Day #96-98 : Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

The Mariathron for Easter!

The Mariathron statue, unveiled for Easter!

I had a beautiful Easter here in Gaming! I went to my first Easter Vigil on Saturday evening. The Mariathron chapel was beautifully decorated for the liturgy, as you can see from the picture. Below is the Mariathron statue, Mary enthroned with Christ on her lap. We began the liturgy out in the courtyard as the sun was setting behind the mountains, blanketed in dark greens of the pines and the lighter greens of the trees. Each of us received candles. The altar boys lit a fire in the courtyard and we lit our candles with a flame from the fire. Then we processed into the dark church and the liturgy began. The Psalms and the readings were so beautiful - of course, it's Scripture, but still... Professor Cassady, our professor from Scotland, chanted the Exultet in English. His voice rose into the rafters of the church along with the incense smoke, deep, beautiful, and reverent. He is one of my favorite professors here on campus, although I don't have a class with him. However, he still knows my name and he still says hello to me. He is also always so reverent at Mass, so absorbed, elevated into the sacred mysteries. One of the LCI students - they are foreign students studying English here at the Kartause - was confirmed at the Vigil, a 

Hungarian by the name of Augustun. 

After the liturgy we had a small Resurrection party with lots of goodies and fellowship. I got to meet Professor Newton, the British professor who teaches sacraments here on campus. He had thanked me for leading music for Holy Thursday after Mass that day, and he asked me tonight if I was a sacred music major. I told him yes. He said, "I understand that the music at the university has changed a lot over the past three years." I told him yes, and it was due largely to the arrival of the sacred music program here on campus. I told him we were going to Vienna for Easter Morning Mass and he informed me of a monastery a little outside Vienna with about 40 monks or so who do some beautiful chanting. I told him that I hoped one day that we could get the sacred music program here in Austria some day. He told me to talk to Professor Wolter about it, and that, "he was very open to new ideas." Perhaps I'll make a stop in to his office before the semester's over...

Easter morning my friend Sylvie and I set out for Vienna at 6 in the morning. We said Morning Prayer on the train, and arrived at St. Stephen's twenty minutes before Mass. We were able to get seats right next to the organ on the right side of the cathedral, almost right in front of where the orchestra was seated. They performed Schubert's Mass in Eb Major, and they chanted the sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes - this is one of my favorite sequences from the liturgical year, especially when it is chanted. The woman chanted the part where the text says, "Speak, Mary, declaring what thou sawest, wayfaring..." The Mass was celebrated by the Cardinal of Vienna, who apparently played a major part in writing the Catechism of the Catholic Church and also wrote a great book on icons which Brian has read. He greeted the people in English at the beginning of the Mass and he also apologized for the length of his German homily to the English speaking people before commencing to preach. At the end of Mass the choir performed Handel's Hallelujah from his Messiah. That was gorgeous! And so memorable! That piece never gets old. Mass lasted two hours, so we had to get right back on the train almost as soon as Mass ended. But it was so worth it! And St. Stephen's is still one of my favorite churches in Europe - that I have seen, anyway. I was sad to say good bye to it. But perhaps I shall see it again, and get to play on the massive organ in their choir loft. Someday.... 

On the way back to Gaming we had a lay over in a small Austrian town for about an hour so we stopped into the Catholic church. They had a lovely statue of St. Agnes there, as you can see... and it was beautifully adorned with flowers for Easter, so I snapped a couple photos. 

St. Agnes, pray for us!

We returned to campus around 5 pm. There was Vespers and Benediction at 6:30 - but I thought it was at 6:45 so I was a little late. However, after Benediction I ran into Professor Cassady outside of the chapel. He thanked me again for the music and I complemented him on his chanting. He wanted to know about where I learned to chant, so I began telling him about our classes back on main campus. He wanted to know how much we studied the theology of chanting and the conversation ended up going for about a half-hour on chant, orchestral masses, what makes music appropriate for the liturgy, etc. It was refreshing to find in him a kindred spirit. He told me how he taught the Byzantine Easter chant to his students one semester because they were all doing poorly on their papers in his class and others, so he taught it to them to give them hope. Then they sang the Matt Maher version of it at the talent show that year. I don't think he appreciated that version as well, but he went along with it. I recommended to him Pope Benedict XVI's The Spirit of the Liturgy. It was such a great help for me with my questions about the liturgy and what is appropriate. We are so blessed to have such a wise Papa! 

Thus, ended my Easter Sunday here in Gaming. Easter Monday was rather quiet. I took a walk into Gaming this morning to see if the stores were open, but most were closed. Joey and I studied for a while in the Francis Room while looking up Elvish music from The Lord of the Rings and various names in Elvish. We then went and played a game called Settlers of Katan in the second floor kitchen with Colin and Nathan. I finished most of my ethics study guide, or what I could finish anyway. We still have one more class tomorrow, so the rest will probably be taken care of tomorrow. My last ethics class! I meet it with some sadness but I am also glad to be finishing up classes as well... I am ready to go home!

Finals are coming up, so please keep me in your prayers! And we have the Beatification of John Paul II on Sunday! We will be leaving on Saturday afternoon for Rome, so keep us in your prayers for safe travels as well. God bless!

Death and life have contended
in that combat stupendous:
the Prince of life, who died,
reigns immortal.

- a passage from Victimae Paschali Laudes

Day #3: The Kartause

This afternoon we went on a tour of the Kartause (which actually means Charter House, fyi). We started the day off with an Orientation meeting, meeting some of the staff, and a tour of the dorms and the classrooms. The tour was given by my Art Appreciation professor, Prof. Healy. We began in the chapel titled Maria Thron (pronounced “Maria Trone”) which means Maria Throne. This is demonstrated particularly in a statue within the sanctuary itself which depicts Mary with the Child Jesus in her lap. God is enthroned in her lap. Also, though, Mary is enthroned in heaven as Queen. The statue is a copy of an original statue at the most famous Marian Shrine in Austria, Mariazell, which I may be visiting later in the semester. 

The original ceiling was a Gothic ceiling built in the 1400s and was fifteen feet higher than the ceiling in the Maria Thron now. The Gothic style was focused on lifting the eyes and the mind towards heaven, so the church is in fact three times as high as it is wide. The second ceiling was built later as the Carthusian monks were claiming that the draft was making them sick because of the cold. 

The dome over the sanctuary of the Kartause was from the Renaissance Period, but it is only apparent on the interior of the chapel : outside it is  a Gothic steeple. The dome was built because it is circle and a circle was representative of heaven, and it is in the sanctuary that heaven touches earth during the divine liturgy. 

In the early 1700s, the paintings on the ceiling were done of the Carthusian founder, St. Bruno. The Carthusians had inhabited the monastery since the 1300s, but they were forced to leave when Emperor Joseph II closed the Kartause in 1782. The emperor closed down any order that he did not believe was doing anything actively useful for society, such as teaching. The Carthusians are a very contemplative order, thus they were closed. The Kartause thus fell into disrepair and was later desecrated when the Russians came to the city and used it as their stable.

In 1983 the architect Hildebrand bought the Kartuase and began renovating it. He later invited the Franciscan University of Steubenville to found a study abroad program here.

We also saw the Baroque library, which had lots of lovely paintings on the ceiling. The Carthusian monks only slept for 3-hour periods and would get up in the middle of the night for prayer, so outside one of the windows of the library we could see, instead of a sun dial, a MOON dial. You learn something new every day! 

A photo of the ceiling from the Baroque library. The central dome was dedicated to the liberal arts. The group in the center is a group of musicians (Brian called them Baroque music ministry, LOL).

The moon dial

We got to go up above the ceiling to see the original ceiling, the beams and the arches. There were two levels: the topmost level was very very dark, while the other was lit by windows and you could see the decorated original painted ceiling. They let us go around the beams to see through the windows to the outside. I have never been so scared in my whole life! You had to cling to the walls as you scooted around the ledge (and I mean a small ledge) until you reached a small passageway between the windows and walls looking outside and the windows and walls looking inside. There was graffiti from the Russians all over the walls of this passageway - they said the Russians came up here and wrote their names because it was considered a feat to get to this place. I could see why! Fortunately Craig, one of the RAs, was around for me to hold onto when it was a little too much, although I think sometimes Craig was just as scared as I was. 

The top most level of the ceiling

The lower of the roof, where we were walking across the actual ceiling, and the ledge we had to climb across to get to the  tower. SCARY! You can see the guy in the black sweater climbing into the cranny between the outer and the inner wall. The cranny goes all the way around the tower to the other side where you have to creep across the ledge again to get back.

A photo shot from the window inside the layer. 

A Russian autograph in the tower wall.

The next stop was the museum, which contained a few altars from the original church. There was no pictures of the original organ though. :-( The original sanctuary was beautiful though, very dark and ornate compared to the original! They also showed us the two side chapels. One of them was more modern, finished in 2009, while the one above it was much older, but both were very simple. 

The final part of the tour was the Byzantine chapel on campus. This was my favorite part of the tour, I think. The written icons were incredibly beautiful, and the way they made the space seem symmetrical and balanced despite the dissimilarities and the imperfections of the room itself was a great accomplishment! The imagery all over the chapel was wonderful, as well. I think I might come there to pray a lot during the semester! 

I ate dinner with one of the LCI students (people from foreign countries who come here to study Catholicism and learn English). He was an older priest by the name of Father Andrej from Slovakia who was working in Siberia until he had a heart attack. Then his boss gave him a year off to go study and such. He was very sweet, and wanted to know about my family and their names and such. His mother was named Emily! 

We had our organ auditions tonight! They went well, but the little electric organ in the choir loft is also tuned differently, so that’ll be an adjustment, esp. for the choir. The space is magnificent, but we're really going to have to be careful to make sure our vowels are very good, otherwise we'll go flat very quickly. :-P Well, people say that Austria is full of new challenges, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find them even in the choir loft! Sister also said we could use the electric keyboard in her office for practicing. Yay for middle C, right where it should be!

I guess we’ll manage somehow. Practicing in Gaming is also in the works. I met with the go-between between the Kartause and the Gaming parish church and she said we would need to speak with Father Franz. Perhaps we will meet with him tomorrow when we take the tour of Gaming. Mass tomorrow will also be in the Gaming parish church. Looking forward to seeing that organ!

Day #1 : Welkommen!

I'm at the Kartause! Our flight went smoothly and I got both of my bags back., so that is wunderbar! One of them has a small tear in them from the flight, but it's very small. My friend Joey, a junior in the pretheologate, was kind enough to help me carry my bags, and I helped carry his. We sat together on the two hours bus ride and drew sloppy diagrams of Nebraska and Ohio. The drive is beautiful! There's no snow right now, so it looks kinda like spring. The water is a greenish blue in the rivers and streams, so it's quite pretty! It winds through the towns and the hills, and there's little bridges that cross over it. It looks like Steve Mcqueen should be racing his motorcycle through the hills here, too! When we arrived at the Kartause there was a group of children (the children of the professors) waiting for us with flowers! They were so cute in their little sweaters and Austria outfits! 
We had Mass at 4 pm in the Kartause chapel. The chapel was pretty, but there was guitar music -guitar music in that space does not work well at all! It gets all muddled. They should sing a cappella just for clarity's sake. The paintings were gorgeous though!  I saw one of St. Cecilia -speaking of which there is a tiny, tiny organ in the corner of the choir loft. That may come in handy... Especially as the little grand piano they have in the lounge area is tuned a whole step below C4!!!! This might make it a bit of an adjustment for practicing purposes. I'll just have to get better at transposing.
A little history about the Kartause: It was originally a Karthusian monastery. When it was divided up after World War II, the Kartause was destroyed by the Russians. However, in the 1980s an architect began to restore it to what it is now, a lovely hotel for tourists and an amazing place to study for us students!
Later today we went exploring. It feels like we're walking around a humbler version of Hogwarts! There's hallways and courtyards and a little dining hall (nothing like the grand one in the Harry Potter movies, unfortunately. I would liken it a little more to a hobbit's pub). The dining hall is a nice place, and the food is decent. I also found the library! Which lead into another library! Which contained a small selection of books about the composers! Mainly the Classical/Romantic Period: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. My music major heart was elated. ^_^
Tomorrow we're going to a Benedictine monastery we passed on the way to the Kartause in a city called Melk. They have a beautiful library - I've seen a couple pictures of it from other Gaming students and it looks like the library in Beauty & the Beast! I'm sooooo excited to see it!!!!! Hopefully pictures will be coming soon! God bless!