Sorry it’s taken so long! Exams. Traveling. Crazy life. I’m trying!!!
After we checked out the cemetery we traveled our way around a bit more. The views from the bus to the train station and the train station to Seefeld (Zay-field). Reflective windows make it really hard to get good shots. Lo siento.
WE MADE IT TO SEEFELD. Heck yes.
Seefeld is a small, cute little town in the middle of the Alps. It was very quaint, and very homey.
The town was apparently really big on snow sculptures.
Such a cute place.
That wall is made of snow. Cool idea, huh?
Snow Dragon!!!
Yep. I was really there. That’s me. See? True story.
From where I’m standing in the above picture, directly to my front-left is St. Oswald’s church. We made it!!! The main reason we wanted to come on this trip a all was to get ourselves to this tiny church in this tiny town in the middle of the Alps (we looked, but did not see the yodeling veterinarian – if you don’t get that, go watch some Veggie-Tales.), because this little church holds a very precious treasure.
I’m well aware that the majority of my readers (shout out to my lovely family ♥) aren’t Catholic, and that a lot of the stuff I blog about may not make complete sense to you. It’s not exactly a secret that I love being Catholic with all my heart, and that the majority… actually, all… of the incredible experiences that I’ve had thus far in my travels have been intrinsically tied to the Catholic Church. I’m trying to do my best to explain what we – what I – believe so that, on some level at least, you’ll have a better chance of understanding why I get so very excited about things. Just bear with me. (:
As a Catholic I believe that during the Mass, when the priest prays over the bread and wine, it is consecrated. God changes the simple bread and wine into His Body and Blood. Literally. Physically. Entirely. It becomes Him, in the Flesh, in just as concrete a sense as when walked and breathed on this Earth 2011 years ago. “This is My Body. This is My Blood.” We believe it. It is the most important thing in my entire life, and I’d die for it without batting an eyelash. I know it’s hard to understand, and that not everyone is interested in understanding it. I still love you. (:
I’m getting to the point. Promise.
In every Catholic church in the world, there is a Tabernacle. Usually it’s made out of gold and somewhere in the front of the Church. In St. Paul’s it’s off to the right-hand side of the church in it’s own little chapel area. The Tabernacle is where the Eucharist (fancy word that literally means “thanksgiving” – what we call the Bread/Wine after it has been changed). We went to Seefeld to see a very special Eucharistic Host (Host = the Body of Christ, the bread after it has been consecrated.)
The Miracle in Seefeld:
(I added the stuff in parenthesis.)
“In the little city of Seefeld, Oswald Milser, Lord of Schlosberg, expected, at the Holy Thursday Mass to receive the large Host like that of the celebrating priest. (He thought he was too good to receive a smaller Host like the rest of the congregation.) But at the moment he was about to receive Communion, the pavement began to tremble and broke apart. (He sunk into the ground up to his knees.) Oswald grasped the altar so as not to fall (His hands literally sunk into the stone.), and the priest immediately took back the Host from the man’s mouth. The trembling stopped, and live Blood began to flow from the Host. There were many witnesses who saw the miracle, and very soon the news spread throughout the whole nation. The Emperor Maximilian I himself was very devoted to the miracle. Today one can visit the Church of St. Oswald where the precious Host, stained with Blood, is exposed, and also view many paintings depicting the miracle.”
It should also be noted that Oswald had a pretty big change of heart after this, and spent the rest of his life living for God and the Church.
When we first got to the church, we couldn’t find the Miraculous Host. We couldn’t even find the altar that Oswald’s hands sunk into. We knew we were in the right place though, so we didn’t give up.
This is the first thing we saw when we went in Saint Oswald’s. Pretty altar, right? I sat with Jesus for a bit before we went looking for the Miraculous Host and altar.
Cool stuff in the church.
The back of the church.
Pretty art.
ANGEL. (:
Pretty Mama. The new Eve. Standing on the serpent. Yeah. Mama kicks Satan’s butt any day.
This was the little chapel on the left side of the church, up the stairs. We were sure that the Miraculous Host was in that Tabernacle.
The ceiling of the little Chapel. The priest is removing the Eucharist from Oswald’s mouth. In the clouds above is the Monstrance (special holder for the Eucharist when it’s not in a Tabernacle) that currently holds the Host.
This is the spot where the knight started sinking into the ground of the church. When they built added the new floor they did so around the hole, leaving the original stone, complete with hole, exposed.
I put my hand in his handprint. His fingers were bigger than mine. I literally put my hand into the place where the hand of human man sank into solid stone. It wasn’t smooth, like it would be if a tool had carved it out. It had been compressed. I don’t even know how to describe it… it was an amazing moment.
His pointer and middle finger were next to each other. The picture doesn’t capture it very well, but you can feel it when you touch it.
They built the new altar over the old one. That’s why it took us so long to find. You can see handprint from this view, just not in great detail.
We kept looking for the Miraculous Host, but we couldn’t find it. running out of time and it looked like we might have to leave, but I had traveled for hours to see Jesus, and I wasn’t about to leave without doing so. In the process of my searching I’d located the parish office. It was closed, but the parish priest lived upstairs. Emily and I walked to the top of the stairs and stood outside his door, debating on whether or not to ring the bell. It was a scary moment. I’m good with words, but… I don’t speak German. I had no idea how we were going to make it work, but I knew we had to try. Haha. Funny moment. So, the button outside door was labeled, and we called downstairs to ask Storm what the word meant. His reply was “it either means ‘journey’ or ‘friar’. We decided it probably meant friar. We rang the bell, and Emily looked at me and said “I am so scared right now!” The priest came to the door, eating his lunch. He didn’t seem to pleased. We said Grüß Gott. Bitte, wo ist Eucharistic Miracle? (Groosgot. Bita, vo est…) Which literally translates to “Greetings is God. Please, where is the Eucharistic Miracle?” This was followed by him trying to tell us to go look at the altar, us explaining that we already had and asking “Wo ist Jesus?”. He said that we couldn’t see it now, to which we explained that, no, we couldn’t come back later because we had to catch our train back to Innsbruck. Finally, he decided to come to the Church and bring out the Miraculous Host for us. I started crying… it was so good of him. I think that he was so cold at first because he though we were just tourists looking for a cool attraction. When he realized how much it meant to us (probably clued in by my steady fifteen minutes of crying), he warmed up a great deal. Anyways, so, he brought Jesus out, set Him on the altar, and we knelt in front of the Sanctuary (the area at the front of the church, up the steps). Then, he told us we could move even closer. We got to kneel at the foot of the altar, literally inches away from the Body of Christ. No one took pictures. Obviously. We were busy being completely caught up in the beauty of our King. I did get a picture off the internet though.
I cried the whole time. I was so happy I almost forgot to breathe. Then he offered us Benediction (special blessing given with the Eucharist during Adoration). This involved him lifting the Monstrance in the air, making the Sign of the Cross with it. At the exact moment he lifted Jesus up, I’m not kidding, bagpipes started playing. No joke. It was the most ridiculously wonderful moment ever. He put Jesus back in the Tabernacle and we thanked him. A lot. We asked him his name, and quickly forgot it (fail), and promised to pray for him, which we have done. Then we went outside, where we saw the troop of Scottish bagpipe players that was, out of absolutely no where, randomly walking through this tiny town in Austria. Documentation:
It was such a beautiful day!!!
Random archway we decided to take pictures in. Like my hat-hair?
Again, dirty window, but if you can ignore that, the pics are pretty sweet.
It was ridiculous trying to get pictures between tunnels. I kept the picture above for the sake of remembering that at least half of the pics I got on this train ride
This would be the best picture ever, if it wasn’t for the fact that Storm’s face is floating on the mountain. Dumb window.
Back in Innsbruck!
The Youth Winter Olympics were in town. How cool is that?
Schwanky lookin hotel
Coolest bar name ever. If it didn’t look so sketchy we would have gone in.
The Cathedral!
While we were in St. Jacob’s Cathedra, Emily found a Perpetual Adoration Chapel. That is where Jesus, in the Eucharistic Host, is exposed in a Monstrance 24/7. We have a chapel like this at St. Paul’s. It was a huge blessing to be able to sit with Him in the quiet. Then we walked back to the train station.
This one is pretty self-explanatory.
We grabbed some huge slices of pizza for a couple euro, and caught our train. Four hours later we started the series of transfers and shorter rides that got us back to Sheibbs, and we took a bus from there home to Gaming.
We were talking about how blessed our trip had been, and we realized that it was only so amazing because we had made it such a point to keep the focus on Jesus. We made Him part of our group. See? That’s His seat. ^^
Storm thought that he smelled smoke. (More fuego. It was the theme of our trip.) He freaked out. It involved some really great facial expressions. I missed the best ones, but I got the aftermath, when he was ready to jump up, grab us all, and carry us off the train single-handedly. When the smell went away and he chilled out, I asked him to make the face again. The first picture is the freak out. The following are his attempts to recreate it.
Then we told him he was making a pathetic attempt at being terrified. We told him to pretend someone was hurting Mary, and he made this face:
Then he gave up and started modeling. It was terrifying to capture on film, but I persevered.
Emily’s reaction to Storm’s modeling:
Mary has an uncanny ability to not need to use restrooms when she convinces herself they are too gross. This is her “I have dominant organs” pose:
We got home safe and sound. Actually, we met a few other students coming back from their trips, and we all caught the same bus. Because we were the only ones on the bus, the driver dropped us off directly at the Kartause. (:
We were pretty tired, but our group decided to end the trip the right way. We dragged ourselves to the chapel, luggage and all, and prayed together. I am so, so blessed to have such great friends. God did a lot of work in our hearts that weekend. It’s funny looking back, because it was already so long ago! In so many ways it feels like it was yesterday. Time is flying by.
Next up is the post about Prague. Then Poland (prepare yourself for multiple posts on that one). Then the Regina Angelorum pilgrimage, and then Rome and Assisi! I’m sorry it’s taking so long to get stuff up here, but I think it’s worth it to make the posts so detailed. I want to look back and remember it all!
Love you all <3
