican with Pope Francis, which is perhaps the prime example of what it has meant to locate my faith on a global scale: the sheer number of pilgrims attending that Mass from all over the world was a powerful witness to the universality of the Catholic faith and the Christian spirit. When I think back to the first Mass I attended during my semester abroad, a comment full of awe, relief, and gratitude that one of my friends made as we walked into the church stands out to me and still rings true: “No matter where we go, this liturgy is always the same.” In my first blog of the semester, I reflected on the comfort the universality of the Mass brought me after I attended that liturgy: “The same sacred liturgy is celebrated. The same Eucharist is really present. The same Body of Christ is manifest in the people gathering around the same table of the Lord. My catholic Catholic faith has rooted me in hope here in London.” Looking at my experience from the other side, only a few weeks away from my return to life in the States, I can proudly and gratefully say that by the grace of God, my catholic Catholic faith has rooted me in hope here this semester. Yes, in London, and also in the world. My brief conversation about theology with the customs officer reminded me how important it has been for me to encounter Christ in all sorts of different ways wherever I have traveled and in everyone I have met. Second, traveling in Europe with incredible people has been an invaluable gift. The customs officer was right: I have been traveling to a different country almost every weekend since January, and I have had the opportunity to explore London, England in between weekends and spring break trips. My friends and I often talk about how we want to “live into” each new place we explore, which involves really seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing, and feeling a place. Fortunately, I have been blessed by wonderful people with which to do so in London and beyond. Third, I have had the opportunity to learn in and from the world. Not only have I been blessed with the immense gift of going to school in a truly global city and taken various classes that focus on the history of the people and places of London, but I have also come to call Europe my classroom. Education has occurred on an unprecedented level both in terms of volume and impact this semester. I learned about World War II in Berlin and Prague by attending tours through areas where the events I have learned about in history books for years actually happened. I walked through centuries of world history preserved around every corner in Rome. I have discovered how to regularly communicate with people who do not speak English and how to conduct transactions and conversions in the pound, euro, Norwegian krone, Czech koruna, and Hungarian forint. This list is truly inexhaustible: the ways I have grown personally and intellectually from having the opportunity to throw myself entirely into a semester of learning-saturated adventure is an incredible gift I will carry with me forever. After this semester, it will be impossible not to follow the advice of the customs officer: I will be devoted to remaining a student for the rest of my life, whether in school or in the world. Though our conversation lasted for all of three minutes, the customs officer at UK Border Control gifted me with a framework through which to reflect on my semester abroad. I am so grateful for each moment here: each new challenge, lesson, city, and person are gifts I will carry with me when I return home in May. The opportunities to locate my faith on a global scale, to explore Europe with fantastic friends, and to learn in and from the world have shaped me in powerful ways that will continue to challenge and energize me for the rest of my life.   Vernazza, Cinque Terre, Italy

Minutes after happy chaos erupted in St. Peter’s Square following the movement of Francis’ Pope Mobile through the Easter masses, a hush fell over the crowd. The adorable, unassuming man who rode around smiling and waving moments before emerged from the curtains flanking the iconic balcony on the front of St. Peter’s Basilica, and a respectful silence settled millions of faithful into anticipation-saturated silence. Even the group of teenagers next to us dismounted the chairs where they had been standing, dancing, and cheering. Pilgrims from all over the world wanted to hear what this man, overflowing with grace and contagious energy, had to say in this traditional Easter address and blessing. That is, all of us looked forward to reading what he had said in Italian once we got home later that day, and some of us could understand what he was saying in the moment. Thankfully, my limited experience studying Spanish helped me to grasp glimpses into his message: at the time, I realized he talked a lot about national politics, care for the poor, and mercy. I also heard him implore us to pray for him just before he disappeared behind the curtain after his address and blessing. In a time of great worldwide need, political uncertainty, and social inequality, it is imperative that we listen to the words of this wise man, world leader, and role model. Here are ten lessons from Pope Francis’ 2016 Urbi et Orbi Address: 1.    Easter is joyful. Easter is glorious. Easter is a day of celebration! 2.   Jesus is the incarnation of God’s mercy. 3.   Christ’s resurrection fulfills the prophecy of Psalm 135: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endures forever.” His mercy never dies. 4.   Only God can fill the spiritual and moral abysses of mankind, “prevent us from falling into them and help us to continue our journey together towards the land of freedom and life.” 5.    The risen Christ “points out paths of hope” to areas of our world that are war-torn and troubled by social and political conflict through the message of life proclaimed by the Angel beside the overturned stone at the empty tomb of Christ. 6.   It is important to pray for “patience, openness, and daily commitment to laying the foundations of a just and lasting peace through direct and sincere negotiations” between Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land and between people facing conflict all over the world. 7.   The Lord Jesus, our peace, draws us closer to the victims of terrorism around the world. 8.   “With the weapons of love, God has defeated selfishness and death.” 9.   Jesus is the true door of mercy, “wide open to all.” 10.  The Easter message, “a message of life for all humanity,” invites all to remember men and women seeking a better future, particularly migrants and refugees. Pope Francis brought up many difficult topics during his 2016 Urbi et Orbi Address. He mentioned, blessed, and prayed for the most vulnerable people and areas in the world. He did not try to hide the violence and conflict our world faces, but rather named many of these communities and showed that even given violence, terrorism, death, and fear, we hope. We must hold the glorious Easter message alongside the fact that we live in a broken world, and cling to the hope of the Resurrection as we seek renewal and reconciliation: “To all I once more address the words of the Risen One: ‘See, I am making all things new…To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life’ (Rev 21:5-6). May this comforting message of Jesus help each of us to set out anew with greater courage and hope, to blaze trails of reconciliation with God and with all our brothers and sisters. How much we need this!” Pope Francis waving from the balcony on the front of St. Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday

Near the beginning of the semester, one of my friends pointed out a step in a doorway in Amsterdam to me. She observed that it was an unassuming sort of step, but a significant one nonetheless because of the way it marked the passage of time. One side of it was particularly worn, so much so that a prominent groove had been carved into it by the thousands, perhaps millions, of people who had stepped through that doorway. People had come and gone, some passing once and some dozens of times, and the step had remained and been permanently changed as it greeted each passerby. Since that first notable encounter with a grooved step worn smooth by time, I have been thinking a lot about steps. In the midst of a semester during which I am learning so many things about “official” history, encountering churches and palaces and museums and monuments, not to mention my Global History class and the fact that I am immersed in a city brimming with interesting history, I am grateful to my friend for drawing my attention to this particularity of “everyday” history. Worn steps do not discriminate in history; they have been formed by people from all over the world, from different time periods and different religions and different socioeconomic backgrounds. They bear the marks of the people who have gone before us into or out of a building, through a passageway, up or down a staircase. Worn steps mark the incarnate nature of humanity as we move through the world. The Amsterdam step As a pilgrim in Rome during Holy Week, I thought about steps a lot this past weekend. Not only did I notice worn-down steps around practically every corner in the Eternal City, but I also became acutely aware of how many people had gone before my fellow pilgrims and me on the journey on which we had the privilege of embarking. We visited the four principal cathedrals in Rome, walking through Holy Doors at all four and keeping our family and friends present in our prayer as we went. We participated in the tradition of traveling to various altars of repose on the evening of Holy Thursday, kneeling down before Jesus reserved in the tabernacle in twelve different stunning churches among pilgrims from all over the world. We visited relics from Christ’s Passion on Good Friday, saw the first known depiction of Mary holding Jesus deep in catacombs under Rome, and prayed the Stations of the Cross on the famous Spanish Steps. Everywhere we went, I was reminded of the universality of our faith and was repeatedly stunned by the unique way Rome can trace the history of Christian faith, Catholicism in particular, through places and objects. Our wonderful student pilgrimage leader kept reminding us of the incarnate reality of our faith as we encountered one breathtaking cathedral after another and discovered evidence of Jesus’ real presence through holy places, objects, and art. A view of St. Peter's from atop the North American College in Rome My two favorite pilgrimage moments in Rome happened on two of the most significant days of the liturgical year: Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Both involved steps, physical and figurative. On Good Friday, we had the opportunity to join pilgrims from all over the world in ascending the Scala Sancta, or the Holy Steps. Packed in shoulder to shoulder and knee to foot, we knelt and crawled our way up twenty-eight stairs that are said to be the ones Christ climbed to meet Pontius Pilate on the day of his sentencing. On each step, we reflected on a different moment in the Passion narrative, asking Christ to have mercy on us as we entered into His suffering through prayer and asking Mary to intercede for us: “Holy Mother, bring it about that the wounds of the Lord be impressed in my heart.” With each step, also, we encountered searing physical pain from the wood beneath us that was exaggerated by the groves carved into the steps by millions of pilgrims digging into our knees. I wept both because of physical pain and because of the realization that this was perhaps the smallest sliver of an example of the suffering that Christ endured for us. This emotion-filled experience was also prayer incarnate. We prayed in the footsteps of not only innumerable fellow pilgrims, but also in the footsteps of Christ Himself. After we walked in Jesus’ steps through the communion and repose of Holy Thursday and entered into the suffering of Good Friday and the subdued nature of Holy Saturday, the victorious celebration of Easter Sunday arrived! We waited in line outside the Vatican beginning at 6:00 a.m. in order to celebrate Mass at 10:15 a.m. with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square, and we had the immense fortune of sitting in the section closest to the altar at the front of the square. Around 8:00 a.m., we entered into a space that physically marks the beauty of the Catholic Church. The shape of the square is enclosed by curved sets of columns that were designed to look like a welcoming hug surrounding the people gathered in the square, and these columns are topped with 144 statues of saints, assembled together above the faithful. These saints represent the entire Communion of Saints present in prayer with those who are in the square. Above the main façade of St. Peter’s Basilica stand Jesus, eleven of His disciples, and John the Baptist, who points up to heaven. Peter, the disciple missing from the group, is present in the man perched on the balcony below: the pope who has apostolically succeeded him.  Mom and me awaiting Pope Francis' arrival from our seats in St. Peter's Square Millions of faithful have made pilgrimages to the site of St. Peter’s since Peter was martyred there in 64 AD, and entering into this tradition of our universal, apostolic church was an unbelievable privilege. It was astounding to consider how many life stories and journeys, struggles and joys were present in the square for Mass that day. Walking in the steps of pilgrims gone before us, we were blessed with the opportunity to make Mass with Papa Francesco himself part of our incarnate spiritual journeys. Never have I been so awestruck at the universal, enduring, joy-filled nature of the Catholic faith. He is Risen – Buona Pasqua! We were this close to Papa Francesco! Image by Ben Swanson.

My family is here! I feel so grateful to be hosting my mom, grandma, and youth minister from home in London this week. They arrived in London on Friday, and we immediately hit the ground running. We have continued my quest to find the yummiest of each cultural food in London (so far we have had Spanish tapas, Italian pizza, Chinese dim sum, English fish ‘n chips, Egyptian lentils, and Indian naan), toured Westminster Abbey, visited a couple markets and museums, shared High Tea, and watched Beautiful the musical. Planning this trip was different from any other vacation I have adventured on with my family before. This is the first time I have hosted any of my family members in a place that is solely “mine.” Hosting family at Notre Dame is always incredibly special because it is my home and because it is a sacred family space: my parents met, got engaged, and were married on the Notre Dame campus and my brothers and I grew up visiting for my mom’s band reunion football games. Campus is a home on so many levels for me, one being that it makes me so happy to imagine my parents and so many other members of the Notre Dame family going before those of us there now. London is another story: none of my family members have lived here before. There is no set path laid before me: there are a thousand ways to get to any one destination. Everything I have the privilege of showing my mom, grandma and youth minister is, in a sense, my own. Thus, while planning the trip, I was largely in charge of picking activities out for our itinerary. This was an entirely new experience for me, as my mom is the master planner for our family. And though she did a huge amount of planning and organization in order to pull this trip off, she allowed me to design a pilgrimage of sorts through London to show her my new home. She, my grandma, and my youth minister – three of my biggest role models – handed over the role of leader to me this week. What an empowering gift. My guests are here for five days and then we will all head to Rome for the Holy Week pilgrimage organized by Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry. I had anticipated that our time in London would be highly touristy and filled up with seeing my favorite spots in the city and that Rome would be our time for spiritual pilgrimage. But one of my favorite things we have done in London so far has been something rather unrelated to the (wonderful) typical touristy activities we have engaged in: beginning our pilgrimage here. On Saturday, we traveled through the Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral, the Mother Church for Roman Catholics in England and Wales. Sunday, we attended Palm Sunday Mass to kick off Holy Week at St. Patrick’s Church in SoHo, the church I have come to call my London parish. Again, we processed through a Holy Door there. We have blessed our food with a prayer very special to my family at every meal, including those we have shared with my friends. We have said night prayer at Westminster Abbey and in the chapel of my dorm with several friends from the London program. Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral Participating in these things with my mom, grandma, and youth minister has emphasized a very important, very timely reminder just before we head to Rome: pilgrimages are just as internal they are external. Our special time in London has begun to prepare us internally for our encounter with Christ in Rome on Easter morning. And over the next several days, as we continue journeying through Holy Week, everything we encounter will further this preparation. Tomorrow, we head to Rome. I can hardly wait to experience Italy for the first time and to taste its world-famous gelato. But even more so, I am looking forward to making a pilgrimage to one of the most important places in the Catholic faith with three of the most important women in my life.

What happens when three women and two men from five different dorms, five different home states, and five different majors become friends in London, England? They embark on a week-long journey to Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary together, of course. And they manage to emerge on the other side even closer friends than when they began their adventure. One of the most beautiful things about the study abroad program at Notre Dame is the social aftermath. I first noticed it at the start of junior year: my friends who were freshly minted members of the senior class returned to campus from their summer breaks particularly energized. This could be attributed to a myriad of causes, of course: particularly enjoyable summers, time spent with friends and family away from stressful schoolwork, the opportunity to return to their home under the Dome for one last hurrah…but this particular energy very clearly fed off of one another. It was the reunions in the hallways of my dorm between people I didn’t know knew each other that I noticed. The seniors running across South Quad and shouting across North Dining Hall to greet people walking in different groups and chatting in various circles. Somehow, the whole of the senior class seemed to know each other come the great Return to Campus. Boundaries had disappeared. Social groups had merged and morphed and melted together. I have a theory that all of this is due to the study abroad program at Notre Dame, and that it happens, or at least has the potential to happen, every year. It’s part of what makes senior year at ND so sweet: whether students study abroad first semester, second semester, over the summer, or not at all, new friendships flourish as people come and go from campus and study abroad destinations all over the world. I feel incredibly fortunate to know that this study abroad social effect is already shaping me in a big way. Take my flat (aka apartment) in London, for example: six of us live together from five different dorms, two different home countries, and six completely different friend groups and activity sets on campus. Perhaps some of us could have become friends at Notre Dame through a mutual friend or by chance, but up until junior year none of us knew each other beyond being distant acquaintances. It took randomly sorting us into a six-person flat in London, England for us to become friends and incredibly compatible roommates. When we begin introducing one another to the friends we so often chat about after we return to campus senior year, the study abroad social effect will begin to run its course: friendships will breed friendships. Social groups will merge and morph and melt together. We will continue to develop close relationships with people we never would have met otherwise, not because we are incompatible, but because we never had someone or something nudging us towards one another before.  Flat dinner: Photo by Laura Gruszka I can point to so many friendships that have developed during this first half of my time abroad with a similar air of awe. They have happened unbelievably naturally, and many have developed because we had heard about one another from mutual friends on campus. Many of these friendships are with people that I know I will be close to for the rest of my life. What a crazy thing to think, that it was London that brought us together at last; sometimes I wonder how in the world I have not had them in my life during my whole college journey. And yet… Study abroad has made me believe in soulmates. Not in the romantic sense, but in the friendship sense. I believe that God forms people towards special, close connections with others through life experiences, personalities, interests, etc., and that this process is gradual and lifelong. Sometimes, it takes something like London to act as a catalyst for friendships between such soulmates, who have been shaped towards the potential of being excellent companions for one another. I had the privilege of traveling across central Europe with four of my soulmates this past week for spring break. In these four people and in many more from the London program, I have found lifelong friendships. Many of us knew one another before coming to London, and they were all people I hoped to bond with prior to the start of the semester, but I could not have predicted that we would seamlessly form an unbelievably compatible group dynamic fit for journeying across Europe together for nine days. Over spring break, God and these four people were my only constants, and that was perfectly fine by me. My spring break travel group knows me so well. They could tell you my favorite “fill-in-the-blank” because we have quizzed one another on endless random favorite things. They could share with you my hopes and dreams and what makes me sad or frustrated, because we have played silly would-you-rather games and shared in deep late-night conversations about life. They could tell you what my daily routine looks like and which foods I crave on a regular basis and what sets my heart ablaze and what makes me belly laugh until I cry, because they have witnessed all of these things firsthand. And I think I could tell you many of these things about them: we have learned how to know and love each other quite well quite quickly, because that is how this whole soulmate thing works. When people are successfully pursuing the selves God has created them to be and striving to align their desires with His, friendships with likeminded and likehearted others doing the same become practically effortless. The close friendships I have had the opportunity to form while abroad owe a lot to London: our mutual study abroad circumstances were certainly a facilitator for many of the relationships I have developed this semester, and I cannot pretend that they all would have formed naturally had I been on campus for all of junior year. Yet these friendships are not dependent on London. The things that have formed the basis of our friendships – endless laughter, silly and serious conversation, celebrating Mass, cooking and eating delicious food, cozying up with popcorn and blankets for movie nights – are some of my favorite things to do in “real life.” They have nothing at all to do with the location in which they happen, which proved true for the five spring break adventurers as we tested the waters of our friendships in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest this past week. I am sure this stability of friendship beyond London will be consistent with many other “abroad” friendships, too. London gifted us with the opportunity to be friends, but eventual absence from London will not prevent us from remaining friends. When I asked one of my best friends here if he remembers when we weren’t friends, he replied “no,” to which I responded, “yeah, me neither.” And then he said something that summarizes my thoughts on friendships formed as a result of the study abroad program pretty well: “we were always friends; we just didn’t know it yet.”

Bergen-Mostraumen Fjord Tour After my first week in London, I published a post about being disturbed from usual routines: disorientation and a bit of chaos characterized much of my first impression of study abroad. I found that amidst great transition, the Eucharist provided me with a sense of routine and adventure within that routine as I adjusted to life in London. Almost halfway through the semester now, various routines have newly developed or fallen out of my life as I’ve adapted to life in a big city. I don’t run as much as I like to on campus while here, but all of the walking in and around central London has grounded me in healthy movement. I don’t grocery shop on a certain day or time, but consistently keep my fridge and shelves stocked with classic Katie foods – including hummus, arugula (aka “rocket” in London), and digestives (wafer-like tea cookies) – from the same grocery store down the street. I shower, have a cup of tea, and do some reading for class each morning when I wake up. I pray the Angelus each day around noon, attend Adoration on Thursdays, and celebrate Mass on Sundays, but locations and/or times tend to differ for these special spiritual moments. While studying abroad, “routine” has become a much more fluid word for me: it means comfort and organization, but with flexibility added in. It means being more patient with myself, and more adventurous in my relationship to the world. This semester, I have found it extremely important to become more go-with-the-flow when it comes to routine, and have found a great balance somewhere between organization and spontaneity. While I have simply adapted routines during the week from life on campus while in London, weekends are an entirely different story. At Notre Dame, I would typically schedule several fun events, meals, etc. throughout the weekend as study breaks, and spend lots of time doing homework, regrouping from the previous week, and preparing for the week ahead outside of scheduled-in “fun time.” This semester, weekends are nonexistent if defined by homework, regrouping, and preparing. My weekends here are dedicated to travel. Exploration. Getting kind of lost somewhere in Europe and then discovering pieces of myself there. Travel planning is an extremely intimidating, abstract idea when one has had little previous exposure to it; the first time I sat down to plan a weekend away from London with a group of friends, I had little to no idea what I was doing. I had composed a list of places I wanted to visit this semester, and did not plan on straying much from that list of famous cities and usual study abroad student destinations. But on a whim, we decided to try to see the Northern Lights. We flitted around online from Skyscanner to AirBnB to Lonely Planet to Hostel World. We found Bergen, Norway. I had never heard of Bergen, Norway, and neither had any of my travel companions. What was the first trip I ever scheduled on my own, independent of my family? A weekend in Bergen, Norway. The city of Bergen from above Our time in Bergen this past weekend was absolutely magical, even though our original dream of seeing the Northern Lights did not happen. In fact, once we began planning our trip in more detail, we realized traveling further north from Bergen in order to see the lights was completely a nonissue for us, since the gem of the town we discovered in Bergen had so much to offer on its own. We were blessed with gorgeous weather and a beautiful AirBnB to stay at that we happened upon online back when we first sat down to plan and found affordable plane tickets to a city in Norway none of us had ever heard of before. We took a boat tour of fjords, shared a meal on top of a mountain overlooking the city, and celebrated Mass in Norwegian among a couple hundred Bergen locals. We ate fresh shrimp from a fjord-side market, navigated our way around a foreign public transportation system, and learned how to convert American dollars and English pounds to Norwegian krones and vis versa. We even watched the movie Frozen during our stay, which is set in an environment based on Norway’s breathtaking fjords. A weekend that seemed completely random when we first planned it turned out to be one of my most adventurous, exciting, fulfilling experiences of the semester so far. The random way that this weekend came about made our time together in Bergen all the much sweeter. While weekend traveling is not conducive to maintaining any sort of consistent routine from Thursday nights through Sunday evenings here, the adventure that comes from not being wed to any particular routine is extremely empowering. I just returned from my third weekend out of five travel weekends in a row. This lifestyle would have sounded insane and chaotic to the me that had not studied abroad yet, but it is lifegiving and beautiful to the me who has learned, like Elsa from Frozen, to say “let it go.” Our view of spectacular Bergen and accompanying fjords from Mount Fløyen

Until about three days ago, I was under the gravely mistaken impression that there is nothing quite like an Eggo waffle drizzled in Log Cabin syrup and smeared with a healthy dose of Jif peanut butter. I treasure fond grade school memories of before-school breakfasts with my brothers gobbling down messy Eggo waffles, and no other waffle experience could quite live up to the sugary family time from those memories…until this weekend, when I had Belgian waffles. In Belgium. My weekend in Bruges, Belgium was largely spent satisfying every food craving I could possibly imagine. Whether we were enjoying powdered sugar and chocolate-drizzled waffles, frites (French fries) dunked in curry ketchup, samples from chocolate shops lining quaint cobblestone alleyways, or freshly brewed world-famous Belgian beer, my five fellow travelers and I did not cut corners on entering into Belgian food culture. We dined on traditional Flemish stew, learned about how beer is made on a tour of the last working brewery in Bruges, and brought home enough chocolate to feed our friends in London for days.  At first, I struggled to reconcile this splurgy foodie weekend with the liturgical season we are in. As people of faith we are called to practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving during Lent, and filling up on sugary Belgian goods does not seem consistent with any of these practices. However, I have realized that God is teaching me alternative ways to enter into Lenten practices during my time abroad, which has shown me even more clearly how essential it is to choose highly personalized Lenten practices each year. It is very important to me to ‘live into’ the culture of each place I visit during my time abroad, and a primary element of any culture is food and drink. Thus, with the exception of the traditional Friday fast, I am not giving up something food-related this Lent. Instead, I am fasting from dwelling in negativity: any time I find myself in a negative mindset, I intentionally affirm either someone around me or myself. In addition, I have committed to saying the Angelus, a traditional Catholic prayer commemorating the Incarnation, each day at noon. The third component of my Lenten practices, almsgiving, comes in the form of corporate works of mercy, such as volunteering at Open House and visiting a local prison in London (stay tuned for a future post about this!).    While my indulgent weekend in Belgium was certainly not conducive to fasting in the material sense, I had the privilege of entering into Belgian food culture while still maintaining my chosen Lenten practices this weekend. And while my stomach was full of delectable goodness and my heart was full of the happiness induced by adventuring in Europe with dear friends, God still reminded me of the key lesson behind our practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving: it is not things of this world that will make us truly happy.  The Bruges Crew with the steeple of the Church of Our Lady in the background On Saturday, my friends and I visited the Church of Our Lady in Bruges. This stunning gothic cathedral is home to Michelangelo’s sculpture Madonna and Child. I was astonished at how incredibly lifelike Mary looked in the sculpture: I felt as if the marble Madonna would at any moment raise her gaze and step down from the archway on which she is displayed. While contemplating this masterpiece, I felt the urge to pray the Hail Mary over and over again, and gradually found myself transitioning my prayer into the Angelus. As soon as I completed my prayer, I realized it was a few minutes past twelve: I had begun praying exactly at noon, the traditional time Catholics pray the Angelus. Michelangelo's Madonna and Child On Sunday, my travel group arrived in Ghent, Belgium for the afternoon before we continued on to Brussels. We had the opportunity to stroll along quaint canals and explore several medieval churches, but learned there was a major political rally happening that afternoon on the streets of this small town. They had brought in armed national riot police and several helicopters appeared overhead throughout our time there; we decided we needed to cut our time in Ghent short and move on to Brussels as soon as possible. As we hastened towards the train stop that would remove us from the building tension in the area, I again found myself repeatedly reciting the Hail Mary. This time, I prayed not in awe but in fear: I asked for Our Lady’s intercession to keep my friends and I safe. Again, my prayer seemingly spontaneously transitioned into the Angelus. And just as I began the first words of the prayer – “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary…” – a nearby clock tower chimed noon. I had been called to my Lenten prayer practice during an extreme emotional experience for the second time during our Belgian adventure. This weekend, I was given the gift of entering into community on many levels. I traveled with a new group of wonderful friends, which resulted in enriched relationships. We completely indulged in Belgian food and drink culture, which allowed us to experience much of what makes Belgium so special and connected us to centuries of people who have enjoyed similar foods in that country. Finally, my experiences of prayer, particularly related to my Lenten practice of saying the Angelus, connected me to the worldwide Catholic community saying the same prayer at the same time. And God reminded me that looking beyond the things of this world, beautiful and delicious as they might be, is more spiritually filling than even the best Belgian waffle. This is how I feel about Belgian waffles and the grace mediated through them and prayer. Photo credit to Laura Gruszka.

A lively throng of English high school students crowded onto the London Underground after school let out, taking seats without breaking stride in their conversations. This was clearly a typical after-school occurrence, save for one glaring detail: a big black cross of ash streaked across the forehead of one of the girls. Despite the many situational layers that could have made her self conscious – being the only one among friends with a black cross on her forehead, sitting on the train in close quarters with strangers without acknowledging the cross by word or action, walking through the bustling streets of mid-week London with a sign of her faith openly displayed to the public – she acted completely at peace in her current state. She was unashamedly wearing her faith on her forehead. I heard about this particular encounter with an Ash Wednesday cross in bustling London in the homily at Mass this Sunday. The sense of awe that the priest felt during his meeting with this student was consistent with a couple encounters I had that same day last week. I ran into a family with crosses on their foreheads around lunchtime on a busy London road, made brief, knowing eye contact with the mom, and was filled with joy at the sight of fellow Catholics owning their faith among city commotion. Ash Wednesday felt particularly significant this year because it caused us to stand out as people of faith in a largely secular country that doesn’t talk about faith very often. Since Church and State are not separated in the UK like they are at home, I assumed there would be much more public discourse on religion here. Yet events like the Anglican prayer service Evensong have become woven into the fabric and routine of the city without carrying religious significance for everyone who attends. People go to Evensong just as they go to tea. It’s what the English do. I have become fascinated with Anglicanism and with exploring the history of relationships between Anglicans and Catholics since arriving in the country the Anglican Communion calls home. Many American Catholics, including myself previous to my arrival here, are only aware of King Henry VIII’s desire to get divorced and the Catholic Church’s refusal to let him do so as the event that started Anglicanism. While this is accurate, there are also so many more details to explore regarding the split between the Church of Rome and the Church of England. A history of tension prefaced the split. Events such as Martin Luther’s release of his 95 theses in 1522 (and things that prompted this to come about) and the martyrdom of people such as St. Thomas Becket and St. Thomas More as well as general religious and political tension all contributed the formation of a separate branch of Christianity called Anglicanism. Henry VIII happened to be the one to make it official. Many differences in theology and liturgical practices between Catholicism and Anglicanism originated during the reigns of King Edward VI and Elizabeth I, rather than that of Henry. So did far and wide persecution of Catholics. The Westminster Cathedral was constructed in the nineteenth century after Catholicism was made legal in England and Wales again. It is dedicated to the Precious Blood, which is fascinating because it both expresses gratitude and awe for Christ’s sacrifice and nods to the Catholic blood that had been shed over the last several centuries in England by saints and martyrs. Rather than adopting the Gothic architectural style of the nearby Westminster Abbey which was originally Catholic but made Anglican during the Reformation, the architect of Westminster Cathedral was largely influenced by the Catholic Byzantine tradition. The very architecture of this space indicates the urge of Catholics in nineteenth century England to re-establish themselves as strong people of faith in a country they had been persecuted in for hundreds of years.  London's Westminster Cathedral. Image from panoramio.com. Choices like the dedication of Westminster Cathedral to the Precious Blood and traditions such as saying the Hail Mary after the Prayers of the Faithful in Mass continue to indicate residual scars from past religious tension in England. Some think the ritual of praying for Our Lady’s intersession at this particular time (which is not a part of the official Catholic liturgical rite) arose out of a desire to express the uniqueness of the Catholic faith in a country where Anglicanism is the official religion. It feels strange to insert the Hail Mary into the Mass in such a structured way, as if the Catholic Church in England is still trying to prove a point to Anglicans. “This is our prayer,” it seems to say. “This is different – just like the architecture of our Cathedral.” Learning more about the history of Anglicanism and Catholicism in England has been a fascinating blessing for me. During my first month in London I have had the opportunity to visit many physical spaces where religious history has been shaped in England, which brings the history to life for me. I have attended Evensong at Anglican Westminster Abbey and at Magdalen College in Oxford, celebrated Mass in Westminster Cathedral and other Catholic churches in the London area, visited the Tower of London, where St. Thomas More was held and executed, and toured many additional churches in both the Anglican and Catholic traditions. I have noted many similarities and some differences between these two Christian faith traditions during my time here, but have not witnessed much outward dialogue about their relationship or about different religious traditions in general. The lack of conversation about Anglicanism, Catholicism, and other faith traditions could indicate the healing over of past wounds, but many people have clearly not yet let go of memories from centuries past. Though there is not a separation of church and state here – the Queen and the Prime Minister both play prominent roles in the Anglican Communion – there seems to be radio silence about religion in the wake of a tumultuous history. And there seems to be more to talk about. I am a Roman Catholic in Anglican England, but I have felt supported in my Catholic faith during my time in London so far. However, hope to witness increased communication between people of varying religious traditions throughout the semester. London should provide the perfect global platform for conversations between religions that our world is so desperately in need of. These conversations can start in small, organic ways: when three of my friends and I went into a coffee shop on our lunch break last Wednesday, our cashier asked me about the significance of our “markings,” which I explained are a sign of our faith on the first day of Lent. She let me know that she and her co-workers would make crosses with cocoa powder on their foreheads when they got off their shift because they didn’t have any palms on hand to create ashes. I told her I think cocoa powder is the next best thing. Image from darkroom.baltimoresun.comWorks Consulted: http://anglican.org/church/ChurchHistory.html https://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/being-an-anglican/anglican.aspx

The act of enjoying tea reveals God’s loving presence to me through a warm beverage that tastes like a hug. Many days, tea is one of the first things I think about. While coaxing myself out of my warm bed on school days, I often plan which flavor of tea I will drink on my way to my first class, a routine that puts a bounce in my step in the face of South Bend blizzards and London wind. On non-school mornings, I look forward to sipping tea while reading a book or writing a blog post. Enjoying tea with family and friends takes the soul-warming experience of tea a step even further. There are few activities in the world I love more than sitting down for an excellent cup of tea and even better conversation. Last year, my roommate and I hosted a group of friends for tea and fellowship every Tuesday night, and washing mugs after these Tuesday Teas became a prayerful act for me each week due to the joy and gratitude shared over warm drinks. This semester, I find myself in the land of tea. Naturally, I have been consuming absurd amounts of tea while here, and enjoying every second of it. This weekend, however, was the first time I had participated in a traditional English-style tea complete with pastries since being here. Celebrating a three-hour dinner feast of tea, scones, clotted cream, jam, and cake with five wonderful friends in Cambridge this weekend was a prayerful experience for me. Sharing stories, love, and laughter over delicate cups of tea enlivened every part of my being during the course of this fabulous meal. There is something spiritual about the way tea brings people together; even across history, we can trace the ways in which tea has connected humans. Legend has it that tea was invented in 2737 BC in China, and here we are in 2016 AD still able to revel in the beauty of an excellent cup of Earl Grey.  I have been developing a theory around the phrase "treat yourself," which has entered into the vocabulary of our generation as, many times, a sarcastic justification of indulgence. "Treat yourself" has become a mantra that helps me to practice excellent self-care. My morning tea habit, taking a stroll with a friend while accompanied by a warm cup of tea, and having tea and scones for dinner are all small but largely significant ways to treat myself with regards to tea. I’ve found that treating oneself frequently in small ways – whether to dessert, some time alone to journal, or a crazy spontaneous adventure with friends – is key in order to maintain the best possible relationship with oneself. As a result, treating oneself within reason helps to develop rightly ordered relationships with others and with God. When I am particularly kind to myself, I am happier, more patient, and more loving. I notice myself acting with a greater amount of zeal for the activities I’m engaging in and the people I’m with when I am in the habit of treating myself in small ways. I reach out to God more frequently, too, when I feel excited about my activities, the people I am spending time with, and the way I have been treating myself. For me, one of the best ways to treat myself is to a good spot of tea. How do you treat yourself? “When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.” – Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Come, one and all, the greatest and the least. Come, one and all, to the feast!” The echoes of this chorus resounded around DeBartolo 101, one of the largest lecture halls on the Notre Dame campus, every Thursday for four weeks during the summer of 2015. As part of Notre Dame Vision, the Catholic conference for high school students I worked at last summer, three musicals based on parables from the Gospels are performed. This particular song comes from a musical based on the parable of the Great Banquet, where a rich man and his wife open their home to people from the streets for a beautiful feast: a wonderful example of love and hospitality. This past Thursday, I had the privilege of witnessing the parable of the Great Banquet in action here in London. St. Patrick’s Parish, located in a neighborhood called Soho, hosts a program called Open House every Tuesday and Thursday evening. Since 2003, St. Patrick’s has invited “one and all,” the homeless and vulnerable community from the surrounding area, into their parish hall for a banquet of warm, nutritious comfort food. Guests at Open House range from fifty to seventy people each week twice a week. They are greeted in prayer, hospitality, and love. I had the opportunity to serve food to the guests at Open House this week with eight other Notre Dame students as an optional part of our orientation activities in London. The musical adaption of the parable of the Great Banquet from this summer brought the Biblical story to life for me. The rich man and his wife are generous, grateful people who wish to share their wealth with their friends, but the people they invite to the banquet find numerous reasons to turn down their invitation. Saddened but still excited to host the banquet and to share their gifts, the couple throws open their doors to anyone and everyone from the streets – “Come, one and all,” they sing. “The greatest and the least…come, one and all, to the feast!” '"Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.' And the slave said, 'Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.' Then the master said to the slave, 'Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled."' (Luke 14: 22-23) The Open House crew at St. Patrick’s exuded this spirit of hospitality from the moment I and the other Notre Dame students showed up to offer our time. They welcomed us into their parish family, and invited us to show the guests of Open House hospitality alongside them. And in the same way that the guests who did show up to the banquet in the parable truly wanted to be there, so did the guests at Open House. They seemed grateful to have a warm place to rest in close company with others, and were excited to dine on nutritious rice and chicken and to sip on hot coffee and tea. Many saved seats for their family members and friends as they trickled in before the meal. An aura of gratitude filled the place: we all joined together for that meal as one family within this special parish. Everyone, in both the parable and in my lived experience at St. Patrick’s Open House, had responded to a call: some to invite, some to attend, some to serve. All had humbly accepted these calls and were grateful to be there for a few hours of shared time. No matter which form of call the people who gathered in the room had responded to, whether a call to serve or an invitation to be served, we were all there to share in community, to gather around food, to treasure communal respite from the cold streets outside. I was full of gratitude both for the hospitality St. Patrick’s showed me and for the opportunity to interact with and offer care to the guests attending Open House. Near the end of the night, we all sat down together – hosts and guests – to share prayer intentions and to sing a few hymns. One of the songs referred to wandering: we asked Mary to intercede for “us wanderers.” It occurred to me that everyone there was a wanderer in our own way. Many of the guests attending Open House are in between homes and jobs, wandering. Many of those who had come to serve were in the midst of transition, and had wandered there from all over the world: London, the States, Germany, Australia, Scotland. I am certainly wandering this semester: I am extremely fortunate to consider the UK and Europe my classroom. In the musical portrayal of the parable of the Great Banquet, there is a moment when the rich man and his wife, their servants, and all the guests they have invited to their table from far and wide join together in song and dance. This moment was made manifest to me during the Open House as we sang the prayerful hymn about wandering. We each offered our wandering selves to God in hope and in the trust that He answers us, “Come, one and all, the greatest and the least. Come, one and all, to the feast!” Photo by Maggie Duncan

I am really good at going on adventures and really bad at some of the transitions I’m required to make in order to adventure. The process of moving to London, England to study abroad for four months has been no exception, which is slightly frustrating and also slightly humorous. But mostly, it’s humbly human. And all the moving parts involved in moving to and settling into London have led me to cling to the one part – the whole, really – that does not change: God. When winter break rolled around last month, I packed up my cozy dorm room and moved out, saying goodbye to dear friends and a campus I have come to call home. Two weeks later, I left my home in Portland and said goodbye to my family with my entire life in two bags, and I questioned my sanity. Upon arriving in London, an immense tornado of blended excitement, nervousness, and disorientation flooded my being as I attempted to learn my way around a place I had only dreamed about that had suddenly become my new home. As 140 jetlagged Spring London students began splitting off into groups for meals and activities, a certain amount of low-key panic set in. Which friends was I supposed to be making? Would the people I talked to within the first couple days determine travel plans throughout the rest of the semester? What if I was missing out on group texts that revealed key information about future events with awesome people? My mind reverted to its eighteen-year-old-fresh-college-student mentality, paired with a more mature desire to be known and loved here, which led to some moments of (irrational) insecurity. Beyond these silly queries, there were more practical questions to be answered. Where should I buy my groceries? Why can’t I understand British accents (aren’t they also speaking English)? What in the world is an Oyster Card? (I have since learned that it’s for public transportation, and have used it many times). For the duration of my first week in London, my head whirled in a constant state of questions. The learning curve was steep. On my third day in London, I noticed God taking control. He reminded me about the peace only He can bring. Sure, in prayer I had been asking God to bless my time here, challenge my classmates and me to grow and flourish in this new home of ours, and help me solve the petty worries I expressed in my earlier flood of questions. But I had neglected to ask Him for what I really needed, which was a moment of peace, of rest, of love. He, knowing better than I, provided one anyway. Last Saturday, I arrived in my classroom building for an orientation session a bit early, and decided to explore. I ended up on the fourth floor and entered the unassuming door marked “Chapel” in a sort of daze (which was half caused by remnant jetlag and half the result of laboring up four sets of very steep steps which seem to characterize all buildings here). Upon entering the cozy worship space at the top of a bustling building of academia, I simply sunk into a chair and wept. God had provided what I didn’t know I needed all along. In the midst of an uprooting transition during which seemingly nothing had been certain, I was given the gift of dwelling in the real, physical presence of the Eucharist within the tabernacle. Complete peace enveloped me as I gazed at the sanctuary lamp indicating Christ’s presence. This peace allowed me to distance myself from the disorienting task of creating a home in the heart of London enough to be utterly grateful for the chaos that I had formerly felt discouraged by. Gratitude has infused my general disposition ever since my encounter with the Eucharist in the chapel last week. Gratitude for the people around me, for the constantly new sights and smells and tastes I have been blessed to experience, for the adventure that comes with being in a new place. All of this gratitude is rooted in a thanks for something bigger, the thing which allowed me the encounter of gratitude in the first place last week: my catholic Catholic faith. The word “catholic” means “universal.” I am blessed to be part of something so infinitely bigger than myself that it brings me to humble, joyful tears as it did in the chapel last week. Each time I have directly encountered the physical Eucharist since then – in Adoration and in several Masses in various settings – I have come to the same realization: no matter where I go to celebrate Mass, it will always look basically the same. The same sacred liturgy is celebrated. The same Eucharist is really present. The same Body of Christ is manifest in the people gathering around the same table of the Lord. My catholic Catholic faith has rooted me in hope here in London. St. Patrick's Cathedral, where we celebrated Mass last SundayWestminster Cathedral, where we celebrated Mass this Sunday  The exterior of Westminster Cathedral As a person who struggles with transitions, I take great comfort in routine. As a person who finds joy in spontaneity, I love to engage in adventures within my routine. In the midst of the chaos of settling into a semester abroad, the Eucharist has provided me with a sense of both routine and adventure. God has guided me, through several encounters with the Eucharist so far, to take comfort in the catholicism and the Catholicism of my faith. I am extremely grateful. A prayer for this semester: Disturb us, Lord, when We are too pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, To dare more boldly, To venture on wilder seas Where storms will show Your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes, And to push back the future In strength, courage, hope, and love. We ask this in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. Amen. -Sir Francis Drake

Logo of the Year of Mercy Image from http://www.im.va “So Much Mercy!” exclaimed widely beloved Pope Francis when he announced the Year of Mercy that begins today (December 8, 2015) and ends November 20, 2016. This Extraordinary Jubilee (read more here) in the Church will center on a particular focus upon God’s mercy. Today, the Church begins a yearlong celebration, acceptance, and action of God’s mercy working in, on, and through us. It begins on the feast of the Immaculate Conception and ends on the celebration of Christ the King, which is no accident. We ask that Mary, Mother of Mercy, will watch over us as we begin this special journey on the day her miraculous life began. Embracing mercy, we will make our way to the feast day of her Son, “King of the Universe and living face of the Father’s mercy,” next November at the conclusion of the Year of Mercy. How does one go about celebrating, accepting, and acting on God’s mercy during the Year of Mercy? I picked out one particular remark from Pope Francis’ announcement of the Year of Mercy that helps me to think about this Jubilee in concrete terms: “We are called to look beyond, to focus on the heart in order to see how much generosity everyone is capable of. No one can be excluded from the mercy of God; everyone knows the way to access it and the Church is the house where everyone is welcomed and no one is rejected. Her doors remain wide open, so that those who are touched by grace may find the assurance of forgiveness.” The Year of Mercy, then: Calls us to look outside ourselves Focuses on the heart Encourages full generosity Excludes no one Involves wide open doors Is all about the assurance of forgiveness through God's grace The mercy Pope Francis refers to here is two-fold. First, in a special way this year, we acknowledge God’s mercy in our lives by repenting and by seeking his endlessly merciful forgiveness. Pope Francis calls for the worldwide community to revive our personal relationships with our Father by seeking His forgiveness and trusting in His mercy. Second, the Year of Mercy extends beyond our relationships with God to our relationships with one another: to our own mercy. We are called, this year, to act mercifully and generously to our worldwide community. I find this twofold focus on mercy to be beautifully represented by the opening of Holy Doors during this Year of Mercy. Image from www.telegraph.co.uk Consider your daily routine: how many times do you pass under archways and doors? I would bet lots. Each time I enter or exit some place in which I have been dwelling, the passage under a door both alters my internal disposition and my outer environment. When I leave my dorm room in the morning, I pass from my room into the hallway and then out onto a quad. When I enter a classroom building, I exit the outdoors and enter a throng of twenty-somethings all filing into separate rooms through doors that represent thresholds of learning. When I enter South Dining Hall, I become excited for good food and company. When I enter a chapel, I automatically assume a greater disposition of prayerful inner peace. Doors are useful because they help us to achieve a greater sense of privacy. Doors allow for adjacent rooms to have completely different aesthetics. Doors are thresholds that change, or at least affect, us and our environments. Pope Francis opened a special Holy Door at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome today. Starting on December 13th, additional Holy Doors will be opened in Catholic churches around the world that will remain open throughout the Year of Mercy. Making pilgrimages through these doors represents both a change in our own selves and a change in our orientation towards the world. The change in our selves involves the act of seeking, accepting, and offering gratitude for the working of God’s mercy in our lives. While ordinary doors in our lives change our dispositions as we enter different spaces, these Holy Doors are meant to re-invigorate our understanding of God’s gracious mercy at work. We reach out to God in humility and repentance, and joyfully accept the mercy waiting there. The change in our orientation towards the world brings our own mercy into play. While ordinary doors alter our locations in the world, passage through Holy Doors during the Year of Mercy is meant to spur us on to greater generosity through works of mercy. Holy Doors will literally change the environment of the world by making it a more merciful place. When faithful all over the world enter through Holy Doors during this special year, our inner and outer selves will be changed by mercy because of God's grace. The world, too, will change: the Holy Doors are an image of the open disposition Pope Francis calls us to embrace during this Extraordinary Jubilee. Recently I have had many conversations with people on and off campus about the extremely tumultuous world we live in. Why is there such widespread discord and misunderstanding? How does one begin to process it all? How can I act? I have found an answer in Pope Francis’ declaration of this Year of Mercy: by allowing myself to be changed in both of the ways the Holy Doors call me to be, by celebrating, accepting, and acting on God’s mercy, I will contribute in a significant way to a greater peace in this world through my life and through my disposition towards other lives. Image from ndtv.com See here for information on the opening of the main door of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart as a Holy Door during this Jubilee, which will occur on December 13th.

Some of the most focused, peace-filled moments I have experienced during my time at Notre Dame have been during finals week. During finals week, the pressure of countless time commitments that push us forward at a sometimes relentless pace typically vanish. There are no classes to attend, few meetings, and limited activities: studying is our only task. The finals week before winter break is coated by the sweetness of Christmas being right around the corner, and campus is usually blanketed in a thick layer of soft, quiet snow that muffles noises of would-be hustle and bustle: the atmosphere invites peace to come over campus. There is also something extremely satisfying about camping out on the eleventh floor of the Hesburgh library tower armed with a backpack full of books and snacks to crank out work in preparation for essays and exams. So where do the wonderful moments come in in the midst of the finals grind? In traversing back and forth from the library and noticing beauty. In taking a study break to grab a chai latte with a friend to talk about anything but finals. In doing extra things like cleaning my room and exercising and performing a quick random act of kindness just for the sake of feeling like a real human outside of the academic realm. And in approaching finals week intentionally. Prayerfully. Image from mtnestbutblessed.files.wordpress.com In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus visits two sisters named Martha and Mary. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet as He speaks, listening to Him intently and simply being still in His presence. Meanwhile, Martha, the host, is “distracted by her many tasks,” frustrated by her sister’s unwillingness to help her (Luke 10:40). Jesus informs Martha that Mary has “chosen the better” of the two routes of hosting Him, through her simple presence with Him. Sometimes I feel a lot like Martha during the school year. I feel as though I am often running from place to place around campus, bouncing from one thing to another without leaving much time to rest or pray in the midst of it all. I hear similar sentiments from friends quite frequently. But I can relate to Mary, too, in her desire simply to sit with the Lord and to listen to Him. I think a big indication of the Mary-like tendency on campus is the particularly large glow emitted from the candles at the Grotto during busy times such as midterms or finals weeks. A late-night visit to the Grotto this past Sunday demonstrated this very trend: students arriving back from Thanksgiving break flocked to the Grotto to re-center and re-connect in preparation for a busy couple of upcoming weeks. We are drawn to the silence of prayer when the world around us is loud. Image from slawna.com Though Martha often receives criticism for her refusal to put down the tasks she is working on, she demonstrates hospitality through service to her family and to Jesus as she cooks and cleans. There is much value in hard work when it is offered up as a prayer (I blogged about this earlier this semester!). But when we find that we are becoming too wrapped up in worldly tasks and not spending time simply being in the presence of Christ, we are called back to being like Mary, refraining from being “worried and distracted by many things” so that we might feel joy and peace in Christ alone (Luke 10:41). I want to encourage our campus to take these last few weeks of the semester – these sometimes-hectic days between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks – to find the intersection of Martha and Mary. In one of my theology classes this semester, I recently learned that there is a place for both of their ways to the Lord in our lives. It is in working hard at the library in preparation for finals but in appreciating the peace of the Grotto on the way home that we can start to do this. It is in offering studying and reading and writing and grinding away on projects as prayers, inviting God into these tasks, that we can embrace the positive parts of the example Martha sets. It is in attending Mass and Adoration and engaging in personal reflection and prayer that we will seek what Mary saw. It is in finding the intersection between both of these ways of prayer that we will maintain faith and hope.

As I sit on the plane on the way to watch Notre Dame play Boston College at Fenway Park in the 2015 Shamrock series game, I am struck with the very poignant point that family is important. I am traveling to this game with a life-long friend, a sister who is not blood related, but a sister all the same. The fact that we are embarking on this adventure together is important. Another friend who is like a sister to us both has graciously offered us her apartment for the weekend, even though she won’t be there herself for the majority of our stay and even though we’re rooting against her school. The love and hospitality she has exhibited to us as family is important. I have spotted many Notre Dame hats, sweatshirts, and laptop stickers on the bus and at the airport during our journey to Boston so far. It is important that we are all traveling to cheer on our beloved Irish together. The Notre Dame family, who happens to have a large contingent gathered in Boston instead of South Bend on this Shamrock Series home game weekend, is important. My friends who are not going to the game are planning various game watches in their dorm rooms and at homes of friends who are from the South Bend area. Notre Dame fans across the globe – students abroad, families, friends, and alumni at home – will get together to watch the game. They will participate in this event in a special way, even if they are unable to be there in person. The spirit, festivity, and zeal generated by the global Notre Dame family is important. While in Boston, we plan to gather together for rituals such as Drummer’s Circle on Friday night (being held in Copley Square, Boston rather than Golden Dome, Notre Dame) and a 5K run on Saturday morning (starting and finishing at Boston Common) in anticipation of the game. The Band of the Fighting Irish will perform their usual pre-game concert on the steps (albeit on different steps than usual), a Saturdays with the Saints lecture will be given in Boston just as it would usually be on campus on game day, and there will be a Play like a Champion Today sign for the players of the Fighting Irish to tap as they emerge onto the field at Fenway. The Notre Dame fan community that has gathered in Boston this weekend will celebrate Mass together in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, accompanied by the trumpet section of the band. We will practice the act of praise first at this Mass, and then, in a very different but not insignificant way, at the game later Saturday evening. Ritual and tradition when it comes to family help us to preserve memories of generations past and to fuel connections with those to come. Liturgy, ritual, and tradition are important. And then we will cheer on the Fighting Irish to victory, together. After Drummer's Circle in Copley Square  *** This weekend, I entered into the blue-, gold-, and green-clad throng that was the Notre Dame community in Boston with a huge smile on my face and a joyful heart in my chest (alongside my doubts as to whether I would be able to successfully navigate the Boston T). It was a privilege to witness the incredible gathering of family and friends the 2015 Shamrock Series game generated and to be an active member of the zeal that is the fandom of Notre Dame football, even in a different city. After participating in many community events throughout the twenty-four hours leading up to the big game and cheering our favorite team on to victory (yes, we still did push-ups at Fenway!), the members of the Notre Dame community present engaged in one of the most poignant moments of the importance of family of the weekend at the conclusion of the game, when the players slung their arms over one another in front of the small student section in Fenway Park and started swaying. The band played the opening notes of “Notre Dame, Our Mother.” After all of the excitement, at the close of a tough game, and following a whole day of celebration leading up to the night game at Fenway, the Notre Dame community still took time to celebrate the members of the ultimate family in song and prayer: the Holy Family. Clumps of Notre Dame fans all over Fenway Park swayed back and forth to the time of the band’s song and the player’s movements: “And our hearts forever, / Praise thee, Notre Dame. / And our hearts forever, / Love thee, Notre Dame.” Family is important. Fenway Park - Boston, MA - Shamrock Series vs. Boston College 11/21/15

I am in the University of Notre Dame Folk Choir. That phrase still sounds surreal, even when I roll it around in my mouth a bunch and say it in different voices and watch myself recite it in the mirror. This is my first semester as an active member in the choir. And what a joyful rollercoaster ride of an experience it has been! Despite the fact that I have always had a passion for music and singing, I had never been in a choir prior to this year. I had never been instructed about tone and pitch and voice parts. I had never not sung the melody. In a typical mixed gender choir, there are four voice parts: bass and tenor for the men and alto and soprano for the women, in ascending order of high pitch. As an alto, I occupy the lower range of the female voice parts. The sole role of my voice part, I have discovered, is to make the sopranos sound good. My time in choir so far has been a humbling experience, to say the least. In addition to admitting that I really have no idea what I am doing in a technical sense, I have needed to learn to hang back in most songs as the three lower voice parts – bass, tenor, and alto – work together to create beautiful harmonies that make the melody voices – the sopranos – shine. At first, I’ll admit, this was a frustrating process. I struggled with a great deal of anxiety at the beginning of the semester regarding whether I had what it took to be a contributing member of the Folk Choir. Take from my heart, take from my heart, take from my heart all painful anxiety. Lord fill my heart, Lord fill my heart, Lord fill my heart with your peace. Photo by Matt Cashore But besides realizing that I do not sing the melody, I have also come to understand that it’s not about making certain people or certain voice parts in the choir sound “good.” It is about working together as a cohesive team to create a beautiful sound. It is about music ministry. In fact, it’s not about the Folk Choir at all. It is about the folk. And it's about faith. This reality is modeled through our position in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. We sing from a loft positioned above and behind the congregation, up near the ceiling. The paintings of angels and saints all over the ceiling and walls of the Basilica help to remind me weekly what our choir is there for: to invite the congregation to enter into the song and prayer of the saints and angels. Our mission is to join our prayer with those of the heavenly hosts by modeling Christian joy through our song. The music of the Folk Choir invites the community gathered each week at Mass to sing out desire, love, and gratitude for the Eucharist, together. Bread for the world: a world of hunger. Wine for all peoples: people who thirst. May we who eat be bread for others. May we who drink pour out our love. One of my most powerful experiences in the choir so far was at the very beginning of my time in it, during the Mass over Welcome Weekend for all incoming freshmen and their families. As our choir of sixty led an entire basketball arena worth of brand-new Notre Dame family members in song, it hit me that it didn’t matter what my voice part was or if I was getting all the notes perfectly correct yet (I had been to two rehearsals in total). What mattered was my ministry of presence: my smiling, teary-eyed face that welcomed freshmen and their families into the Notre Dame family. My joy-filled song mattered. All are welcome…all are welcome…all are welcome in this place. My gratitude for the opportunity simply to be there, singing alongside some of the most joyful people I had ever met, mattered. My daily desire to let the prayer in my heart burst forth in song matters. The Folk Choir not only accompanies people at 11:45 a.m. Sunday Mass each week, but also at weddings, funerals, and everything in between. By November of my first semester, I have already had the privilege of offering my presence through music ministry at a whole range of occasions. My first experience performing in front of people was with Folk Choir at our annual Concert for the Missions this October. I grew up playing piano and saxophone and public speaking in various contexts, but had never been part of such a prolonged performance prior to this concert. Having the opportunity to share our music with all of the smiling faces in attendance filled my heart with joy. We sang from risers on the altar of the Basilica, looking out over the congregation. My life goes on in endless song… The concert benefits Holy Cross missions around the world. ...Above earth’s lamentations… I kept glancing up at the empty loft, where we normally sing for 11:45 a.m. Mass every Sunday. …I hear the real, though far-off hymn… This isn’t about us!, I exclaimed internally after a few songs. Why are they looking at us and applauding for us? This is about God! …That hails a new creation. Singing in the Concert for the Missions taught me the value of providing passionate music ministry. The people in the audience were there to support the Folk Choir as a ministry, and to contribute to the Holy Cross missions. Their applause was not praise for our singing, but rather gratitude for our mission. How can I keep from singing? Our song illuminated our inner faith, and we invited those in attendance to enter into the song with us. Photo by Matt Cashore Concert for the Missions 2015 I had the opportunity to sing at the wedding of a beautiful couple two weeks ago. From my place in the loft, I tearfully watched as the groom welcomed his bride to the altar and greeted her father. We witnessed their exchange of vows that indicated the start of a lifetime of commitment to loving one another. In your company I’ll go, where your love and footsteps show. Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you, and you in me. We offered joy through our song, which helped family and friends of the bride and groom to more fully express their joy through the song we invited them into. This past week, the Notre Dame community received a devastating email: a member of the junior class, Jake Scanlan, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. The Folk Choir was asked to sing at his memorial Mass on Thursday. The sheer number of people – friends, family, and members of the community – who gathered together at his memorial was absolutely astounding. Come, all you blessed ones, blest of a loving God, enter into the joy prepared for you. In a situation where there was nothing much to say, nothing much to do, we had something to give. Jesus lives: to him the throne over all the world is given; may we go where he is gone, rest and reign with him in heaven. Alleluia. We offered hope through our song, and invited all those gathered in the overflowing church to sing. Once again, the lyrics of the Folk Choir repertoire helped to put words to the songs in our hearts - even when not much else made sense.  Music ministry is an incredibly humbling privilege. It is not about the beauty of an individual’s voice or the talent with which they produce sound by vibrating their vocal cords. It is about the bringing together of community, the ritual of celebrating together and mourning together and experiencing everyday mundane life together. It is a joyful occasion to sing at weddings, a sobering privilege to offer the ministry of musical presence at funerals, and an honor to witness to the genius and hope of our faith through music at weekly Mass. Hallelujah, my Father, for giving us Your Son, Sending Him into the world to be given up for us, Knowing we would bruise Him and smite Him from the earth,  Hallelujah, my Father, in His death is my birth. Hallelujah, my Father, in His life is my life. The music of the Folk Choir has become the soundtrack to my faith life, because it has given me words with which to voice the song in my heart. I am humbled and grateful for my new family and community in song. We are a choir for the people, by the people. We exist to celebrate, witness, accompany, and bring hope and joy. Come and See.  …Such a joy as none can move; Such a love as none can part; Such a heart as joys in love. Photo by Matt Cashore Included lyrics from: "Come, My Way, my Truth, My Life" – Warner "Take From My Heart" - Kyler/Kirner "Bread for the World" – Farrell "All Are Welcome" – Haugen "How Can I Keep From Singing?" – Shaker Hymn, arr. Warner "The Summons" – Bell "Come, All You Blessed Ones" – Warner "Jesus Lives" – Waddell, o.c.s.o "Hallelujah, My Father" – Cullen "Come and See" - Warner

Last week, Fr. David Scheidler, C.S.C. told me that to him, God’s voice sounds much less like Morgan Freeman and feels much more like a warm blanket being wrapped around his shoulders. Have you ever wondered what God’s voice sounds like? Do you wish you could ask God a question and hear His voice answering you? This week, my friend and fellow Campus Ministry blogger Megan and I hit campus with a notepad and camera to find out what our fellow students would ask God if they had the opportunity to ask Him one question. Below, you'll find half of the answers we collected. See Megan's blog, Come! Live in the Light!, for the other half. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as we have enjoyed collecting them! "How many hairs are actually on my head?" Dani, '18 "Why am I so afraid of you right now?" Cesar, '17 "Why does snow exist?" "Why are there camel crickets in my basement?"  Mitch, '16 and Katie, '16 "How am I doing?"  Marissa, '19 "How is everything so beautifully complex, but somehow goes together?"  Dale, '16 "Can people surprise you?"  Izzy, '17 "What's up with the octopus? Or the armadillo? Or the giraffe?" Katie, '17 "Why do people grow up?"  Elizabeth, '16 "What will music be like in 3015?"  Ryan, '17 "How can I love you more fully?"  Joe, '18 "What is the most beautiful thing humans have accomplished? And further, what is the most beautiful thing we can currently accomplish?"  Nick, '17 "What happens to animals?"  Jessica, '19 "What is God's favorite dance move?"  Katie, '18 "Which is better: to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"  Brian, '16 "What do you want me to do?"  Belin, '19 "Do we get to be friends forever?"  Brittany, '18 and Sophia, '19 "What should I tell my Sunday School students about you?"  Maria, '16 "Why do you love me?" Bobby, '18 "When should we expect the end of the world? Which signs should we look for?"  Cherisse, '17 "What does heaven look like?"  Anna, '17 "What were you thinking when you made the platypus?" Kevin, '17 "Why isn't chocolate a vegetable?"  Emma, '16 "Why are you so confusing? How am I supposed to know what God wants when people mess up?"  Megan, '17 "God, do people have soul mates, and if so, who is mine?"  Michael, '17 "Why did you create humanity?" Alex, '16 The answers Megan and I received through this project ranged from silly to serious. They left us with questions of our own, including, “What are camel crickets?” “How have I never questioned whether God made abstract things?” and “What is God calling me to?” The responses we gathered speak to something deeper as well: we always thirst to know and understand God better. Whether it is knowing God’s plan for us or understanding God’s role in the world around us, we are drawn to a particular curiosity we can only have about God. We desire to know our Creator, who is so personal and precious to us, yet vast, powerful, and beyond anything we can understand. God is utterly present to us, and also in many ways is a complete mystery. One of our favorite more “serious” replies to our question this week (if we are allowed to choose a favorite) was, ‘“How can I bring greater glory to Your name?’ Luckily, I get the opportunity to ask this every day.” Perhaps some questions are better left unanswered directly, and rather sought through the way we live our lives.  If you could ask God one question, what would it be? Which questions do you ask God? In which ways does He answer, and which answers remain mysteries? Thank you to everyone who contributed to this post. We are most grateful. If you have any questions of your own you would like to add, please comment below!

Last year, my friend Megan and I collaborated to create a post called “Religious: They’re Just LikeUs!”, which points out that people called to religious vocations are still that: people! I had the incredibly fun job of photographing religious on campus doing totally normal things, from casually riding their bikes on DeBart Quad to waiting in line at Starbucks in LaFun. In the wake of that project, I have found myself curious about life as a priest. They’re just like us, in that they are human. But they also have a particular set of stories to share that aren’t the same as those of lay men and women. What did their calls to priesthood sound like? Did many of them date before entering the seminary? Were their family and friends supportive of their vocations? How often do they receive the sacrament of Reconciliation? In the top left corner of my collage for the “Religious: They’re Just Like Us!” post, I included a picture of Fr. David Scheidler, C.S.C. dressed in an orange sweater (his favorite color) and dropping a bag of oranges down a flight of stairs (i.e. “Religious – They Drop Oranges Down Stairs in Orange Sweaters – They’re Just Like Us!”). This week, I had the privilege of chatting with Fr. David, the infamous orange-dropper and the Assistant Rector of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, about some of the particular elements of his experience as a priest. Childhood Fr. David’s call was like a “slow but very powerfully moving train,” which began to enter his consciousness around age ten. David was not one to “play Mass” with his friends or siblings when he was young, nor did he entertain daydreams of crafting the greatest, most engaging homily ever. Rather, he did quite the opposite for a long time, insisting that he did not want to be a priest and almost looking for things that would contradict the presence of that train. Dating Throughout high school and college, David’s main mission was to “find himself” and his way. He attended dances with female classmates as just friends, but admittedly did keep trying to contradict the slow but powerful call to priesthood by seeing if the call to marriage would be greater. It never was. But his dating experiences from early in his life have been useful in his ministry: whenever students come to him for advice about dating, especially about whether to take the risk of pursuing romance in a friendship, he says, “always risk the friendship. Go for it.” You will never know unless you try. Entering the seminary After college, David was hired in New York, where he worked 60-80 hour weeks. During a year of keeping up this tough schedule, attending daily Mass kept David “sane.” The frequency with which he celebrated Mass helped him not to be so afraid of being honest about God’s working in his life. He entered the seminary the next year. Family and friends I asked Fr. David whether his family and friends were supportive of his choice to enter the seminary. He said one of his religion teachers had been instrumental in encouraging him in theology classes, and when he informed her about his decision, she simply said, “It’s about time.” Some of his family had similar reactions. It was almost as if he was the last one to accept his call, and that people who knew him best had already hopped aboard the slow, powerfully moving train. Fr. David shared a story that gave me chills: at the vocational fair at his home parish the year previous to his decision to enter the seminary, both of his parents had individually written down his name as someone they wanted the parish to keep in their prayers regarding vocations. Their prayers had been answered. While many of his friends were surprised when he announced his decision to enter the seminary and a few of his siblings were at first taken aback at how differently their sibling relationships would look in adulthood due to his choice, everyone was ultimately extremely supportive. Being one of eight siblings, Fr. David has 43 nieces and nephews. Even though he does not have children of his own to raise alongside those of his siblings (the Scheidlers grew up knowing their cousins as almost another set of siblings, so this had been a long-anticipated family experience), he has had the unique privilege of playing a special part in the life of his family due to his priesthood in ways he would not otherwise be able to. He has been the celebrant at six weddings for his siblings and has ministered the vast majority of the 43 baptisms of his nieces and nephews. He is affectionately known as “Uncle David” to the 43, not as “Fr. David,” as he is to the rest of us. He explained how neat it is to watch the wonder on the youngest faces of the clan as they watch him say Mass and try to put together the pieces. Recently, one three-year-old niece chanted his name over and over again during Mass, as if cheering him on while he led the congregation in the celebration of the Word and the Eucharist. The privilege of priesthood “If you tried to deny your call for a while when you were younger,” I wondered out loud to Fr. David during our conversation, “when was it that you discovered that you wanted to be a priest?” “The day after my ordination,” he laughed. After accepting his call to priesthood, David obediently followed it, knowing that his vocation was to religious life. And while in the seminary, he continually prayed for the grace to eventually want to be a priest himself. It was during the first mass he said, an 11:45am Folk Choir Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart the day after he was ordained, that his prayer was answered. He realized the people in the congregation were looking to him, but not at him. “It’s not me they’re looking at. They want to see Christ.” Fr. David explained that he is “so grateful that [he] didn’t let [his] own ego and fears and pride stand in the way of God’s call,” and remarked that he views priesthood as a “profound privilege.” God’s presence “What does God’s voice sound like? Is Morgan Freeman an accurate representation?” Fr. David explained that he does not hear God’s voice as a physical sound, but rather feels His presence. This presence is akin to a warm blanket being hugged around his shoulders from behind. What a beautiful image. The feeling of being wrapped up in God’s presence arrives as a comforting confirmation in Fr. David’s life. “If I had to assign a voice to God, though,” Fr. David explained, “it would be my grandmother’s voice.” Sweet, cozy, and comforting. Kind of like a warm blanket. And what does Fr. David have draped over the chair at his desk? A Notre Dame blanket. Reconciliation Fr. David hears confessions at least once a week at the Basilica, if not more. I was curious about how often he got to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation himself. According to the constitution of the Holy Cross order, Holy Cross priests are to engage in “lifelong examination” and “lifelong growth,” receiving the sacrament themselves an “appropriately frequent” amount. For Fr. David, an ideal amount would be once a month. In reality, he goes about every three months. Interestingly, Fr. David shared that he feels it is in fact possible to go to confession too frequently. For some individuals, going to confession too often shifts their focus to the force of sin in their lives, rather than focusing on God’s grace and mercy. It is key for each individual to find a healthy balance when it comes to this sacrament. Why Holy Cross? My final question to Fr. David was simple. Why did he choose the Holy Cross order? After hearing some background about his family life growing up, it is not surprising that the community element of the Holy Cross order was extremely attractive to him. The first saint from the Congregation of Holy Cross, Brother Andre Bessette, was the humble doorkeeper at Notre Dame College in Montreal for 40 years. His vocation was to welcome and love others. St. Andre’s welcoming disposition is indicative of those of so many other Holy Cross brothers, which is what first appealed to Fr. David.                   And, he smiled, his brothers are “so consistently wise, insightful, and happy.”

I don’t think I really began to understand the concept of the communion of saints until second semester of sophomore year. I knew saints were models of faith, and they have lived at various points throughout history, and we could ask them to pray for us. But they often seemed obscure, distant, and inaccessible to me. Until last year. During the second semester of sophomore year, I took a class called The Christian Imagination that served as educational background for my role as a Mentor-In-Faith at a summer conference for high school students called Notre Dame Vision. The professors of my class led a tour of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart about halfway through the semester. They gave us forty-five minutes to wander and explore the overwhelmingly stunning artwork that adorns the windows, walls, and ceiling of that sacred space. I studied the prayerful facial expressions and bodily postures of the men and women depicted all over the building, and noticed stories I recognized. Saint Bernadette’s vision of Mary (a scene similarly depicted at the Grotto). The death of Saint Joseph (what better way to die than in Mary and Jesus’ arms?). Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Image from an upload on wikimedia.org. Our time of wandering amidst these images in the Basilica prompted my mind to wander back to my own summer participating in Notre Dame Vision as a high school student, during which our college-aged mentors (now my upcoming role) had challenged us with the question: “Their gifts changed the world. How will yours?” Their, meaning the saints’, gifts had certainly changed the world. That’s why their images were all over the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. But how could my life and my gifts be compared to people whose lives were remembered in such a way that they had been turned into art in my primary worship space? I wanted so badly to understand.  I snapped out of my reverie when our professors called us to gather as a class near the gleaming golden tabernacle at the front of the Basilica. We took turns sharing our various observations about the sacred artwork we had been reflecting upon, knowing that our professors probably had a bigger point to make that was about to be revealed. They did. They had us turn and face the entirety of the main worship space in the Basilica. Look at the walls. The windows. The towering ceiling. All covered in images of holy men and women who have gone before us. Look at the pews, where we are invited to sit upon and kneel and stand near while celebrating the Eucharist. Look at the huge empty space in between the pews and those walls, windows, and ceilings. Waiting to be filled with song and praise. When we celebrate Mass, our professors explained, we join up our prayers with those of holy men and women, not the other way around. We do not ask the communion of saints to join us in our prayers, but rather enter into the communion of saints ourselves when we celebrate the Mass. It's a taste of heaven. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart (and other similar holy spaces) is a gift that invites us to more fully enter into this reality by visualizing the communion which we enter into: the sound waves of our song and praise literally expand as they fill up the physical space in the Basilica, while our prayers join up with the prayer of the communion of saints above and beyond the walls and ceilings of the church itself. Image from blogs.nd.edu. This image of my prayers being joined up with those of the communion of saints has become a primary one for me in my worship and prayer, both when I celebrate Mass at the Basilica on campus and when I am in other worship spaces. For example, while at home this past week for fall break I had the privilege of attending Mass at my high school. We were certainly not in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart: a high school gymnasium is a bit of a drastic shift. But the imagery stays the same; I was seated on the ground floor, with bleachers packed full of students rising up on either side of me. Throughout Mass, I realized another image of the communion of saints was being presented here, as we are all called to use our gifts in the world as the saints who came before us did. Yes, we are all called to be saints. Today. And Mass at Jesuit High School, with packed bleachers reaching toward the expansive ceiling, and prayers lifted up far beyond, presented me with yet another image of that call.    Asking saints to pray for us outside of Mass connects us to these holy men and women, too, and utilizes their special holy capacity for prayer and closeness to Our Father. This practice is a fantastic one to learn how to follow the call to be the saints we were created to be, too. One of my favorite images of the act of asking for the intercession of saints came from a friend at the conclusion of the summer at Notre Dame Vision. “This might be sacreligious,” he laughed, “but sometimes when I ask a saint to pray for me, I imagine them up there saying, ‘Duh…what do you think we’re doing?!’”  As we lift our prayers up, they enter into a community of constant prayer and praise. This community is called the communion of saints, imaged on the walls and ceiling of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Imaged by the people making up the Body of Christ at Mass at my high school. Imaged when we live our lives as the walking, breathing, dynamic saints we are called to be. Image from dailydomer.nd.edu.We celebrate All Saints' Day on November 1^st. Read more here.

This week is anything but ordinary on the Notre Dame campus. Each time the question “How is your week looking?” is uttered this week, it is done so with great trepidation. Typical responses are tossed out and accompanied by wearied looks: “Crazy.” “Stressful.” I have assigned these words to my week in various conversations, too; after all, three exams and several papers do not fit my concept of an ideal week. BUT, there is great hope… Last November, I published a post on praying without ceasing in which I discussed how ordinary actions can be offered as prayers of thanksgiving. Something as mundane as washing dishes after hosting friends in my dorm room for tea became an act of prayer for me. Reflecting on this piece got me thinking about how we can view midterms week and other times of academic stress through this lens, as well. That five-hour chunk spent at the library can be offered up to God in a prayer of gratitude for the gift of education. The effort of hand-crafting an essay can be used to praise God for His creative power. Working hard to chip away at a problem set may not seem prayerful at the surface level, but it can be made so by putting away our phones and other distractions and offering our focused, hard work in prayer. In fact, the act of focusing, the act of paying attention, can help us cultivate better prayer lives. Simone Weil, French philosopher and teacher, reflects on the refinement of such attention in Waiting for God. She writes that “school exercises…are extremely effective in increasing the power of attention that will be available at the time of prayer” if students actively engage in their schoolwork with the intention of prayerful attention. I find her reflection on long hours of studying hopeful: “Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted.” Simone also comments on finding joy in schoolwork: “The intelligence can only be led by desire. For there to be desire, there must be pleasure and joy in the work. The intelligence only grows and bears fruit in joy. The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.” Approaching schoolwork with faithful attention, oriented toward a desire to cultivate a better prayer life through the practice of focused attention, then, yields many fruits. Including JOY! In New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton offers this beautiful reflection on attentive work: “To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me.” We are called to do everything for the glory of God, whether picking apples, running cross country, or studying for midterms (1 Corinthians 10:31). Being a student is a vocation. As college students, the best way we can live into our common vocation is to focus in and offer our studious efforts in prayer. Through paying attention to our studies and by intentionally offering them to God in prayer, our work will bear many fruits. We will cultivate the ability to better pay attention during our daily lives, whether in prayer (encountering God) or daily conversation (encountering others), and we will realize the full potential of the joy of learning. Midterms week may still be “crazy” and “stressful,” but it can also be prayerful and full of joy. Go Irish, Go!

This past weekend was father-daughter weekend in my dorm, which was a joyful occasion to say the least. My dad and I went on all sorts of adventures around campus and in South Bend, from a stadium tour to meals at town establishments such as JW Chens and Chicory Café. We spent a weekend in gratitude for one another’s company and the company of other dads and daughters. The picture below sums up our time together pretty well: Joy. On an unrelated note – or perhaps not so far from the mark, after all – the Eucharist has been on my mind a lot recently. Just before I left home to come back to school for this semester, my parish priest told a fantastic story that highlights the Eucharist in a special way: Several years ago as Fr. John held up the consecrated host for the assembly to see during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, a four-year-old member of the congregation pointed at the Body of Christ and yelled, “I want that bread!” A comment from a four-year-old such as this one could be rightfully deemed adorable and then written off as a typical outburst from someone who hadn't yet made it to post-Mass coffee and doughnuts. But Fr. John took the child’s comment seriously; the Gospel reading for that day included John 6:51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever,” and John 6:53: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, you have no life in you.” And Fr. John gave this four-year-old girl the benefit of the doubt in assuming her exclamation was founded in her excellent listening to the Gospel. Fr. John’s faith in one of the youngest actively participating members was well placed. When he approached the child and her mother later to ask about her comment, the girl was eager to find out whether she would get to receive the special bread next time. She couldn’t wait to eat the “living bread,” and didn’t want to lack life because of her inability to receive it. Fr. John, grinning ear to ear I am sure, explained to his young friend that her First Communion would be coming up in a couple years, and she would get to receive the “living bread” then. Until her First Communion, the blessings she received during her Baptism would sustain her. The young parishioner seemed delighted and satisfied by his answer. What if we all displayed a similar enthusiasm for the Eucharist? What if we, too, could cultivate an attitude and a culture where the comment “I want that bread!” is not an exclamation reserved for children who don’t know any better? What if the lesson to be learned is not the child’s, to be quiet in Mass, but the rest of the congregation’s, to adopt her joyful attitude towards the Eucharist? The other day, a couple friends and I had an awesome conversation about the Sacraments. One friend explained her approach to the Sacrament of Eucharist: during Communion, she looks around and thinks something along the lines of, “Wow. We are all receiving Jesus right now.” We decided that it would be appropriate to approach one another on Monday mornings (or any time) and excitedly announce: “You’ll never believe what happened to me yesterday! I received the Body of Christ!” In doing this, we decided we would be encouraging a more joyful appreciation for the Eucharist and for Jesus’ real presence in ourselves and in one another. To me, an image of this treatment of the Eucharist is something like the photo of my dad and I above: joy-filled, with arms outstretched, and in community with one another. Maybe we, too, will have the courage – or perhaps the reckless enthusiasm – or the love – to shout, “I want that bread!” with the way we live our lives.