Christmas Time in Roma

Back to Rome tomorrow! It's been an incredible, half relaxing half crazzyyy break. And better than I could have hoped for.

Let's rewind a few weeks. The week before Christmas we traveled to a convent for our first silent retreat. When I say "traveled" I really mean walked about 15 minutes from our school. But it felt like we traveled 100 miles. In this short amount of time, we reached a secluded hill with a sheep pasture. The only hint of civilization was the massive dome of St. Peter's basilica which loomed in the horizon. Crazy how, in a city as big as Rome, you can find peace and quiet so easily!

I had always desired to go on a silent retreat. I can tend to talk a lot, especially when I pray, and I thought it would be good to quiet down and listen for once. It definitely was amazing experience.

One thing that really struck me, which I was not expecting, was eating in silence. It seems a bit strange, sitting a table with a bunch of other people and not being able to talk. But I absolutely loved it! It realized that, in being silent, I was able to notice tons of things I would never have even considered if I was chatting with friends. I was able to appreciate the taste of the food like I never had before. And I couldn't stop thinking about people who have no food, and the gift that it is that we are able to eat every day. It was really a neat experience, very simple, but one that I can't really explain.

Half way through the retreat, for various reasons, I was really feeling down. I was praying in the chapel, asking the Lord to give me joy and help me to really enter in to the retreat with my whole self. A minute or so later I left the chapel with another girl, and as we walked outside she suddenly stopped and held out her hand. I watched as a single snowflake fell and landed in her palm. Within seconds, many more followed. This is Rome - according to locals, it has snowed once in the past 20 years...We were so filled with joy that we started running around and dancing in the now heavy downfall of snow. During our silent lunch, everyone just stared out at the swirling snowflakes with huge smiles, in awe of the beauty that God had gifted us with. God had answered my prayer - I was so full of joy I couldn't even contain it. Again, something so simple. It may seem odd, but I think it's because of the silence; it really helps you to experience the beauty of simplicity, and joy in the small things.

Near the end of the retreat, we all prayed for each person individually, for specific intentions. After we pray for someone, often times people will open their Bible randomly and read whatever verses their eyes land on. After everyone prayed for me, 5 people randomly opened their Bibles, and they ALL had the exact same verse. I'm no mathematician, but I do know that the chances of that happening are way more than one in a million. More like one in a billion. Aka: God exists. And He speaks to us when we're open to hearing Him.

Ever since this retreat, I think I've gained a deeper peace and a love of simplicity, as well as a greater desire for prayer and reading Scripture. We'll have a few more silent retreats throughout the year, as well as one day of silence at the school each month. So pumped.

Preparing for Christmas came next. I knew that it was going to be really weird being away from home on Christmas, but we've grown so close at the school that it felt like I was with family. I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas celebration.

Reflecting back after the fact, I realized that I think this is the first year that I actually celebrated the true feast of Christmas. For Christmas, the Church has 5 separate masses, starting on Saturday afternoon and going through to Sunday morning, including midnight mass, and a 6am dawn mass. We were able to go to all 5 of these. The most memorable for me was the midnight mass at St. Peter's. It's called "midnight mass" but it actually started at 10pm, since the Pope is a bit old to stay up until 2am. After a huge dinner, we went in to St. Peter's Square and sang Christmas carols in front of the newly-unveiled Nativity. The mass began shortly after. We had no tickets to get inside, so we planned on watching the mass on the huge screens set up in the Square. However, we prayed that a miracle would somehow take place and we'd be able to get in. Two students from our school got picked to do the readings for the mass, so we were super excited to see them.

About 20 minutes into the mass, we watched our friend Adela get up in front of thousands of people to read the Word of God. However, at the same time, we noticed tons of people sprinting across the Square. We looked back and saw that they were letting people inside without tickets. So we ran over and got trapped in a huge mob that eventually squeezed through security and made it in. The guards took us around the Basilica and through a back door. We came out very near the altar, and there found our seats. Our prayers were answered! Even if we would have had tickets, there's no way we would have been as close to the Pope as we ended up being. Crazy. The mass ended around midnight - Christmas is here! Thank You God, for coming among us!

We met up with some others that we knew and hung out in the Square for an hour or so. We headed back to the school, where Christmas cookies and hot chocolate awaited us, and we partied it up until 3 in the morning. After 3 hours of sleep, we had 6am mass. Christmas day was pretty free, and we hung out and slept a bit. In the evening, we set up our home for a huge dinner, and some of the students cooked the most amazing food. We did a secret santa, had a crazy insane talent show, and polished it all off with a dance party which lasted til 2. We were all filled with so much joy, we didn't want to go to bed. It was such a beautiful way to celebrate the birth of Christ.

The next day, we had to pack up and move out of our rooms (since we live in a hotel, they use the rooms for guests when we leave), and we left Rome early on the morning of the 27th. I woke up that morning, and the first thought in my mind was, "there's going to be a beautiful sunrise this morning." No idea why. To be honest, I hadn't seen a good sunrise or sunset since coming to Rome. But when I went upstairs for breakfast, the sky was on fire with crazy pinks, reds, and oranges, with a deep blue background. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I had ever seen. A little gift for our departure from the eternal city...

It took us many hours, 2 trains and a bus, to get to Paray Le'Monial, France, but we eventually made it around midnight. We came for another retreat, this time with the community that runs our school, called the Emmanuel Community. Paray Le'Monial is the place where Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque to reveal His Sacred Heart. Images of Jesus with His Heart exposed can now be found in almost every Catholic church in the world. It was really cool to pray in the chapel where these apparitions occured. Throughout the week, we were able to meet people from all over the world who had come for the retreat. I was exhausted for most of it though, and regretfully ended up sleeping through almost every talk.

We brought in the New Year with a time of prayer, followed by a huge party into the  wee hours of the night.

Our break began on New Years day. At the end of the retreat, the 20 of us had to separate for the first time in 3 months. We literally spend every single moment of our lives together, and it was strange to know that we would be apart. We said our goodbyes, and I headed off with Matthieu, one of my friends from France, as well as Nia, the other girl from the States. 

We've spent our 10 day break with Matthieu's family in the small town of L'ile Bouchard. Since this, again, is getting excessively long, I'll write about our French adventures another time.

Until then, take care and God bless!

Eric

Mission to London!

Another insanely long gap between my last post. Sorry about that! Contrary to most years in which I get a break around Christmas, life got even more crazy than ever. But I'm now on break in France with one of my friends from the school. Life is good, and I finally have time for a bit of an update.

So much as happened in the past month! We went on mission in London for 10 days, we had an intense 3 day silent retreat, we celebrated Christmas, traveled to France for another retreat, and then separated from each other for the first time in 3 months for our first break.

The mission in London was amazing. We had been preparing for about 2 months beforehand, so it was great to finally be able to put all our planning in to action. All 20 of us from the school, along with about 15 others from the Emmanuel Community across Europe, and even as far as California, came to join us for the mission.

We stayed with host families in the area. I stayed with a lovely Irish couple, who were convinced that I was totally under-fed and insisted that I eat at least two times my body weight at every meal. They may have thought I was preparing for a rugby match rather than a mission trip. Not sure.

The people of England tend to be very introverted, and do not particularly like to share their feelings. Religion tends to be a private matter that is not shared with others. So we were a bit worried about how people would react to the message we came to proclaim. In fact, we were all slightly shocked at how receptive people were! Each day, we would brave the cold and snow (it was the first time they had this much snow in 17 years!) to go out to the main area of town to invite people to our different events at the parish. As always, a few people just brushed past or even got angry, but the vast majority of people listened to what we had to say and seemed interested. Many people thanked us for what we were doing, and expressed great enthusiasm at our witness. Some great conversations ensued, and we were able to pray for alot of people.

The thing I was dreading most - going door to door - actually turned out to be rather fun! I had a certain conception in my mind of how it would be, and I'm not gonna lie, I was terrified. But people were super nice and accepting, and even if they weren't interested they at least listened to what we had to say and nicely declined. Well, most of the time...

One group from our team was invited in to a man's house. He had just found out that day that he was diagnosed with cancer, and he was given medicine to take, but he couldn't read it so he didn't know how much to take. He was basically in despair, and they were able to help him with his medicine, and pray with him and let him know of the love of God. He was brought to tears. 

Another group who was going door to door was invited into the apartment of a couple who had a 9 year old daughter. The mother hadn't been to church in a long time, but had been considering going back. Her and her daughter wanted to come to the event we were having that night, but they had no car and no way of getting there. We were able to arrange someone to go pick them up, and they both came. Both mother and daughter loved the evening, and the mother was especially deeply effected. She went to confession for the first time in 30 years.

Each day we broke up in to groups and went in to 4 different schools to speak to kids ranging from 5-17. I went into an all girls middle school one day to put on a retreat for 4 different classes. We would start off with some sort of game to get them laughing and having fun, and then give a few witness talks about how God had worked in our life, do a skit, and end with a time of prayer. The girls accepted it all amazingly, and by the end they were all feverishly writing prayer intentions to give to us. 

I was also able to go into an all boys school a few of the days. This school consisted primarily of trouble youth, many of whom are in gangs. I went in a little nervous, but quickly realized that these boys were thirsting for the truth. It again surprised me how well they received us, how attentive they were. They had tons of awesome questions for us, and we had time to just talk and hang out with them after. 

During one of these sessions with they boys, the teacher came up to us at the end. She had been impressed with one of the skits we put on. She was the drama teacher at the school, and she said she had been praying for over a year that God would show her how she could bring His message to these boys. She prayed that He would send her a group of people who would do just that. And according to her, we were the answer to her prayers. That exact day, in fact, turned out to be her birthday.

It was difficult to get people to come to the events we held each night at the church, because even the people that did want to come were so busy that it was hard to squeeze something else in. It was a bit frustrating at the beginning of the week when only a few people would show up. But as the week went on, and we were able to talk to more and more people, the numbers began to increase. Not that the numbers really matter. If we were able to touch even one soul while in England, all the time and work would have been worth it. But obviously we wanted to reach as many people as possible! By the end of the week about 40 people came to a "mercy night" that we held on Friday, and on Saturday there were probably around 60 young people that came to an event called "Night Fever," a night of music, testimonies, adoration, etc.

By the end of the week we were completely spent. It had been an exhausting, but totally fulfilling week. It was beautiful to hear the testimonies of people who had been sending emails to the parish priest all week. One lady had only seen us singing on the street and had been so touched that she emailed the parish priest and told him that she wanted to become Catholic! Crazy. God truly does use us in the smallest ways every day. We probably never realize it 99% of the time, but things like this help us to trust that the smallest witness or act of kindness can touch someone at their core.

On the last day, we had a bit of free time, and were able to travel in to the heart of London to do some sightseeing.  Such a beautiful city. It was a real blessing to be there, and so nice to be back in an English speaking country for a little while!

We traveled back to Rome, back home to the warmth, the crazy drivers, and the daily pasta-fix. We came back united as a group in a new way, for we had all experienced something totally new together, and something which had stretched and challenged us. London was a beautiful experience. We'll have the opportunity to go on 2 more missions like this later in the year.

Ok that was way longer than I intended it to be. I'll try to write more about my other experiences over the past month soon, before things get crazy again.

God bless you all! I hope that you had a blessed Christmas and New Year! Know that I'm keeping you all in prayer.

Peace,

Eric