In Their Steps: Holy Week 2016

Near the beginning of the semester, one of my friends pointed out a step in a doorway in Amsterdam to me. She observed that it was an unassuming sort of step, but a significant one nonetheless because of the way it marked the passage of time. One side of it was particularly worn, so much so that a prominent groove had been carved into it by the thousands, perhaps millions, of people who had stepped through that doorway. People had come and gone, some passing once and some dozens of times, and the step had remained and been permanently changed as it greeted each passerby.

Since that first notable encounter with a grooved step worn smooth by time, I have been thinking a lot about steps. In the midst of a semester during which I am learning so many things about “official” history, encountering churches and palaces and museums and monuments, not to mention my Global History class and the fact that I am immersed in a city brimming with interesting history, I am grateful to my friend for drawing my attention to this particularity of “everyday” history. Worn steps do not discriminate in history; they have been formed by people from all over the world, from different time periods and different religions and different socioeconomic backgrounds. They bear the marks of the people who have gone before us into or out of a building, through a passageway, up or down a staircase. Worn steps mark the incarnate nature of humanity as we move through the world.

The Amsterdam step

As a pilgrim in Rome during Holy Week, I thought about steps a lot this past weekend. Not only did I notice worn-down steps around practically every corner in the Eternal City, but I also became acutely aware of how many people had gone before my fellow pilgrims and me on the journey on which we had the privilege of embarking. We visited the four principal cathedrals in Rome, walking through Holy Doors at all four and keeping our family and friends present in our prayer as we went. We participated in the tradition of traveling to various altars of repose on the evening of Holy Thursday, kneeling down before Jesus reserved in the tabernacle in twelve different stunning churches among pilgrims from all over the world. We visited relics from Christ’s Passion on Good Friday, saw the first known depiction of Mary holding Jesus deep in catacombs under Rome, and prayed the Stations of the Cross on the famous Spanish Steps.

Everywhere we went, I was reminded of the universality of our faith and was repeatedly stunned by the unique way Rome can trace the history of Christian faith, Catholicism in particular, through places and objects. Our wonderful student pilgrimage leader kept reminding us of the incarnate reality of our faith as we encountered one breathtaking cathedral after another and discovered evidence of Jesus’ real presence through holy places, objects, and art.

A view of St. Peter's from atop the North American College in Rome

My two favorite pilgrimage moments in Rome happened on two of the most significant days of the liturgical year: Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Both involved steps, physical and figurative.

On Good Friday, we had the opportunity to join pilgrims from all over the world in ascending the Scala Sancta, or the Holy Steps. Packed in shoulder to shoulder and knee to foot, we knelt and crawled our way up twenty-eight stairs that are said to be the ones Christ climbed to meet Pontius Pilate on the day of his sentencing. On each step, we reflected on a different moment in the Passion narrative, asking Christ to have mercy on us as we entered into His suffering through prayer and asking Mary to intercede for us: “Holy Mother, bring it about that the wounds of the Lord be impressed in my heart.” With each step, also, we encountered searing physical pain from the wood beneath us that was exaggerated by the groves carved into the steps by millions of pilgrims digging into our knees. I wept both because of physical pain and because of the realization that this was perhaps the smallest sliver of an example of the suffering that Christ endured for us. This emotion-filled experience was also prayer incarnate. We prayed in the footsteps of not only innumerable fellow pilgrims, but also in the footsteps of Christ Himself.

After we walked in Jesus’ steps through the communion and repose of Holy Thursday and entered into the suffering of Good Friday and the subdued nature of Holy Saturday, the victorious celebration of Easter Sunday arrived! We waited in line outside the Vatican beginning at 6:00 a.m. in order to celebrate Mass at 10:15 a.m. with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square, and we had the immense fortune of sitting in the section closest to the altar at the front of the square. Around 8:00 a.m., we entered into a space that physically marks the beauty of the Catholic Church. The shape of the square is enclosed by curved sets of columns that were designed to look like a welcoming hug surrounding the people gathered in the square, and these columns are topped with 144 statues of saints, assembled together above the faithful. These saints represent the entire Communion of Saints present in prayer with those who are in the square. Above the main façade of St. Peter’s Basilica stand Jesus, eleven of His disciples, and John the Baptist, who points up to heaven. Peter, the disciple missing from the group, is present in the man perched on the balcony below: the pope who has apostolically succeeded him. 

Mom and me awaiting Pope Francis' arrival from our seats in St. Peter's Square

Millions of faithful have made pilgrimages to the site of St. Peter’s since Peter was martyred there in 64 AD, and entering into this tradition of our universal, apostolic church was an unbelievable privilege. It was astounding to consider how many life stories and journeys, struggles and joys were present in the square for Mass that day. Walking in the steps of pilgrims gone before us, we were blessed with the opportunity to make Mass with Papa Francesco himself part of our incarnate spiritual journeys. Never have I been so awestruck at the universal, enduring, joy-filled nature of the Catholic faith. He is Risen – Buona Pasqua!

We were this close to Papa Francesco! Image by Ben Swanson.

Sacred Woman Time

My family is here! I feel so grateful to be hosting my mom, grandma, and youth minister from home in London this week. They arrived in London on Friday, and we immediately hit the ground running. We have continued my quest to find the yummiest of each cultural food in London (so far we have had Spanish tapas, Italian pizza, Chinese dim sum, English fish ‘n chips, Egyptian lentils, and Indian naan), toured Westminster Abbey, visited a couple markets and museums, shared High Tea, and watched Beautiful the musical.

Planning this trip was different from any other vacation I have adventured on with my family before. This is the first time I have hosted any of my family members in a place that is solely “mine.” Hosting family at Notre Dame is always incredibly special because it is my home and because it is a sacred family space: my parents met, got engaged, and were married on the Notre Dame campus and my brothers and I grew up visiting for my mom’s band reunion football games. Campus is a home on so many levels for me, one being that it makes me so happy to imagine my parents and so many other members of the Notre Dame family going before those of us there now.

London is another story: none of my family members have lived here before. There is no set path laid before me: there are a thousand ways to get to any one destination. Everything I have the privilege of showing my mom, grandma and youth minister is, in a sense, my own. Thus, while planning the trip, I was largely in charge of picking activities out for our itinerary. This was an entirely new experience for me, as my mom is the master planner for our family. And though she did a huge amount of planning and organization in order to pull this trip off, she allowed me to design a pilgrimage of sorts through London to show her my new home. She, my grandma, and my youth minister – three of my biggest role models – handed over the role of leader to me this week. What an empowering gift.

My guests are here for five days and then we will all head to Rome for the Holy Week pilgrimage organized by Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry. I had anticipated that our time in London would be highly touristy and filled up with seeing my favorite spots in the city and that Rome would be our time for spiritual pilgrimage. But one of my favorite things we have done in London so far has been something rather unrelated to the (wonderful) typical touristy activities we have engaged in: beginning our pilgrimage here.

On Saturday, we traveled through the Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral, the Mother Church for Roman Catholics in England and Wales. Sunday, we attended Palm Sunday Mass to kick off Holy Week at St. Patrick’s Church in SoHo, the church I have come to call my London parish. Again, we processed through a Holy Door there. We have blessed our food with a prayer very special to my family at every meal, including those we have shared with my friends. We have said night prayer at Westminster Abbey and in the chapel of my dorm with several friends from the London program.

Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral

Participating in these things with my mom, grandma, and youth minister has emphasized a very important, very timely reminder just before we head to Rome: pilgrimages are just as internal they are external. Our special time in London has begun to prepare us internally for our encounter with Christ in Rome on Easter morning. And over the next several days, as we continue journeying through Holy Week, everything we encounter will further this preparation.

Tomorrow, we head to Rome. I can hardly wait to experience Italy for the first time and to taste its world-famous gelato. But even more so, I am looking forward to making a pilgrimage to one of the most important places in the Catholic faith with three of the most important women in my life.

Thank You, Study Abroad: I Believe in Soulmates

What happens when three women and two men from five different dorms, five different home states, and five different majors become friends in London, England? They embark on a week-long journey to Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary together, of course. And they manage to emerge on the other side even closer friends than when they began their adventure.

One of the most beautiful things about the study abroad program at Notre Dame is the social aftermath. I first noticed it at the start of junior year: my friends who were freshly minted members of the senior class returned to campus from their summer breaks particularly energized. This could be attributed to a myriad of causes, of course: particularly enjoyable summers, time spent with friends and family away from stressful schoolwork, the opportunity to return to their home under the Dome for one last hurrah…but this particular energy very clearly fed off of one another.

It was the reunions in the hallways of my dorm between people I didn’t know knew each other that I noticed. The seniors running across South Quad and shouting across North Dining Hall to greet people walking in different groups and chatting in various circles. Somehow, the whole of the senior class seemed to know each other come the great Return to Campus. Boundaries had disappeared. Social groups had merged and morphed and melted together.

I have a theory that all of this is due to the study abroad program at Notre Dame, and that it happens, or at least has the potential to happen, every year. It’s part of what makes senior year at ND so sweet: whether students study abroad first semester, second semester, over the summer, or not at all, new friendships flourish as people come and go from campus and study abroad destinations all over the world.

I feel incredibly fortunate to know that this study abroad social effect is already shaping me in a big way. Take my flat (aka apartment) in London, for example: six of us live together from five different dorms, two different home countries, and six completely different friend groups and activity sets on campus. Perhaps some of us could have become friends at Notre Dame through a mutual friend or by chance, but up until junior year none of us knew each other beyond being distant acquaintances. It took randomly sorting us into a six-person flat in London, England for us to become friends and incredibly compatible roommates. When we begin introducing one another to the friends we so often chat about after we return to campus senior year, the study abroad social effect will begin to run its course: friendships will breed friendships. Social groups will merge and morph and melt together. We will continue to develop close relationships with people we never would have met otherwise, not because we are incompatible, but because we never had someone or something nudging us towards one another before. 

Flat dinner: Photo by Laura Gruszka

I can point to so many friendships that have developed during this first half of my time abroad with a similar air of awe. They have happened unbelievably naturally, and many have developed because we had heard about one another from mutual friends on campus. Many of these friendships are with people that I know I will be close to for the rest of my life. What a crazy thing to think, that it was London that brought us together at last; sometimes I wonder how in the world I have not had them in my life during my whole college journey. And yet…

Study abroad has made me believe in soulmates. Not in the romantic sense, but in the friendship sense. I believe that God forms people towards special, close connections with others through life experiences, personalities, interests, etc., and that this process is gradual and lifelong. Sometimes, it takes something like London to act as a catalyst for friendships between such soulmates, who have been shaped towards the potential of being excellent companions for one another. I had the privilege of traveling across central Europe with four of my soulmates this past week for spring break.

In these four people and in many more from the London program, I have found lifelong friendships. Many of us knew one another before coming to London, and they were all people I hoped to bond with prior to the start of the semester, but I could not have predicted that we would seamlessly form an unbelievably compatible group dynamic fit for journeying across Europe together for nine days. Over spring break, God and these four people were my only constants, and that was perfectly fine by me.

My spring break travel group knows me so well. They could tell you my favorite “fill-in-the-blank” because we have quizzed one another on endless random favorite things. They could share with you my hopes and dreams and what makes me sad or frustrated, because we have played silly would-you-rather games and shared in deep late-night conversations about life. They could tell you what my daily routine looks like and which foods I crave on a regular basis and what sets my heart ablaze and what makes me belly laugh until I cry, because they have witnessed all of these things firsthand. And I think I could tell you many of these things about them: we have learned how to know and love each other quite well quite quickly, because that is how this whole soulmate thing works. When people are successfully pursuing the selves God has created them to be and striving to align their desires with His, friendships with likeminded and likehearted others doing the same become practically effortless.

The close friendships I have had the opportunity to form while abroad owe a lot to London: our mutual study abroad circumstances were certainly a facilitator for many of the relationships I have developed this semester, and I cannot pretend that they all would have formed naturally had I been on campus for all of junior year. Yet these friendships are not dependent on London. The things that have formed the basis of our friendships – endless laughter, silly and serious conversation, celebrating Mass, cooking and eating delicious food, cozying up with popcorn and blankets for movie nights – are some of my favorite things to do in “real life.” They have nothing at all to do with the location in which they happen, which proved true for the five spring break adventurers as we tested the waters of our friendships in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest this past week. I am sure this stability of friendship beyond London will be consistent with many other “abroad” friendships, too. London gifted us with the opportunity to be friends, but eventual absence from London will not prevent us from remaining friends.

When I asked one of my best friends here if he remembers when we weren’t friends, he replied “no,” to which I responded, “yeah, me neither.” And then he said something that summarizes my thoughts on friendships formed as a result of the study abroad program pretty well: “we were always friends; we just didn’t know it yet.”