The Lepers.

29. Who are the lepers in your life? Embrace them. 

St. Damien

St. Damien of Molokai was a Belgian priest from the 1800s, known as "the leper priest" because he volunteered to go on an assignment to live amongst the leper colony in Honolulu, Hawaii. The lepers there had been cast out of society because of their grotesque appearance and highly contagious disease. Yet Father Damien lived in their midst, reaching out at touching lepers of all ages. Within 8 years, he had contracted the deadly disease, but continued to build hospitals, churches, and hundreds of coffins for the community until his death in 1885. At his canonization in 2009, Benedict XVI noted that he "made the choice to go on the island of Molokai in the service of lepers who were there, abandoned by all. So he exposed himself to the disease of which they suffered. With them he felt at home. The servant of the Word became a suffering servant, leper with the lepers, during the last four years of his life." 

We all have lepers in our lives. Maybe they don't have a nasty disease but they drive us crazy or know exactly how to annoy us. Maybe they make us feel uncomfortable or grossed out. They aren't the people we look forward to seeing or spending time with and we avoid them whenever possible. These are our lepers. 

We are called to not just put up with these people, but to EMBRACE them on a daily basis. I want to try to be more like St. Damien and put my wants and comforts aside and take on the thorns of others, even if it means giving up all I have, never able to go back. He took on their ugliness and pain and lived among them, just as Jesus took on our ugliness and pain. Its not just an action for Jesus to do, we can do it to. Awesome. 

30. We make excuses not to spend time with the ones we dislike, not the One we should love. 

Boom baby. What's your best excuse? Studying? Cleaning? Working? Seeing the Eiffel Tower? LAME. All of them are lame.

31. You're not missing out. Go be alone. 

Ok, I admit it. My name is Corinne Kathryn Purcell and I have chronic FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). This escalated in Austria because I was determined to make the most of my time there and go out and do as much as I could with as many different people as possible. I pretty much lived from movie night to movie night because I just could not say NO! It's sad, I know.

For the most part this is not necessarily a bad thing. Living in the moment is a great way to live and get the most out of life and God's plan for every second of every day. But, news flash, alone time is also invaluable. It's also almost impossible to find at the Kartause. There are people in every crevice and corner; but we forget that there are massive mountains and lakes and hiking paths surrounding that monastery. That means plenty of places to hop on a bike and ride to and just be alone with your thoughts and with God and His creation. It's just as memorable as good times had with other people, the difference is that those are memories that no one else will ever have but you. Find a place where no one else knows but you and go there when you can. Sometimes these are the only sane moments you can snag.

In fact, if you don't any spend time alone, you actually ARE missing out. You are losing precious time that the Lord has set aside in the day for you to be still and listen to only Him, away from the background noise.


32. Don't let distance stop you from going where ever you want to go. 

When you have to make travel plans pretty much every weekend, from train reservations to hostel booking, the one thing that is mysteriously not taken into account is distance (within reason). Especially having the Eurail pass that is prepaid fare, you can go anywhere in Europe. If you want to go to Paris and it's 24 hours away by train, you still go to Paris. If you want to go to Hallstatt, Austria, which is about 4 hours away, you can go. The hours spent in the train never mattered. Time was just a means from one memory to the next. We live in a very small world, friends. Go where you want to go, and be all there.

Photo cred: Matt Seal