nett

painting the walls

29. dezember

                I have no patience. And yet, stroke after stroke, God is painting patience on the walls of my soul, the walls of the room I bid Him to dwell within so that through His presence in me I can be filled with His love and allow it to overflow into the souls of all those I meet. It is as if this time of waiting is the time in which He is scrubbing, sweeping, mopping the floors, washing and repainting the walls, refurbishing the appliances, redecorating the rooms of my soul so as to make His dwelling fit for His awesome glory. I must be patient because outwardly it seems as if I am doing nothing here, merely passing the days praying and waiting and trying to keep myself ready for the day when He calls me to more explicit work. Only with patience can my eyes be opened to all that is going on in this seemingly empty waiting period. I must endure the time it takes for Him to empty my soul of all that is against or other than Him, to clean every crevice of my soul so that He can then fill it with His presence. I must have patience because it is in this time that He fills me with faith in Him, a faith with the color of passion and the permeating fragrance of peace. If I am to trust in Him, I must have patience. And in waiting, being still while the Lord cleans and prepares, it is actually a movement towards a goal. As of yet, the waiting, the standing still is in fact the moving forward, the few next necessary steps on the path God is leading me. To where? That is yet to be revealed. It is a temptation to think that I am here helping no one. Sitting in my room, learning German while I ice and elevate my ankle over and over again, I think of all the people I could be meeting, all the exploring of Vienna I could be doing, all the adoration in Stephansdom I could be doing, all the other activities that would seem like so much more than just sitting here, praying, learning German, eating, praying some more, reading about Austrian culture, and writing to you. I anxiously anticipate what lies ahead, but I know I must take this time to learn how to embrace the present moment; how to be receptive to all that the Lord is doing and wants to do within me, in stillness, in silence; how to live fully these moments without wishing them past so that I can get onto seemingly more important things. This is waiting is not meant to be completely passivity. My body may be resting but my soul must be actively open, constantly opening the door to God to allow him to teach me, to cleanse me, to prepare the room of my soul for ever more and more of Him. I must wait, and I think maybe the waiting is progress itself because while I am still, the Lord continues to move. And so I wait, we wait, here in Vienna, while the Lord is preparing things yet unseen.

            And among these things yet unseen, I hope He is also working on something Alina and I have seen…and something which calls forth from us more patience than either one of us thought we would have to have…our new apartment.

            We are still living with Monika…which is SUCH a blessing. She is a wonderful woman  and now after the initial period of time to get comfortable with one another I find myself laughing constantly and genuinely enjoying myself when she is around. We spent Christmas in different places and three days seemed like an eternity. Now, just yesterday, she left for Medjugorje to celebrate the New Year and I was so sad to see her go! I know that when we finally get to move out, it will be bittersweet!

            But…back to the apartment. During the first week I had the chance to tour our new home. One word to describe it… Potential. It is huge, and beautiful, and dirty, and empty, and some (rather important) rooms are in bad shape. It is connected to a beautiful old Carmelite church, conveniently called Karmeliterkirche, and our neighbors are 4 lovely nuns in a new community, the Little Sisters of the Lamb.

            Alina and I are very positive, much due to the fact that the Lord has already given us so much…we do not yet have the key to the apartment and still we have gotten a bed, a loveseat, a chair, an assortment of pots and pans and kitchen utensils and silverware, and some bed and bath linens all donated to us by friends we have already made! And through other lovely friendships, we have been advised of a place that is like a Goodwill, but everything is free for you to take! (We have yet to figure out how this really works, but Ill keep you posted).

            Here are some pictures. The apartment is 5 rooms, a bathroom, and a toilette closet. One room is for us (and any future woman missionaries who come join us), another for the kitchen, another for the living room, another for an office, and another for a guest room (Fr. Jacques’ room when he is with us). We had a meeting with the priest responsible for this building and church and he said that the diocese will surely fix the bathroom and kitchen as much as is necessary. Before we can get the key and start cleaning and such (the living room had a fireplace/stove in it, hence the black soot all over the walls), we have to meet with the man in charge of all the buildings in the diocese, sign a lease agreement, and make the necessary arrangements for repairs with him. And for this, we have to wait for the new year. So we wait.

half of the die Wohnzimmer.
the door on the left leads to the office

the office looking into die Gastezimmer (guestroom) while standing
in the doorway to the Wohnzimmer.
 the door to the left is out to the hallway

so obviously needs a bit of work...like a new wall and appliances and cabinets...
but all in all its a wonderful, big kitchen!!
(the door leads out into the hallway.
if you go out this door, to the left would be die Badezimmer,
and straight ahead would be the door to our zimmer.) 

none of these work. bummer.

our zimmer. that has, as you can see, been cleaned and repainted.
the furniture you see is not ours...and was taken out that day.
but in came a bed and the promise of a sofa and chair...so the Lord is good.
and I sent a Christmas List to Him...

            But we wait in complete thanksgiving because this apartment is free (minus possibly having to pay for water/electric/gas/telephone/internet). It is in the 2^nd Bezirk (district), a 15 minute walk from Stephansdom and the rest of the city center, it is huge, beautiful and in need of only a few minor repairs, connected to a church, and did I mention…we don’t pay rent. We absolutely don’t deserve how the Lord has already taken such good care of us…it is surely all His grace! And we have everything to continue to hope for because He never fails.

            So before we can move into the apartment and start the physical foundation of the new Offenes-Herz, we must knock, wait for God to open the door, and then get to cleaning, washing, sweeping, mopping, dusting, painting our new apartment…just as God is doing with our souls.

The following is one of my favorite writings of St. Augustine…and a must to post along with all my meanderings. All my words are ash compared to the enlightened message of this saint…

'Our Heart Longs for God' 

from St. Augustine's Sermon on 1 John

“The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.

            Suppose you are going to fill some holder or container, and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your sack or wineskin or whatever it is. Why? Because you know the quantity you will have to put in it, and your eyes tell you there is not enough room. By stretching it, therefore, you increase the capacity of the sack, and this is how God deals with us. Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.

            So, my brethren, let us continue to desire, for we shall be filled.

            Take note of Saint Paul stretching as it were his ability to receive what is to come: Not that I have already obtained this, he said, or am made perfect. Brethren, I do not consider that I have already obtained it. We might ask him, “If you have not yet obtained it, what are you doing in this life?” This one thing I do, answers Paul, forgetting what lies behind, and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the prize to which I am called in the life above. Not only did Paul say he stretched forward, but he also declared that he pressed on toward a chosen goal. He realized in fact that he was still short of receiving what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

            Such is our Christian life. By desiring heaven we exercise the powers of our soul. Now this exercise will be effective only to the extent that we free ourselves from desires leading to the infatuation with this world. Let me return to the example I have already used, of filling an empty container. God means to fill each of you with what is good; so cast out what is bad! If he wishes to fill you with honey and you are full of sour wine, where is the honey to go? The vessel must be emptied of its contects and then be cleansed. Yes, it must be cleansed even if you have to work hard and scour it. It must be made fit for the new thing, whatever it may be.

            We may go on speaking figuratively of honey, gold, and wine—but whatever we say we cannot express the reality we are to receive. The name of that reality is God. But who will claim that in that one syllable we utter the full expanse of our heart’s desire? Therefore, whatever we say is necessarily less than the full truth. We must extend ourselves toward the measure of Christ so that when he comes he may fill us with his presence. Then we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

and the Lord sent schokolade

28. dezember

(the details of Christmas will come soon...but I have to figure out where I put the paper...so for now you get more updated things)

Monika has an advent calendar in our room…filled with pieces of chocolate with a bible verse on each one. We missed a couple days so we’re just now getting around to eating the chocolate…but sometimes the wait is worth the prize…

Jer 31:42: And I will rejoice over them, when I shall do them good: and I will plant them in this land in truth, with my whole heart, and with all my soul. 

…ich hoffe. (I hope)

'be born in us today'

25. dezember 

Frohe Weihnachten!

I write this late at night, so forgive this first, really random thought.

            To end our Christmas night with Maria-Elizabeth and her family, Alina and I got to watch for the first time one of the family’s much loved, much-watched, favorite movies—Hallo Dienstmann, a very old, black and white, Austrian film. What does Dienstmann mean? I believe it means butler or man-servant. What happened in the film? I could describe to you the scenes and the costumes, and that it was a musical, because sometimes Maria-Elizabeth, and then the whole family, would start singing along with the movie…but that is about it. What was the story about? I have no idea. …but I made up a pretty good story in my head.

            When you are used to watching Technicolor movies flash real-to-life images before your eyes as you passively sit back and watch, it is interesting to experience black and white movies bring your imagination out of hibernation and force your creativity to infuse color into the limbs of trees, tiers of ruffles on ball gowns, reflections in lakes, and iris’ of eyes. When you are used to English speaking movies (or foreign movies with subtitles), a movie filmed in another language way before the time of subtitles invites your imagination out of repose to the work of creating a movie all your own. Its like back when you couldn’t read, but you insisted on reading your parents a bedtime story, so you flipped through the pages, looked at the pictures, and made up a story all your own. You could read the same physical book a hundred times in a row and never read the same story.

            I have experienced 20 really great Christmases (well I assume the ones I can’t remember were as great as the ones I do). Christmas is always the same in one way or another—this is one of the beauties of the holiday. Part of the treasure of Christmas is its return year after year as if you just had to pop in your favorite movie—before each scene dances before you, you know each will entail: you already know what traditions will be kept, you can already feel the cold of the pew at Church in the morning, you already know the smell of the tree and the food that will be served, you know what sweater your aunt will arrive wearing as always and of course that line your uncle will invariably say after having one too many glasses of wine, and before the first note is played, you know what songs will be sung, and before it is all over, you know how tired you will be at the end, but how good it will feel to have experience it all once again...reveling in all that you know and love, even though you know it so well you could do it in your sleep if you had to. Of course, some surprises come your way every year, but all in all, the plotline remains the same.

            If Christmas is like that favorite movie from which you have memorized every line, and every scene, and still yearn to watch it again and again, this year, my 21^st Weihnachten was that same movie I’ve watched hundreds of times, but this time in black and white. in a foreign language. without subtitles. Yes, Weihnachten means Christmas, but this is only the name of the movie. What happened in this movie? I can describe it to you…there were children and trees, candles and churches, snow and cookies, presents and singing. Each scene I recognized things I had seen before; semblances remained despite the other differences. What was the actual story of Weihnachten, the meaning of all that I experienced take place in this black and white, foreign film? Unlike with a movie, it was not my imagination that was stirred to paint color into the picture and to weave a storyline of my own. The experiences, people, places, sounds stirred out of repose a Vision other than my own imagination, not to assign color and meaning, but to reveal the truth that lay deeper than hue or tongue or parlance. What was this Weihnachten about? As of yet, I am not fluent in deutsch, or the works of the Lord, so I’ve only managed translate a few important things...like the difference between poverty and wealth, foreigners and family, Christmas holiday and Christ…and how different words can really be translated to mean the same thing...it just depends on who's vision is guiding the story. 

austrians and their trash

22. dezember          

           

               somehow…lost in translation…I guess I agreed to serve as the responsible for the konto (account). yes. that means bookkeeping, receipt tracking, banking, and the like. Tonight we decided there was no better time than now to do the accounting because it was almost to the end of two weeks and we wanted to do it before Christmas. well, lets just say its all much more complicated than I thought: two different people, different lengths of time in Vienna, with two different sources of money, and of course…missing receipts (it was really my fault…I completely forgot we had to keep every like train ticket we bought and remember who bought what).

            ok, I’m not sharing this with you to vent frustration…I’m getting to the point…which only some of you will get. If you have never lived in Austria, you will not understand this.

            For those of you who have lived in Austria…remember the garbage police? (yes, they really exist…in some towns worse than others…) Remember all the hassle you had to go through to make sure ALL of your trash was correctly separated between plastic, paper, metal, white glass, colored glass, restmüll, and bio and then collected in the right color plastic garbage bag and disposed of in the correctly colored and labeled garbage bin? And how if you got a little lax during the week and threw it all together, come garbage day you had to sort through all the slimy banana peels, used Kleenex, Milka wrappers, and coffee grinds, wasting an hour or so playing with your garbage. And sometimes you had to dismantle one empty yogurt container in order to appropriately separate the metal, plastic, and paper parts? And what about batteries or spent razor blades…are they metal? are they plastic? can you flush them down the toilette so you don’t get fined for putting them in the wrong trash bin? Yes, recycling is very good, but I’ve never experienced a garbage system quite like that found in Austria. Monika has been trying to help us adjust to this little factor of Austrian life but Alina and I have been having a horrible time. (I hope Monika doesn’t get any fines in the mail). Lets just say I’m not used to spending this much time thinking about what exactly a milch carton is made out of.          

            So what does this have to do with becoming a banker? Well, due to our inability to keep receipts, Alina and I spent most of the time doing the accounting on the floor by the garbage as we periodically rummaged through the paper bin. When we were all finished, cleaning up the mess of garbage on the floor I looked at the bin of bio-trash (banana peels, tea bags, rotten lemons, apple cores, coffee grinds, etc.) and breathed a sigh of relief that we only had to rummage through paper. Alina looked at me and said…”Now I completely understand Austrians.”

             on another note…we have spent yesterday and today baking…and probably will still be baking tomorrow. Desiring to show our gratitude and love to our friends here in Wien, especially those including us in their families for their Christmas traditions, we have embarked on an Austrian baking journey...

1. of course our first batch had to be MOHN cookies!

2. I put a block of butter in the microwave for one minute and it came out with a heart. I swear I didn't do this myself!

deutsch baking

3. the Austrian Christmas Cookie cookbook was a present from Alina when I first arrived in Vienna…so sweet right!! But here’s the catch—its all in German. So please note the kompaktworterbuch (a dictionary) right next to the cookbook. There’s a clue that this was no ordinary day in the kitchen. I don’t know how we survived, but with a dictionary, internet, and youtube we somehow managed. 

marshmallow holly

4. The green globs are my viennese attempt at an american christmas 'delicacy' always enjoyed by my family…Marshmallow Holly. (1 part marshmallow, 1 part butter, 1 part corn flakes, a lot of green food coloring, and three red hot candies) The Austrians loved them (which really surprised me!), but the marshmallows broke the bank, so even though I have gotten many requests for more, I have to wait for my mom to ship me marshmallows from the US before I can feed the hungry austrian masses. 

'till He appeared and the soul felt its worth'

21. dezember  

          We had so many offers of places to spend Christmas, but in the end, through the advice of P. Jacques, we have accepted the invitation of the family of Maria-Elizabeth (the former missionary studying voice in Wien). We will spend Christmas in Hollabrunn, a little dorf (village) just a 45 minute drive outside of Wien. I am excited to get to know Maria-Elizabeth better and to thank her parents personally for the bed they donated to us, and of course to get a little taste of what a traditional Austrian Christmas is like. We intended to spend the weekend with them, but Crista called Alina this afternoon in dire need of help. Her husband, has suffered a knee injury and had to go to the hospital. With four young children, a crowded children’s Christmas mass to go to, and a Christmas Eve to celebrate, she is worried she can’t do everything alone.

            The Austrian Heilige Abend (Christmas Eve) tradition, when the children of the family are still young, is that one parent takes the children out in the afternoon/evening to preoccupy them, while the other parent stays home to put up the Christmas tree, decorate it, and put out the presents. (or the Christmas tree and the presents are set up in another room of the house where the children are forbidden to enter before Christmas, and the parents never seen entering or leaving). The only decoration that is put up in the house before Christmas Eve is the Advent Wreath (very different from the American tradition of decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving). Then on Christmas Eve, the children await the coming of the Christkind (Christ-child) who, on His birthday, brings a tree with lights, candles, ornaments, and candies on it, as well as presents. Usually, the family gathers around the crèche scene to welcome the Christkind to the world with the traditional Austrian carol, Stille Nacht, and then, when they hear bells ringing, the children know the Christkind has come and they rush to see what he has left behind for them.

            So with an apartment to small to set up the tree in another room, Crista and Anton must occupy the children outside the apartment while setting up the tree and presents, but with Anton in the hospital, Crista cannot do everything alone. And so, rather than spend the weekend with Maria-Elizabeth’s family, we will share Heilige Abend with Crista’s family, and then early Saturday morning train to Hollabrunn to celebrate Weihnachten, and return to Wien on Sunday after mass. We have only been in Vienna for 2 weeks and yet see how the Lord gives us to many hearts to be with! 

           

                I have such high hopes for all of you this Christmas, hopes so high because I know that nothing is impossible with God…what more did the account of both the annunciation and visitation call us to believe. Most of all, I hope for you all, and for myself as well, a greater understanding of what it means that the Desire of every human heart chooses to humble himself and take on the flesh of mankind as a child in a manger. The Fulfillment of all our desires is soon to be born to us…ever ancient and ever new…born ever long ago, but each day to be born anew in our hearts, so that each day we may bow down in adoration of the incarnation as if it were the first time our soul ever felt its true worth.

            This past weekend we were on retreat for preparation for Christmas and the new foundation. Saturday was a wonderful day of silence and private prayer, but I’m so thankful that Monika broke our silence just in order to translate the homily given in mass that evening. It was stunning and I want to share it with you… (granted…it is me just writing the gist of what the priest said)

       “Interesting that the Gospel is about the Apostles at the Ascension as it is the last Sunday before Christmas. But there is a sense to it. Why? Because Christ shows us the beginning and the end. They are the same. So they are both beginnings and endings; both times of newness and change.

        Shepherds saw and heard Angels, as did the Apostles after Jesus ascended into Heaven. Both Shepherds and Apostles were filled with fear at what was happening…at the mystery before them…and then the Angels assured them that there was no need to fear…’Rejoice!’ The Angels didn’t explain to the Shepherds and the Apostles the mystery they feared and stood in awe of simultaneously. The Angels just explained enough to reassure them, to convince them to give up their fear of the mystery that lay before them; to instead fill that spot in their hearts with joy! And then the most glorious thing occurred. In awe before this mystery and the mission they were being given as a result of this mystery, they knelt and stared in wonder…

they adored.

          How do you react to these moments when you stare before a mystery? The only appropriate response—no matter what the mystery may physically look like—a baby that is the promised Messiah, or an empty sky into which your resurrected Rabbi, the Son of God, just disappeared. Whether it be a miraculous gift for your life situation or the seeming disappearance of your guide in life…all in our lives is the same. Everything that lies in front of us is a mystery. We must kneel, bow, give praise with gratitude and trust, for only in adoration is God perfectly loved, only in adoration can you gain strength from the Lord needed to eradicate the fear, overflow your soul with joy and enter into the mystery.

every aspect of Jesus’ life called for Him to be adored

because all of Jesus’ life

then and now

was and remains

a mystery.

kneel and bow in awe and wonder.'

{rembrandt.adoration of the shepherds}

                  In giving adoration to God, we receive the grace we need, not to survive life, but to live as we were created to live—to thrive. To live every moment with supernatural help that gives us strength, patience, overwhelming joy. Adrienne von Speyr writes, “When the Son chose the Mother, He placed in her all His love for men in order to receive it from her. He had her become a fruitful spring out of which he is always giving more of the grace that He gave her in the beginning, a grace that is Christian because it not only gives, but when received, can be given further.” And so, the nature of grace is not that it is to be given and received between two alone, but God bestows grace that be received and then yearns to be given further a hundred times over. You cannot keep this grace for yourself. In adoration we give our whole selves to Christ, who returns this gift with His superabundant grace. And thus empowers us and makes us desire to expand this gift to all we know. Just as Mary had the honor of bearing Jesus in her womb, we have the honor of bearing Jesus in our hearts. “The Lord answers every surrender of a heart with a fruitfulness in which His mother takes part. He chose ‘one’ mother for Himself in order to have all men as brothers. But as the Mother imparts her motherhood to others, Jesus’ brothers become mothers. It is the Mother’s ongoing, ever-living assent which made possible the Son’s saying that all who say “yes” and do the will of the Father become not only brothers and sisters but also mothers of the Lord.” (von Speyr).  I pray for you and for the intercession of Mary for your life, especially throughout this Christmas season. If we know anything of prayer, readiness, openness, obedience, and surrender we owe it to Mary’s fiat. If we know anything of gratitude, adoration, praise and continual surrender we owe it to Mary’s ever-living motherhood. I pray that all the grace Christ bestows upon His mother, she showers upon you to fill, renew, and strengthen you—to prepare you to adore Christ at his birth and seek to be beside Him every moment of the new year. It is God’s grace that when received can be given further, and so when given to the Mother, she gives it to us, and when given to us, we can give further and further. Enjoy living the mystery.

bitte

i want to ask you a favor.

Lenore, Me, and another Little Flower, Justine

my heart is bursting with joy and gladdness in having received an e-mail from a dear friend from Franciscan, and a sister in my household 'The Little Flowers'. She recently had a phone interview with Sr. Regine from Heart's Home and will go to a Come and See weekend (a weekend long interview) in January with the intention of going on mission with Heart's Home after graduating in May 2011. I am so excited for her...she truly has a missionary heart and I can only imagine the extraordinary yet little ways in which He desires to work through her beautiful openness and desire to live in and for His love. 

Please keep her and her formation and her discernment in your prayers!

and if you are interested, her blog is the following... http://anavenueofhope.blogspot.com

also, 

Erica and I in Brooklyn

my friend Erica and I became very close while we did our 2 week mission formation in Brooklyn together. She is a beautiful woman that I am so blessed to know. There were many times she offered support and guidance to me during the last few months of living in the states with all the stresses of preparing to leave, etc. She herself was supposed to leave in the end of October for 14 months of mission work in the Heart's Home village in Brazil. Yet, still to this day the Brazilian government has not finished processing her Visa and so she waits in limbo at her home in Phoenix. During this waiting time, her grandmother passed away. She herself said it was such a blessing and a much needed learning experience for her to be present for the death and the funeral and to be with her family, especially as a presence of comfort and support to her mother. Yet, now, she still waits and is in need of much spiritual support for strength and perseverance in this time that requires great patience and trust of her. 

if you want to learn more about Erica and her mission, her website is the following: www.supportericasmission.com

Our Angel in Vienna

           Hana is her name. She and I met through mutual German friends my freshman year in college when my brother and I spent Spring Break in Munich, Germany and Cap d'Antibes, France with our friend Raphy and about 10 of his friends. All together, Hana and I have only probably spent 3 weeks together...adding up spring break and a day here and there when traveling in Europe and going to Oktoberfest. I don't know much about her personal life, her family, her likes and dislikes, and other things you would normally know about a close friend. Seperated by the Atlantic Ocean and some land on either side, not to mention a 7 hour time difference, we have never spent hours catching up on the phone, or just met up to grab coffee on a random Wednesday. With the details of our friendship, you would at best call us acquaintences under normal circumstances, but this is not how we act whenever we are together for there is something special about Hana and the way she gives of herself, her time, and her love so freely to others that you cannot help but forget the details and focus on feeling like you've known each other for years and are the best of friends.
            I hadn't talked to Hana in a good while when I facebooked her to tell her I would soon be moving to Vienna. Currently she is living in Vienna, working for the largest company in Austria, and spending most of her free time working on finishing her university thesis so that she can graduate next semester and hanging out with her friends and boyfriend, Matthias. After getting my facebook message she immediately called me, of course screaming with excitement at the news and making sure I would call her as soon as had arrived so that we could see each other as soon as possible! Defying the odds, I think she was more excited about my move than even I was!!
            Friday, December 17th:  I was four days in Vienna before Hana, Alina and I had the chance to meet up for coffee in the city center in one of her favorite coffeeshops close to the Albertiner. Wow! My soul soared when we saw each other! She exudes such love and happiness that you can't help but be happy around her! We proceeded to have coffee for several hours during which we caught up on life...what she is doing in Vienna, what she has been doing the past year, her relationship with her boyfriend, as well as why Alina and I are together her in Vienna, what we are doing for Heart's Home, Alina's background, and all that has happened in my life over the past year. Alot of catching up to say the least. It was also our first German lesson...Hana is intent on writing down all the new German words we learn during our little meetings and then quizzing me when she sees me next! We told her all about our living situation, our new apartment, and she asked what we needed and offered to help in any way she could. She also came bearing gifts!! She had a little 'Welcome to Vienna' package for me complete with a map, a notebook, a subway map, a traditional Viennese candy, and a CELL PHONE...so, as she said, she can get ahold of me anytime she wanted! And then, upon leaving insisting that we see each other again as soon as possible! I don't think words are adequate to describe to you what this encounter meant for me and taught me! Here is a friend who I have spent time with three times in my life, had not talked to for a year, and who acted as if I was her greatest treasure in life and the only important thing for her was to make sure I was happy and well situated in Vienna. I was left speechless at her example of love and friendship.

Hana and Alina at coffee

            Tuesday, December 21st: Alina and I met Hana and Matthias (her boyfriend) and two of their friends for pizza in the city center. There was a lot more learning German, getting to know one another (especially her boyfriend who I had never met), sharing memories, laughing, eating, talking, laughing some more. Hana and Matthias continuously ask us what we need and how they can help us...advising us on which bank to use, which phone and internet service to use, where to go for furniture and appliances for the apartment. They give of themselves so much...to meet with us, to teach us German  and be patient when I am confused or just can't learn, to listen to us go on and on about the experiences we have already had, and our hopes for the future. Hana and Matthias are truly two more angels God has sent us to help us navigate our new Viennese lives...I don't know what I would do without them, especially without the friendship of Hana, which provides me with a little familiarity and feeling of home in a completely foreign life. My heart can take a little rest whenever I am around her!
              We also spend alot of time explaining Heart's Home and what exactly we are doing in Vienna, which of course is always a challenge. I can't help but think it is a little hard for her to understand, why I am doing this, living this way, focusing so much on God. Hana and I became friends when I was not really into practicing my faith with my heart and my life, when Catholicism was more of a habit and Sunday formality and not something I really lived; before I really had my conversion of heart and desire to embrace my faith. And since we haven't spent alot of time together, we don't know alot about each other in this way, or know these more detailed things about each others lives. And yet, she doesn't shy away from asking about what I am doing here, and trying to understand what exactly our mission is. She doesn't get uncomfortable when I talk about God or my faith and answer her questions in ways she probably wouldn't have expected and is surely not used to. I am sure all this talk of God and mission work and living a life of simplicity, and chastity, etc. is about as foreign to her as the German language is to me, and yet this does not stop or deter her from desiring to spend as much time with me as she can, from helping me, from loving, accepting, and welcoming me into Vienna. With passion, excitement, and authenticity, she loves fully and gives of herself without regard for what is unfamiliar or potentially uncomfortable. Like WeWe for Monika, Hana teaches me what it is to love and offer friendship without reserve, to give of yourself totally, to make yourself completely available to the needs of another; she sheds light on what it really means to be Catholic...she is a missionary, an angel...to me! Surely this Christmas is not void of gifts...instead of material things, Christ is giving me the gift of friendship in this new life and new city...and Hana is one of them! Thank you God!

christmas lights in vienna: walking home from dinner with hana and matthias

.new friends . new lessons.

           {december 17th}

          It has been less than one week, but God has blessed us with many miracles of friendship already! Monika has introduced us to many of her friends in Wien, including another former missionary, Maria-Elizabeth, and WeWe, a childhood friend of hers who is of Chinese heritage and is a fashion designer trying to make it in Vienna. These two friends are very, very different and yet meeting both last night really taught me a great deal about friendship and holiness.
          Maria-Elizabeth is from a small village called Hollabrunn, just 45 minutes outside Wien. She spent 16 months at the Heart's Home in Peru and now is back, living in Vienna, working in a school for handicapped children (a different one that Monika's). Last night Monika, Alina and I met ME for mass, adoration, and benediction at Peterskirche (a beautiful church near Stephansplatz in the city center). After that, Monika and I joined ME for some coffee melange and apfelstrudel at one of the oldest coffeehouses in the city (it is just on a side street off of Stephansplatz, but I don't remember the name). Spending hours enjoying the company of friends over cup after cup of coffee and an assortment of sweet pastries is one of the oldest aspects of traditional Viennese life. The Viennese take great pride in their historic coffeehouses! ME was suffering from a terrible cold and didn't feel well as all, but still she made the sacrifice to meet us for mass and go to coffee because she found it so important to meet me and welcome me to Vienna. She spent time telling me about her mission in Peru and we talked all about Vienna and what I had experienced thus far. We were united by our similar experience with Heart's Home, our faith, and our love for Vienna. She was teaching me so much about what it meant to give to another out of you poverty--here she was giving time and friendship to me out of the poverty of her sickness. It meant so much to me that she would make such a sacrifice for me! My first Lesson in Friendship for the night.
             Oh, and an important side note...ME is also studying vocal performace at one of the top schools in Vienna! She has a strikingly beautiful operatic voice and she is very passionate about singing! (So it was more of a sacrifice for her to come out for coffee because she had a performance that weekend and needed to get better and preserve her voice) And singing is only one of her many talents!--she also plays piano, guitar, and violin!  {December 20th addition: On Sunday, Monika and Alina attended a concert in which ME sang. I couldnt attend because on Saturday night, the second night of our retreat at Maria Langegg (a cloister in the foothills of the alps 2 hours outside of Vienna), I came down with a severe stomach flue. I will spare you the horrific details, but I was so sick that I couldn't even receive communion when brough to me in my room at the cloister on Sunday afternoon, nor could I eat or do anything but sleep for another day and a half while I kept a constant 102 degree fever, chills, and aches. There is nothing like being sick to make you yearn for your family, so it was truly a test to be so far from home! It was rather disappointing to miss ME's concert, but I sent Alina along with my Ipod on which she recorded some videos of the beautiful performance! As soon as I figure out how to get the videos and photos from my Ipod onto my computer without a wifi connection, I will be sure to post them! **Please if anyone can tell me how to do this, it would be greatly appreciated!!**}

          After we finished having coffee with ME and parted ways so she could go home and rest, Monika and I went to the Christkindlmarkt at Simmeringplatz for a little punsch and to experience the most beautiful and breathtaking way in which Austrians celebrate not only Christmas, but the entire Advent season with such meaning and passion. At the market we planned to meet up with WeWe, Monika's very dear friend. We spent three hours with WeWe talking and drinking and getting to know one another. True to Austrian form, WeWe was very closed and distant especially in the beginning, but since she knows Monika so well I think she became comfortable with me more quickly than usual and we had a wonderful time talking about our families, the differences between Austrian and American culture, how difficult Deutsch is to learn, and a myriad of other things. She also spent alot of time telling me about her fashion design, the label she used to have, her new ventures in runnning a boutique in Vienna, the adventurous stories from the life of an artist in Vienna that usually entail being up early into the morning, and sleeping late into the afternoon. There was a strong contrast between the life and personality of WeWe and that of Maria-Elizabeth who we had spent time with earlier. But both new friendships, and especially the stark contrast between them, really opened my heart to new lessons in friendship. On our way home from the Christkindlmarkt, Monika was talking about WeWe and how wonderful of a friend she is and has been for so long. I asked if she was Catholic and Monika stopped and turned to me and said, <You know, Mary, WeWe isn't Catholic. She is an atheist, but everytime I am around her, she teaches me how to be Catholic. More often, she is more Catholic than me, because of how she loves, how she stretches to open herself to others, how she gives herself.>
          
          Today, the meditation on the Gospel reading  from Word Among Us brought a wonderful light to these two experiences of friendship last night. The meditation said that for the Pharisees, John the Baptist had too rigorous of a spiritual life in the desert, so they didn't follow him as his disciples. But they then complained that Jesus' life was too liberal becuase he ate and drank with the sinners and did not pray and study enough in the temple or associate with the right people. Nothing could satisfy the rigorous, perfectionstic spiritual demands of the Pharisees. To be good, spiritually, you had to fit into a little box. But Christ said that it is not just about how you live your life down to every practical detail--how often you go to Church, which prayers you pray and when, how many times you have to go to confession, how often you do corporal works of mercy, etc. For Mother Theresa, outwardly her life consisted in helping the utterly devastated and poor in Calcutta, and starting and order that brought this way of life to the reaches of the world. For St. Thomas More and others, their outward lives consisted in fighting for the teachings of the Church, in participating in politics, etc, for the true good of the people. For St. Elizabeth of Hungary, her outward life consisted of being a queen who distributed her wealth to the poor. For St. Therese of Lisieux, her outward life was locked up behind the walls of a cloister. For St. Thomas Aquinas, his outward life was spent pouring over books in the Universities. The little details of how you pray and how often you pray and such matter, but only in the context of your relationship with God and whether this relationship is the central force guiding everything you do in life. I may be living in another country and doing mission work, but this doesn't mean I am living a holier life or a better life than a mother living in a suburb of America. On the outside it is different than normal, but what matters is what my life looks like on the inside. Christ ate with the tax collectors and befriended Mary Magdelene out of whom He drove 7 demons because He was driven by the love that unified Him with the person of the Father and the Holy Spirit--the love of a Creator for his creatures and desire to be in a relationship with all of them, not just those who outwardly show devotion. We must pray, but our prayers must not be empty and just for show. With Maria-Elizabeth, a fellow Catholic and former missionary, I got to share mass and adoration, and then coffee...all of which were lessons of how to give of yourself, to give your presence to another in need even when it is a great sacrifice for you. With WeWe, an atheist and artist, I got to share gluhwein and the christkindlmarkt and wonderful conversation through which we began to build a friendship...she taught me to be open and welcoming to others even if it means you have to work harder to communicate (because I cannot speak german and she cannot speak alot of english) and you have had a long day at work already. Both friendships are different, both friendships taught me differently. 'I must ask myself every day, every moment whether my love of God guides my life? Only when I am a slave to this love am I truly free. This is a hard thing to wrap one's mind around, especially in a time when freedom is confused with license. In the Catholic Church, you live your life as a slave to Christ's teachings and His desires, to the will of the Father, because therein lies true life and true happiness. Catholicism is not about being a slave to rules in and of themselves. Christ instituted the rules and guidelines we follow as Christians and He instituted the authority of the Catholic Church to guide His people (through His heavenly inspiration to its leaders), not because He wanted to make a list of rules to exert force and control over His people, but because He wanted to show His people how to center their lives on love, and thus through His love, gain eternal happiness beyond all imagining. When your life is instructed by the love of Christ, and naturally thus the genuine love of others and yourself, you live completely free from slavery to the confines of this world. Your soul is free to soar. So naturally, following the instructions Christ left to His Apostles, and the instructions He continues to give to His Church, are important aspects of a life lived completely out of love of Him--humbly accepting to conform yourself to the demands of love, even if sometimes they go against what you would prefer or what you would find pleasure in doing. And yet, merely following these guidelines, being the one to say the most rosaries, or to be up the earliest to pray, or to spend the most time in prayer everyday is not the measuring stick for holiness. With Maria-Elizabeth I got to share the mass and a common background in mission work and with WeWe I shared funny stories and good drinks, and with both I was taught what it means to be Catholic and to give of yourself.

a picture and a peanut

          We have the blessing of a wonderful friendship with the family Alina worked for last spring. Crista and her husband Anton have four children (Klara, 5; Jacob, 3; Georg, 1; und Martin, 8 monaten). They live in a very small apartment (2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room) in the second district, only 3 minutes walk from our new apartment. They live a very simple, very close, very loving, and very beautiful life and out of the little they have, they have already helped us so much and given us so much in our transition to the city and preparation for our new apartment. They have already donated a sofa and a chair to us that they no longer use, as well as a plethora of old pots and pans and silverware, kitchen utensils, and kitchen, bath, and bedroom linens. It is amazing how the Lord provides out of the generosity of people's hearts! Crista does not have many friends in the city, even among the other mothers of the children at Klara's kindergarten. Alina shared with me that Crista is very lonely in the city, and always very tired because she is alone with the children most of the time while Anton works alot to provide for the family. Crista has an outer shell that is tightly close, but although we have only been to visit Crista and the family two or three times, I'm beginning to be able to see the happiness in her face when we arrive and the sadness when we have to leave.
          Of course, I must explain that the friendships I will speak of differ very much from American friendships. There is no immediately warm openness, displays of friendly affection, or displays of a desire to become good friends, as I commonly found when being introduced to people in America or befriending people in America (at least in the Midwest). There is an American openness to the other that is just not present in Austrians. This is especially noticeable when befriending Austrian children, and it is not simply a misunderstanding of shyness at first spending time with a stranger. The first time we spent the evening with Crist and the children, I was playing with the oldest, Klara. She was trying to help me learn German, and then, very frustrated with my inability to make the unique <ch> throat sound commonly found in Deutsch, she said I must go in the other room and have her mother teach me German before we can play together. She lead me out into the other room with her mother, explained the situation, and then returned to what she was doing. It was very matter of fact. So I went to play with the younger children in the other room for the rest of the time we spent there. Upon leaving, Klara approached me and handed me a little present, a picture of a princess and a peanut. She didn't smile, give me a hug, or talk to me at all. She just handed it to me and walked away. This little encounter was very cute and very telling of the personality I have found prevalent in every Austrian we have met and befriended thus far. {I must say, I do not think I am explaining this very well, for it is very difficult to explain this complex trait of Austrians without experiencing it for yourself...but it is something both Alina and I have talked about and agreed upon, and it is a very important aspect to understanding the Austrian people, so I will keep trying to explain.}
          Austrians are very brusque. There is a distance, a withholding, an apprehension. In everyone I have met thus far, from Crista and Klara, to WeWe (a friend of Monika's), and even Monika herself, there is a common trend...they do not pretend. And this is very blatant to a foreigner for at least the first three times you spend time with someone. Austrians do not pretend to know you, or like you, or to be a very good friend from the first moment you meet. They act with a blunt honesty that is not rude, but just in accordance with reality...and maybe a little protective of themselves. The reality is that you do not actually know one another after meeting once, or twice; you do not know the other person's background, likes and desires, motives, etc. A true friendship--the trust it is built upon--grows with time. Austrians understand this and act accordingly, whereas I think I can say that Americans, at least in my experience, tend to pretend as if you can trust the other person and open yourself up to the other person on the initial meeting and work on the true friendship from there. To me, an overly loving, open, and expressive American, I am used to being immediately open and desiring of a genuine friendship with people...almost like first pretending you are close friends so that you can quickly build up the friendship to that level, or quickly find that a friendship is not meant to exist. {I hope this is making sense...if not...just skip this!} For Austrians, they do not pretend and do not exert themselves to be open and loving from the first meeting. They do not smile to make the person more comfortable, they do not laugh if they do not understand or if what you are saying just isnt funny to them. You shake hands when you meet or leave (only when you know someone very well do you do the European double kiss thing, and you definitely do not hug Austrians). So there is no pretending or exaggeration or dramatics of openness and affection. And this is very foreign to me!
          But in living this way, life is simple. No grand gestures are needed. From the slightest crack of a smile when you tell a story about something funny that happened to you in America, to a picture and a peanut given to you upon your departure (although not accompanied by the slightest smile), are the biggest gifts because they are so sincere...and they show that progress is being made. Patience is needed. Even the third time we visited Crista and the kids to play for several hours, the kids didn't show particular excitement that we were there. Klara didn't run up to me when I left and give me a hug and say goodbye although we had spent five hours together. She approached me, shook my hand, and stepped back next to her mother. To others, this hand shake, or even the first picture she made me may be just another picture from a child...not a big deal...but to me it meant the world. The littlest things are the greatest.
          Reflecting on this, I think it provides a little light into the meaning of Christmas. The Lord Almighty came to Earth as a poor child on a lonely, cold night in a stable...a small thing that was the beginning of our salvation. Yes, the Austrians are distant and formal and closed at first, but truly they are more open than me because very but they open is genuine...and never a fake openness in order to ease the first meetings. The slightest crack is miles deep...it is not about breadth or quantity, but depth and authenticity.
        

          Making the 30 minute walk to mass one day, Alina and I were discussing this very aspect of the Austrian personality. It was interesting to hear Alina echoing all the things I had noticed and thought about the Austrians (they are initially so closed and you really have to be constant in your friendship in order to get to know them even the slightest bit, and they do not show their affection). Her experience of life and relationships in Italy is much like my own American experience--immediate openness and affection. Entering mass with this on my mind, I reflected on what this means for our mission.
          When you are so in tune with reality, not pretending or exaggerating at all, when you are closed and distant at first, the only thing that opens you wider is time and presence. Crista, Klara, Monika, and WeWe, and other people we have met will only open up the more we get to know one another. So we must keep spending time with them. Our friendship will not be instantaneous; it will be the fruit of consistent time and presence to one another. As missionaries with Heart's Home (Offenes Herz in Deutsch), we come to Vienna poor and lonely in order to become friends with the poor and lonely; what we have to give cannot be given instantaneously. It is not a bandage, a quick fix of some problem, or a physical gift that completely changes a life and heals all wounds, fixes all problems. All we have to give is our presence, repeatedly, full of availability, love and opennes, so as to build a relationship. To wait patiently for the others openness, but not to force or expect. Crista need frienship--not money to pay for a babysitter so that she can rest, not a psychologist to unload her problems to once a week. She needs a frienship that remains, that stays to help live through the little daily difficulties and tries to alleviate some of the burden by no longer leaving it for her to carry alone. Crist is the mother of four children, living in a cramped apartment that never seems to be clean or organized. Right now, when he is not working in the hospital, Anton is building a loft in the kid's room so that they can fit four beds in the same room. While he is in the middle of this project, all six of them sleep in the same room, and the living room is the play room, the office, and the dining room. You can imagine the stress of this life in which everything is in disarray, even if they still thank God that they have food to eat, a house to sleep in, the conveniences of a Western life. But we cannot change Crista's life, take away her stress, give her friendship with other women. But we can be with her in her life and help her clean, organize, watch the kids so that she can get things done, provide some friendship and companionship with adults instead of spending all day and night with children who always need something. Our friendship is simple and poor. The third time we visited her, she made us a beautiful lunch because she didn't want us to have to leave and go back to our apartment to eat.
            Our lives here in Vienna, our friendships with Austrians...they are simple. Not very different from friendships we would have in Italy and in America. Offenes Herz is simple because human need is simple. It is presence. How did Christ change the world? God didn't save the world distantly from Heaven or instantly fix everything. He was born as a small child, <God with us>. He was a child in the world who needed to be cared for and raised by His earthly family. He spent 30 years of His life just living, not performing miracles or showing outwardly His divinity for all to see. He spent 30 years living simply an anonymous and poor life. He changed the world by being with. What a wonderful time of the year to start this Offenes Herz in Wien, in a season based on this one important fact--God came to be with us. How are we to live as Him to one another? Go. Be. Love. That is our mission. Love came to the world as a presence. We will bring Him, Love, in our presence--not as we expect to or plan to or already know how to, but as the need is presented to us at every new moment, as God shows us and guides us to. This is why our mission is a Catholic mission, rooted in prayer. We must pray for the grace of a deeper conversion of our hearts and minds to God everyday. Adrienne von Speyr speaks of the relationship between the pregnant virgin Mary and the God-man developing in her womb. <it is a living circulation of give-and-take. She gives him what he needs and receives in overabundance what He gives her; what is received, however, does not have its boundaries in her but retains the quality of prodigality, the most original of Christian characteristics. Every received gift is designated in her to be given further.> Daily we must focus on living in prayer, living in a relationship with Christ that is modeled after Mary's pregnancy with Christ. We must incessantly pray for the grace to always be carrying Christ within us, as well as for the grace to constantly be living this circulation of give and take--we offer our hearts, our bodies, our lives for Him to dwell within, and through His life within us He gives us gifts, blessings, graces in overabundance to do whatever He asks of us. He gives us His love most of all. And all these things He bestows on us are not for us to keep for ourselves, they are not to be restrained by boundaries. It is particularly these graces that we must share with others...it is particularly this love of Christ that we share with others through our presence and time. The friendship and love between us and Christ that we seek to cultivate in our daily prayer lives is to be extended to our friends in Vienna, to share with them this experience of divine love.
    
           Offenes Herz is unexpected. It is not building houses, evangelizing blatantly, helping stop the spread of disease or bringing medical supplies to underpriviledged areas of the world. People always ask what I am doing for mission work and it is difficult for me to explain (at least succinctly) because it is not a <to do list> but a way of life. We do not build houses, and yet we are helping to build or reconstruct homes, communities and families by bringing broken pieces together, or refortifying the walls of love and community. We do not hand out Bibles or stand on the streed and preach to passersby, but we hope to convert hearts to the love of Christ, because it is only this love that drives us to seek friendship in Wien, and it is only this love that we have first been given and commanded to give further. We do not cure diseases of the body, or bandage physical wounds, but hopefully we help to cure or treat someone's painful loneliness, isolation, fatigue, anxiety because we apply the balm of Christ's compassion and friendship through our presence.
          {december 16}
           Thus far, our experiences of friendship are new and unfamiliar and unexpected. Our missionary life is completely unexpected, departing from the normal so much so that sometimes when I stop and think about my day, or my past week, I wonder what exactly I am doing here, and why God has called me here. But God has done just that, brought Alina and I here to Wien, during Advent, to teach us about the unexpected. In Christ's birth into a poor, anonymous virgin in a stable, in His being adored by His family, shepherds, animals, and a few kings while He lay in a feeding trough for animals, God radically departed from human expectations and became present to man in a new and different way. Here, Alina and I are, living in Wien, with our hopes high for changing peoples lives through our presence and through our love. Yet, it has been more the case that the people we have met have been changing our lives in return, opening us up to the mysteries God desires to reveal to us, to the ways He wants to stretch our understanding, stretch our hearts.

It is lovely if a person wants to give to God all that he has. But at the beginning of a Christian mission, it must be clear that the All of a human is no standard for God's All and that therefore the first, creaturely All needs an expansion through grace in order to be able to receive the All of God's mission. And this More must be expressly included in the person's surrender. - Adrienne von Speyr (Handmaid of the Lord: Motherhood)

zu beginnin

(December 21)    
           I write this first entry to you from Wien very early in the morning. At 6am we attended mass at the church (kirche) just a 2 minute walk from Monika's apartment. It is an Austrian advent tradition in the last week before Christmas to attend an early morning mass as a means of penance and preparation before the joyous birth of Christ, the necessary beginning of our salvation.
          And so, I have been in Wien only one week, but I feel I must write to you to send my love and prayers for a beautiful, meaningful, and exuberant feast of Christmas! Knowing that I cannot be with you this Christmas, I find a deep desire to be present to you still by giving you a detailed look at the first weeks of our mission. Hopefully reading the amazing works the Lord has already wrought in our little, anonymous lives here, your hearts will be expanded to receive all that God desires to give this Christmas and throughout 2011.

our first meeting

          {Mary is no longer alone with her destiny, but consoled and secure in the knowledge of her cousin's similar fate. The angel reveals this related destiny to her so that she can give her life with more certainty, for no person can bear a divine mission wholly alone, to even the most solitary, a thou is given within his mission. --Adrienne von Speyr}

         Monika, Alina and I went on retreat the weekend of the 17th-19th as a means of preparation for Christmas and for this foundation. Fr. Jacques, the spiritual director of our little community and priest responsible for the foundation of the home in Vienna, sent us on retreat with a few chapters from Adrienne von Speyr's book Handmaid of the Lord (Mary and the Angel, and Motherhood). I highly recommend it to everyone, and it turned out to be a perfect excerpt for our retreat. Within this text, von Speyr words beautifully God's gift of companionship to Elizabeth and Mary {the above quote}. Surely Elizabeth and Mary are models for myself and the two women, Alina and Monika, that greeted me upon arrival in Vienna {see picture} and with whom I have been sharing my time here. I am so thankful for the thous that God has give me to share this mission.

          Monika Haas is a former Heart's Home missionary (2 years in Naples, Italy and some time at the Heart's Home village in Brazil), an Austrian native, and our lovely hausmutter while we are new kinder in Wien. Surely, this foundation would not be possible without her! We are currently living with her in her aparment, which is only a ten minute walk from our new, not-yet-liveable apartment. She is simultaneously ou chauffeur, our map, our tour guide, our alarm clock, our compendium of mass and adoration times, our translator, ou voice at times we need to speak fluent German, sometimes our chef, our mother, and our spiritual guide through the instruction of Fr. Jacques while he is not yet here. While being all these things for us, she has a full time job as a teacher in a school for handicapped children! She is truly a gift from God that we could never deserve, but graciously accept to lead us in these first steps! She is also a beautiful example of how Heart's Home is not simply a mission you live for a short period of your life in another country, but it is an experience that molds your heart forever and which you bring with you to guide your life wherever you live. Having finished her mission and returned to a normal life, she still makes sure she attends mass daily, says daily laudes and vespers and rosary (even before we began to live with her), and makes time of her own to visit the elderly, sick, and lonely that she knows of living in her neighborhood or other parts of the city. And now she has opened her well-organized life to the chaos of two foreign missionaries new to community life and Wien; taking on as her own the mission Alina and I are living. She is truly a model of love and service!
          Two of her favorite things are Mohn and Punsch. Mohn is poppy seed, a common ingredient in sweet Austrian pastries (unlike our scarce use of them...the only thing I can think of is everything bagels). Mohn actually has an addictive quality like its distant cousin cocaine (the level of the addiction is more like coffee rather than cocaine! ha) And Punsch is a rum based drink served warm along with gluhwein at Christkindl (Advent)markts all over the city. Monika introduced me to both of these loves when she and I went to an Adventmarkt at Simmeringplatz (my new favorite adventmarkt due to its lack of tourists) one night to spend an evening with her friend WeWe. In one night she succeeded in drawing me into her Mohn addiction as well, but I still prefer gluhwein over punsch! Monika has a wonderful, but dry sense of humor as well. On our way home from the adventmarkt with WeWe, she said to me in broken yet effective English, Maybe your first mission is me, a drug and alcohol addict! I could just eat Mohn and drink Punsch always. I think sometimes I need because I love so much and it is problem.> Haha. love it.

           Alina is my companion on this journey. She is Ukranian, but has been living in Naples, Italy for the last four years with her mother and stepfather and stepbrothers and sisters. She has lived very closely with the people of Heart's Home in Naples and has let her heart be shaped by the mission there. It was after Alina spent several months here in Wien last spring working for a family as a nanny that she got the idea, surly inspired by the Holy Spirit, to write to Fr. Thierry de Roucy (the founder of Heart's Home) and share her inspiration for a new home to be founded in Wien. To her incredible surprise, only 6 months later, we are both here to bring this intuition to fruition. How the Lord works quickly! Thankfully, Alina speaks some English, as well as fluent French, Ukranian, Russian, and Italian, and is learning German (she is much farther along than I am because she studied three years in school). So we manage to communicate with broken English and French while I am getting the elementary aspects of German down. Everyday the Lord astonishes me as He shows me ways in which He has prepared Alina and I for one another. He truly handpicked us for one another as exhibited by our many similarities. She is very passionate and she is very open--she doesn't hesitate to show her excitement, her care, her frustration, etc. She doesn't mind that I am a vegetarian, and she also has a horrible time getting up in the morning, which has forced me to be better at being a morning person (I know, those of you who know me very well are probably in disbelief, but I am the one that makes her get out of bed!...but it is by God's grace alone that either of us is able to get out of bed on time!) The Lord also extraordinarly blesses our prayer time together. If there is something expecially on my mind during prayer, I usually just have to mention it to Alina and her eyes will get big and she will smile and say, Ich auch! (Me too!) The Lord has given us a great gift in one another and continues to pour His grace upon us.

          After Alina and Monika picked me up from the airport, we returned to Monika's apartment where Monika had prepared a gourmet celebration dinner! Now to make your mouths water...

First Course: Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup with Chestnut Dumplings

Main Course: Venison in a Pomegranate Sauce with Brie Potatoes 

 Desert: Marzipan-stuffed Apple and Gingerbread 

and of course to celebrate this time of advent, this was all delightfully washed down with traditional Austrian Gluhwein. 

i know youre jealous, but we can't all be missionaries :)

thank you for your patience

frohe heilige abend

frohe weihnachten fest

frohe fest von heilige familien un heilige stephan

and thank you for your patience. 

good news...Monika has internet in her apartment in Wien. bad news...it doesn't work on my MAC (only PC's), and we only have one source for the internet. Between our crazy schedules, especially in my second week/the week before Christmas, and with three of us to share the internet, I'm sorry I have not been able to keep this blog updated thus far. But, I have been keeping entries in my journal with blog posts in mind so that I could easily post them when I had a free 10 hours :) On Christmas Day, I severely sprained my ankle while getting off a train in Hollabrunn (I'll explain when I get to that post), so this week I am on doctor's orders to be off my foot completely. Guess what, that means catching up on my blog! A late Weihnachten geshanke fur dir? Ich glaube. (translation: A late Christmas present for you? I think so.)

so these entries will go in some kind of order...starting from my first arriving in Wien. Some of the thoughts and messages and reflections will pertain to times now past, but bear with me!

the joy that comes through patience

"Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near!"-Phil 4:4-5

happy gaudete sunday!

the day started beautifully! the Lord is so good. mass this morning was perfect. a wonderful last mass in the states for a while.  from the prayers, to the music, to the readings, the Lord was giving me his assurance, grace, and blessing as He was sending me forth... 

from Isaiah 35:

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,

make firm the knees that are weak,

say to those whose hearts are frightened:

Be strong, fear not!

Here is your God,

he comes with vindication;

with divine recompense

he comes to save you.

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,

the ears of the deaf be cleared;

then will the lame leap like a stag,

then the tongue of the mute will sing.

Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return

and enter Zion singing,

crowned with everlasting joy;

they will meet with joy and gladness,

sorrow and mourning will flee.

from James 5

Be patient, brothers and sisters,

until the coming of the Lord.

See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, 

being patient with it

until it receives the early and the late rains.

You too must be patient.

Make your hearts firm,

because the coming of the Lord is at hand.

I thought to myself during that last reading, "Oh, thank God that I finally get to leave and at least don't have to be patient anymore about that part of life!" Patience is truly my greatest weakness!

God was laughing.

due to the blizzards throughout the midwest, my first flight of a string of flights taking me to Vienna has been cancelled. I won't be leaving Wisconsin until 6:30 tomorrow night. 2 more hours turned into 2 more days. 

so, on this wonderful feast day of Our Lady of Guadaloupe, I put my travels in the care of her intercession and take to heart the words she spoke to Juan Diego on December 12, 1531:

"Hear and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son: 

Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. 

Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. 

Also, do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. 

Am I not here who am your mother? 

Are you not under my shadow and protection? 

Am I not your fountain of life? 

Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? 

Is there anything else that you need?"

and so I wait. with patience and joy.