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

Ambassador in Chains.

At this point, I am a little over halfway through my list of 41 lessons God taught me in Austria. When I started, it was a project that was more for the purpose of remembering why and where I learned them before too much time passed and they were forgotten. But I am realizing more and more that these are invaluable memories that I will never forget, because they have shaped and molded me into who I am. I thought I was officially unpacked from the semester when I put the suitcase back in storage and uploaded the last pictures. But the real unpacking is going on right here. And I have a feeling it will be going on for the rest of my life. Praise the Lord! 

25. Pray as a family.

The greatest witnesses I met in Austria were the professors and their children. Each and every family is a shining example of how all families should strive to live. They eat meals together, they play together, they help each other. But most importantly, they attend daily Mass together, they take shifts at adoration, and they pray rosaries together. It helps when you have enough kids where each one can lead a decade! I have felt many powerful emotions, seeing a couple kneeling with their arms around each other whispering prayers in the back of the church after Mass, or watching my professor run to the adoration chapel in the 15 minutes between his classes. In Romania, I rode with the Newton family in their van to one of the schools in the countryside that we were visiting. Despite a few throwing up in the backseat  and some nodding off, they pressed on and the rosary was completed TWICE during that trip. The littlest ones couldn't even keep count of the Hail Marys but it didn't matter because they all helped each other. Mrs. Newton offered beautiful meditations on each of the mysteries, and Prof. Newton chimed in with little theological tidbits. All of this occurred in British accents, by the way. It was one of the most beautifully raw rosaries I have ever been a part of, and I know one day my children will follow this tradition, too.

26. Forgive your spouse every night, and ask for their forgiveness. 

Ok this is revolutionary, folks. Well maybe not, because I don't have a spouse or any experience in this field whatsoever, but I love it. One night in Gaming, the wives and mothers formed a panel about dating and marriage for the ladies to go and ask questions and listen to their stories. One of them shared that she and her husband sit down on the bed each night and forgive each other and ask forgiveness for any time they have wronged the other during that day. That act of humbling themselves and baring themselves before God and one another is what allows their relationship to thrive and be sustained. We often go through the day, totally unaware of something we said or did that may have hurt or upset those we love the most. It's scary and vulnerable and uncomfortable. It almost sounds excessive and over the top. I'm a single college student, but even I can recognize that this kind of communication is crucial to the husband-wife commitment to lead each other to heaven. This practice is another one that I plan to one day incorporate into my relationship with my future spouse.

27. Stop complaining. Instead, offer your pain for those who truly suffer. 

This one is so hard for me. Complaints just fall out of my mouth with no pretense or thought. If I'm hungry, tired, or not feeling well, I just say it out loud. More often than not, I fall into hypochondria and exaggeration before I even attempt to think reasonably about how I'm actually feeling. A little of that is my hypochondriac personality, but mostly I just don't think before I start ranting. In my defense, it's usually a matter-of-fact statement rather than an annoying whine but maybe that's all in my head, too!  However, parts of my life have helped me to cut back on this bad habit and keep my mouth closed (for the most part).

First, my adopted brothers and sisters. My sisters lived in an orphanage in the Philippines their entire lives, from when they were 1 and 2 years old, until they came home to us when they were 11 and 12. They were healthy and fed three meals a day there, but there was absolutely no wasting and no extras. They each had a small plastic bin of clothes and that was it. But on Christmas, each child at the home goes through their bin and chooses something they don't need and they all bring of those clothes outside to the children on the streets who have even less than they do. And here I am complaining that the dryer is slowly eating my socks. They've been home with us for almost 8 months now and they still eat whatever is placed in front of them, whether they like it or not. Ok, they are a little picky now, but their concept of need vs. want is far more mature that the average preteen's.

Street children in the Philippines. 

Through various and sundry experiences and influences like these, I have come to realize one thing. Complaining does absolutely nothing. It makes nothing any better and doesn't even make me feel better. But keeping that complaint inside and offering that discomfort to the Lord for someone else, that actually accomplishes something. That offering makes use of my suffering for good, rather than doing nothing at all.

28. I am an ambassador in chains. 

This bold statement is made by the St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. He urges us to take on the armor of God, the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith to resist the evil one. He then goes on to say, "With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones. And also for me, that speech may be given me to open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, so that I may have the courage to speak as I must." [Eph. 6:18-20]

Those three verses call out to me. They may as well have been written in a letter to Corinne, instead of the Ephesians. I love the imagery of putting on our armor and preparing for battle against the flaming arrows of the evil one. We are warriors in God's army, fighting for love and truth that has already been won. 

Warriors. The Stella kind.
(That's me, second from right.)

But what does he mean by being "in chains"? Doesn't sound like a very effective missionary. Now, I'm no scriptural theologian, but Paul was literally in chains when he wrote this letter to the Christians in Ephesus. It it believed that during one of his periods of imprisonment, he wrote this letter to encourage and build up the people, despite his afflictions and bondage. He was even known to minister to those who held him captive. He knew that the gospel could not be bound by chains and he was an ambassador of the Word regardless of his own bondage, physically or spiritually. 

In my travels, I often felt chained by exhaustion, by time crunches, by language barriers. It was a struggle to reach beyond strict travel schedules or various discomforts to be present as a witness where ever I went at the same time. But, praise God, it was always fruitful when I succeeded to do so. 

Let's chain ourselves to something greater, like the cross, and be missionaries of the Spirit even when it seems impossible. 

St. Paul, pray for us. 

Real Talk.

20. You can never eat too much Milka or too many kebabs. 

These two are going to kill me for this but these pictures are too perfect. I just won't tell them about it. Julia's face (on left) is not disgust, but rather, "There's no Oreo Milka left, we are going to die."

And I can't look at that kebab anymore because I'm drooling all over the place and that's really inappropriate for my age.

21. Travel is about adventure and unmade plans. 

We had no idea where we were. 

This is another one that is self-explanatory. If you need to have a plan in order to have fun, please go for it. But otherwise, do a little research, book a clean hostel, and MAKE TRAIN RESERVATIONS and just go. Travel overnight, sit next to strangers, sleep wherever you can. Pack light, and bring deodorant and rub it everywhere and you should be fine. If you feel like you are going crazy from lack of sleep, you probably are. So just roll with the punches and take a video so you can look back and laugh later. You'll need that laugh when you get lost or stranded somewhere and you wonder if you'll ever see home again. Welcome every mishap as a surprise adventure and add it to the long list of memories. There is nothing I regret. Not a single Milka bar.


22. Love is needed everywhere.

I bought my first pair of TOMS right before Austria and did a really hipster thing and wrote with Sharpie on the soles of them. I wrote "Take me where love is needed," because I was being all symbolic and sentimental and I wanted those unbelievably comfortable shoes to take my feet to the places where I was called to be. I wanted to live out Mother Theresa's call for us to be Christ's hands and feet on this earth. As it turns out, those shoes taught me a lesson that I should have realized before I even wrote that message on them. Love is needed everywhere. Duh. That is so hard to get our minds around because we are so used to thinking, usually subconsciously, that certain people need or deserve more love than others at any given time. It didn't matter where I wore those shoes, which happened to be everywhere, I was called to be there in that moment. But the gypsies in the slums in Romania need my love just as much as the  bag lady that sits outside the basilica everyday on my way to work in Baltimore. I know that, but I don't always act on it. I walked through that slum with a bleeding heart, but if I'm late for work I sometimes just pass that misfortunate woman like I passed the tree on the block before.

Love is needed everywhere. So take it there yourself.

Hopefully, you won't need your worn-out, smelly shoes to tell you that.

23. Even during the most horrific of tragedies, there is mercy and hope. 

Ah yes, I've been looking forward to this one. This is a biggie. In February, we went on a school trip to Poland. After seeing the miraculous image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, we headed to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. I was not and could not have been mentally prepared for what I experienced there. (I have told many people about this already so I apologize if I repeat myself.) You can read a library of books about the Holocaust and watch every World War II movie out there and still not be able to adequately comprehend what happened there until you step between the barbed wire fences where it all happened. I didn't say a word that whole day. No one did. There was nothing you could say that wouldn't sound stupid and menial. It was something that everyone should go see but that I never want to see again. Ever. I walked through the cold, wet weather through various cells and torture rooms and filthy living quarters. I passed the execution wall and the place where escapees were hanged for all to see. I walked into the cement gas chamber and walked out the other side, barely able to catch my breath. I saw piles and massive mounds of things that belonged to innocent people who ended up dying with nothing, not even the hair on their heads. One room held thousands of suitcases with names painted on them, as if their owners planned to come back to get them and finally go back home. We also went a few miles down the road to the death camp at Birkenau. As we walked through the snow and slush along the fateful train tracks that ended at the gas chambers, I opened my coat and let my face and hands sting in the freezing wind. I wanted to feel alive. 

Auschwitz

I felt anger and disbelief. I felt hatred. This event was not so far off from the holocaust of the innocent unborn that happens every day, as we speak. How can people walk through this camp and shake their heads at the black souls of the Nazis, but they don't bat an eyelash at the thousands that suffer and die before they even get a breath of air? How bad is it going to get before people are as horrified at that, as they are at the Jewish Holocaust? I. was. so. angry. 

Birkenau

Then I did it. I despaired. I believed that there was no hope left for us. 

But Professor Cassidy had warned us of this. He said, "Before you give in to that despair, make the choice to get back on the bus and go experience Divine Mercy." So I got back on the bus with the other somewhat stunned students and we headed to Krakow. I felt like I could finally breathe. Divine Mercy is one of the most beautiful undeserved gifts we can ever receive.  

   
I love this image of St. Faustina's vision because it reveals something that the normal Divine Mercy image doesn't really show. 

Those rays are shooting out of His heart to flood over us. 

In her diary, St. Faustina wrote these words that she heard from Christ, "There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted-it increases. The soul that trusts in My mercy is most fortunate, because I  myself take care of it.” (1273)

I hope that I can count myself as one of those blessed souls.  

24. The Divine Mercy chaplet isn't just helpful, it is necessary. 

This basic prayer may take under ten minutes, but it is a desperate plea for mercy and a pledge of trust. It is also a guaranteed conduit for mercy and graces. 

"Say unceasingly the Chaplet that I have taught you. Whoever will recite it, they will receive great mercy at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy." (Diary, 687)

Rather, hope.

Pope Benedict XVI. Crying. 

15. Real men cry.

They just do. From the biggest, most moving events, to the smallest touching moments. One weeknight in Austria, I watched The Notebook with two of the most incredibly manly men I know, and one cried (and even knew which parts to cry at), and the other fought the tears with anger. And that is ok. If you have a big heart, then you won't be afraid to let it shine through. Be moved. It's a beautiful thing.

You know who you are. :)

Warrior brothers. Crying. 

Ray Lewis. SuperBowl champ. Crying. 

The most real man of our time. Crying. 

16. We receive a changed heart every day. 

You could say this sentence became my theme for the semester. Thank goodness for continual conversion and constant stirring of the spirit in my heart, or I'd be running on the treadmill of an empty life. One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of the adulteress in John chapter 8. She feels like she can never get out of this deep, dark hole she has found herself in. She feels like her situation is all her fault and no one can save her now, because her life will always be a dirty mess. She feels like she will only be remembered as the cheater, the whore, the girl who has no self-control, because that is what she is. I don't deserve to go on because nothing will change, she thinks. So often we join her there, curled up on the ground, weighed down by hopelessness. It's nothing new, this stoning punishment. Then, as she crouches there in the dust, bracing herself for the blows, she hears a voice over her. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." To her amazement, she hears the stones fall from their hands to the ground around her and soon she is alone with Him. He looks her in the eyes and says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and do not sin again." He made her new. He placed a new heart where the stony one had been, so that she could get up and move forward. Every morning, when I open my eyes, after hitting snooze 36 times, I ask for a new heart. A heart that isn't prideful like it was yesterday, a heart that isn't lukewarm like it was yesterday, a heart that isn't despairing like it was yesterday. And every morning, he says to me, "Behold, I make all things new."

"Neither do I condemn you."

Here is a video I made for the middle school religious ed at my parish about God's never-ending promise to make us new again. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCHIA6e-aIg&feature=youtu.be 

17. Do not despair for this generation who reject the Lord, there is hope. 

When I went on mission to Romania, I spent most of my days planning the youth night events for the teens. I then spent my nights doing skits and making a fool of myself, giving talks on chastity and prayer, and leading small groups along with my team. Then, I did it all over again. It was exhausting in every meaning of the word, but especially when I spoke to the teens and felt their ominous despair. It seemed like they all want to leave Romania because they feel like they can't be themselves and fulfill their dreams there. They feel like they are trapped in the world and there is no other choice. Many of them could not even comprehend why we would rather enjoy our careers than make the most money (i.e. youth minister, missionary, teacher). It was very hard to meet them there and break through those high walls that they didn't even know they were building. My team and I often felt pulled down too, at times running out of words to encourage them. But by the end of the week, buried deep within them...there was a tiny seed of hope. One after the other, they asked questions and leaned forward intently as we told them about adoration and confession and chastity. I don't know what they are doing today, but at least they know that hope is a real and living Person.

18. Everyone has a home in the Catholic Church, especially in Rome. 

If I had to describe how I felt when I walked into St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in one word, it would beyond a doubt be HOME. I know this seems to go against my other post, but really it doesn't. That place is the heart of the Body of Christ, that is the Church. Even if you aren't Catholic, that place is your home, and you know that as soon as you step through the doorway and your breath is taken away by the sheer massiveness and beauty of it all. My neck got tired from wandering around with my head up in the air and my mouth open like a dork. There's even a kind of holy light filtering through the upper windows that gives the whole basilica a glow. That feeling of awe can only be attributed to the realization that we belong to something much bigger than our youth group, our parish, or our school. We belong to the Catholic Church, the oldest church founded by Christ, Himself. There are 1.2 billion people who all follow the same beautiful and unchanging teachings, all lead by one man, Pope Francis. Oh, and he happens to live right around the corner from St. Peter's.

Everyone belongs.

Everyone should feel an unmistakeable pull towards Rome.

I know I always will.

19. If the Church is our home, why wouldn't we run to her?? 

This is embarrassing because the person who said this most definitely has no idea that his passing comment has stuck in my mind all this time. So, I am sorry Nick, if you happen to read this and think I'm a crazy lady! :) My friend Nick is a seminarian. He sat behind me on the bus on the long and miserable road trip through the night from Gaming to Rome. We arrived in Rome around 6AM and there was an appointed group that was prepared to run, yes I said run, through the streets to St. Peter's Square to get a spot in line for Pope Benedict XVI's last audience. At one point as the bus was parking, I turned around and Nick was magically wearing his cassock. I said, "Are you a runner?" to which he replied, "I'm home! Why wouldn't I be running??" I was moved. And he was off at a sprint after his beautiful  Bride-to-be, the big ol' Church. Awesome. Thanks, Nick!