"Emmanuel, like doves, settles there. He settles there, where flesh lives."
{P. Thierry de Roucy, 2009}
third best Christmas present--sleeping in.
.sigh.so wonderful.
second best Christmas present--Monika gave us a rug for the chapel!!
finally kneeling wont be so painful, or dusty
"Hey! now we can have ordinations!!" --Fr. Clemens
(I guess we need a bishop and seminarians too...but at least we have the rug!)
best Christmas I have ever received....Christ dwelling with us.
no. really.
Fr. Clemens left on Christmas Eve to travel to Marchegg, a town an hour outside of Vienna with the train, where a dear order of nuns lives, prays, and houses us for the monthly days of silence, prayer, and reflection that we take. They have become wonderful friends (a friendship first really grounded in the friendship between Fr. Thierry and their founder) and they needed a priest to celebrate Christmas mass for them.
When he returned on Christmas morning, he had a heavy package under his arm and a smile on his face. We waited patiently until after morning prayer and Christmas coffee as a little family, until we couldn't wait any longer...
The Sisters of the St. John Community made us a tabernacle for Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!
After opening the presents we celebrated mass - the five of us gathered in the chapel, singing, praising, celebrating the inauguration of our chapel, the now official blessing of our altar and our tabernacle--where we could now lay the real Eucharistic presence, and not just a clay doll. It was finally complete. Our chapel, our house, our community, our presence here. It was finally complete.
Christ gave us Himself on Christmas!
O Come, let us adore him!
After the mass, I went to my room to bundle up because we had planned to go on a walk, praying the rosary and spending some time outside. Alina followed me into the room a little while later. With tears in her eyes she came right up to me and hugged me. so hard. and I started crying too and hugging her back. We cried and hugged and had no words for one another....just complete awe at the presence of Christ in our home.
It has been a long road...a road all during which we have been patiently waiting for this day...a road in which there was never rest until we know that the house had officially been founded here--that this house was not just a house, but a tabernacle. A dwelling of Christ. We had never been here to dwell here ourselves, for our own dreams or projects or desires. We had never moved to Vienna just because of the allure of the city, the desire just to do something good for the world. Our desire was rooted in our desire to dwell with Christ and united to Him to go out to others full of His love and service.
After all all the hardships, joys, fights, disagreements, delights, and gifts of the past year, Alina and I met in this moment so full of joy and awe. It had been a year of waiting. for this moment. It was something only the two of us could grasp and be thankful for to such a deep level.
Now He had finally come. Now our presence here had meaning. Fulfillment.
After Christmas mass, we had lunch of leftovers and wine--it was just so simple and wonderful to be together in community as a family. Afterwards we went on a walk in a huge park in another part of Vienna. Walking around we prayed the rosary and stumbled upon a basketball court. P. Clemens had hope for the opportunity, so he had brought a volleyball along! So Fr. Jacques, Clemens, and Alina played basketball with a volleyball while Mathilde and I sat and cheered and chatted.
We came home to a tabernacle full of God!! So we held adoration in our chapel for the first time! Followed by skyping with family, dinner, and a movie.
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