WYD Memoirs, cont'd.

Saturday, August 13

This morning we met our buses near the town hall in Sittard and set off on a mini-pilgrimage to Kevelaer, where there was to be an international youth gathering. None of us had ever heard of Kevelaer before, but it turned out to be just across the border into Germany, and to be a fairly significant pilgrimage site. It originated due to an apparition sometime in the 18th century, I believe, somehow connected with an image of Our Lady of Luxembourg. The image itself is quite small, but has been surrounded over the centuries with splendid votive adornments of all kinds. Nearby the small chapel housing the image is another neo-gothic minor Basilica, filled with lovely murals representing all kinds of saints and truths of the faith. A great number of young people from the nearby countries had come for the day, and thus it was the first really international experience of WYD. We saw flags of the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and various parts of France, including a French tricolor bearing a red Sacred Heart on the white portion. (That flag goes back, I think, to St. Margaret Mary, who was asked by Our Lord to tell Louis XIV to put the Sacred Heart on his banner. The king didn’t comply, the revolution overthrew his dynasty fifty years later, and so apparently some modern French Catholics are intent on honoring the Lord’s request.) Bishop DeJong addressed us again, although primarily in German. Fortunately, there were small radios being sold on which we could tune in to simultaneous translation; the radios, we knew, would also come in handy when listening to Pope Benedict later in the week.

There was a Mass in the great basilica with all the pilgrims, mostly in German, but with the Mass parts sung in Latin, though with a contemporary setting. After Mass, lunch was provided, though in a location about a mile from where the rest of the events were occurring, which occasioned once more the reminder that we were on a pilgrimage. I spent the next hour or so in the adoration chapel which had been set up next to the Basilica. There were constantly large numbers of people praying there, and groups of youth from many countries who would from time to time come in and sing various songs, then kneel in silent prayer. The whole experience, like various others I would have later in the week, reminded me of being in the Portiuncula adoration chapel in Steubenville, where one could very tangibly feel the impact that the Lord’s Presence had on the hearts of the young.

On the way back from Kevelaer, I heard Sister Mary Joseph, the Carmelite from St. Louis who had previously spent a year in Sittard, explaining something of the Dutch situation. The diocese of Roermond, in which we were staying, apparently had been fortunate enough to have a bishop who kept his head in the years following the Council when all of the Dutch church was in disarray. This explained in large part the elements of liturgical traditionalism that I had observed. On the other hand, she said, this had in a way left the Church in that part of the country almost unaffected by the renewal desired by the Council, still laboring under a clericalist mentality that made it very difficult to reach out to the young. Sister described the fact that she was horrified to discover that while the church in Roermond was marked by the reverence in worship which many of the seminarians of my generation hunger for, the pews were still empty. The whole conversation was quite thought-provoking, and would continue to make me reflect on the experience we were having with the Church in Holland.

We returned to our host families for dinner; John Mayo and I went out afterwards and walked around the small town of Nieuwstadt, then spent some time with our host watching television: some American satellite TV with Dutch subtitles, and some Dutch coverage of European sports--including one Rens Blom, a swimmer who had been victorious at the World Championships in Helsinki, and who turned out, as Mrs. Lemans proudly told us, to be a native of Sittard.

Sunday, August 14

As we left for church this morning, it was pouring down rain. The thirteenth-century parish church of St. Johannes de Doper (St. John the Baptist) was fairly dark and Gothic-looking. This was the parish’s one Sunday morning Mass, and considering it was simply a typical Sunday in Ordinary Time, it was really quite solemn: incense was used, and above all, the Propers and the Ordinary of the Mass were chanted with great skill by a small Gregorian schola. I had never heard such Mass parts sung at a normal parish Mass, and began to understand how some could feel that Vatican II hadn’t made much liturgical impact here. This was seen further in the fact that the congregation had two basic positions: sitting, which they did through almost all of the singing, and kneeling, which was from the Sanctus to the end of Mass. And I have yet to figure out why their seemed to be no Second Reading: the Gregorian gradual went straight into the Alleluia. Indeed, it seemed that many characteristics of the old Roman rite had been put into the new, even where the new was arguably stronger.

After Mass, we were given brunch by some of the people of the parish in the house next door, which would have served as the rectory but for the fact that Fr. Hans lived in the next parish over, for which he was also responsible--a situation all too familiar to many Americans. Some of the other St. Louisans staying in Niewstadt were there as well, and together with them and their host families, we went out after lunch for a walk around the town, including to its cemetery, where we discovered that cremation has apparently become, of late, the burial practice of choice for the Dutch. One can understand the practical reasons, in a country short on land area and with centuries of dead already, but at the same time I couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t yet another indication of the de-Christianizing of the culture at large.

That afternoon we boarded the buses in Sittard with our host families, and headed south a little to Margraten, a town near Maastricht which is most famous for one of the largest American WWII cemeteries. There we saw a huge map demonstrating all the Allied campaigns in this area, as well as a wall with the names of many who were MIA and whose bodies were never found. The cemetery was full of plain white crosses, set precisely in circular rows, with the name, rank, unit, and serial number of about 5000 Americans. For one like myself, who likes to think primarily of medieval history in connection with European places, it was a sobering reminder of the terrible things that the 20th century held for Europe, and of the fact that the places I was privileged to visit in such a leisurely fashion were only accessible because Americans my age had come there 60 years ago at the risk of their lives. As great as our sacrifices in Iraq had been, they paled in the face of the sacrifices made by that generation, of whom twice as many as had been killed in Iraq lay in this one cemetery alone. In the small museum nearby, we saw the stories of the six men buried at Margraten who had received the Congressional medal of honor, all posthumously: amazing stories of men falling on grenades to save their comrades, single-handedly attacking and knocking out several machine-gun positions, laying for hours pinned down under heavy fire in order to accurately reconnoitre enemy positions, officers running when already severely wounded under fire to rescue wounded men--stories like this gave one reason to appreciate why, even today, the Dutch have immense respect and care personally for the graves of fallen Americans.

Back in Sittard, we had a final barbecue near the old Dominican (now Precious Blood) convent, where a few of us snuck into the lovely Baroque chapel, full of exquisite dark woodwork, to pray first vespers of the Assumption. After dinner I had occasion to have a Dutch beer with John Mayo in front of a small tavern looking onto the town square Sittard. We thought back on what we had seen that afternoon, and on what a time-lapse video of that now peaceful square would show, as one army after another had marched through it in the tumultuous course of history.

Monday, August 15

Today, after a quick breakfast, we had to say farewell to our gracious hostess. We gave her various gifts associated with our home in St. Louis, and she in turn presented us with some fine European chocolates of which I have managed to limit myself to one a day, hitherto. We left Sittard and headed south again, this time directly to the ancient city of Maastricht, the capital of the Limbourg province. Here all the youth of the diocese of Roermond and their guests from America and other countries were coming together for a final send-off. We were welcomed in the City Hall, a modern building nonetheless historic in that the EU was formed there in 1992, and it was also there that the Euro was adopted.

We walked down the Rhine (or Rijn, in Dutch) to the university campus, where our old friend Bishop DeJong addressed us, as well as the mayor of the town. We then crossed the river into the old section of the city, where we found yet another minor Basilica, dedicated to Our Lady. Here we found a truly beautiful and time-honored image of Mary, Star of the Sea, and I had the memorable experience of trying to affix a votive candle amid a sea of already burning ones without singing my hand. It was a great joy to entrust to Mary in this cavernous Romanesque basilica so many needs of myself, my loved ones, and the whole world.

After lunch, which consisted of a delicious and plentiful onion soup, I headed for yet ANOTHER minor Basilica, that of St. Servatius, a bishop from Armenia (wow) who had evangelized the area in the fourth century. We’re talking faith with very deep roots. The Church was packed with young people of various nationalities, and I was left sitting on the floor next to a pillar. The Mass was celebrated by the actual bishop of Roermond, an elderly man with only one good eye, who was gracious enough to say the whole Mass in English (except the Our Father, which he directed to be said by each in his own language, resulting in a Babel-like 30 seconds. I thought that’s why we had Latin:). An interesting feature of the liturgy was the presence of not one but two thurifers, carrying censers of great size, which they swung continuously in front of the altar all the way through the Gloria. When incensing us at the Offertory, their perfectly synchronized parallel movements were quite remarkable. There was, as well, a fellow in a cocked-hat with a long staff who walked at the head of the procession and seemed to be a sort of "drum-major", signalling when the priests should move. But above all the interesting local variations, there was the joy of celebrating our mother’s assumption with Catholics from so many places. After Mass, I went to the crypt to see the tomb of St. Servatius up close, and then we headed to the buses for our departure from Holland. We headed north a little, and then due east into Germany, and by about dinner time we were in Dusseldorf. After a long and laborious process of registering at the hotel, which was very conveniently located next door to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), the seminarians met with Fr. Butler to plan our next day’s excursion to Bavaria, before retiring for a few hours of much-needed rest.

Below is the beginning of the transcription of our adventures in Europe; they are about three weeks removed now, but I entertain the vain hope that some of you might find them interesting. 

Memoirs of WYD ’05

Wed., Aug. 10

We awoke at a fairly decent hour for Mass in the college chapel with Fr. Brennan, celebrating, appropriately enough, the feast of St. Lawrence. After a quick breakfast, we got our stuff and assembled in the lobby, where Msgr. Wojcicki blessed us before we boarded the buses. Fr. Butler having gone ahead with the younger group, we were led by Fr. Gerald Blessing, as well as by Deacon Dunlap. Met all the OYM people at the airport, then waited in a long line to check in. I grabbed my last meal in the U.S. at the Burger King in the terminal, just as I had when going to Oxford four years ago.

Our first plane, headed to Dulles, was a small jet, three seats across, which was almost entirely seminarians. We arrived in Dulles somewhat late, due to a delay in taking off, and hence we found ourselves needing to hurry to catch our flight to Frankfurt. We took a shuttle to the other terminal, then hoofed it at great speed to our gate, where we soon boarded our 747. There were numerous delays in getting away, so that we took off about an hour late. Finally we were airborne, myself sitting on the right side of the plane between Greg Hitschler and a young Coptic man from Florida who was traveling to school in Egypt for a year. The dinner fare was not bad, all things considered, although the films consisted of Fever Pitch (amusing in some ways, but devoid of moral consciousness in its story-line, like most romantic comedies) and Beauty Shop (which I didn’t bother watching). Eventually I fell asleep, in what was to be a very short night.

Thurs., Aug. 11

I awoke this morning having slept a few uncomfortable hours with my head down on my tray-table. The sky was already filled with the dawning light, and I thus had the pleasant illusion of having had a night’s sleep, though it had really only been a few hours; it was only about midnight in St. Louis as we landed in Frankfurt. We went through all the usual procedures, and I had the pleasure of having my passport stamped for the first time in four years. We were greeted and assisted by several German WYD (or WJT) volunteers, who showed us the way to the other terminal, where we would meet our buses. We discovered rather quickly that the German weather was pleasantly much cooler than in St. Louis, to the point of having to put my sweater on. Eventually all of us were gathered, and we boarded our buses and set off a little to the west of Frankfurt to Rudesheim, a pleasant town on the Rhine in a heavy wine-growing area.

In Rudesheim, we met the members of the seminary group who had arrived on the earlier flight and had already spent several hours there. All of us gathered in the parish church of St. Jakobus, where we had Mass. The Church was a very old structure, home to a representation of Christ’s agony which had apparently been popular in the Middle Ages, when Rudesheim was a common meeting point for pilgrims on the way to places like Santiago de Compostela. Its interior, however, was quite bare and characteristic of abstract 1950’s Catholic art and stained glass--owing to the fact that much of Rudesheim was destroyed by Allied bombings in 1944. The kindly parish priest told us a brief history of the Church, and when he referred to the war, he told us that despite attempts by some American tourists to apologize for the bombings, he would hear none of it, but was quite grateful to the Americans for doing what needed to be done to save Germany itself in those terrible times.

After Mass, which sticks in my mind mainly because Deacon Aaron Nord and I had a bit of a job afterwards to clean up some of the Precious Blood which had spilled on the stone floor, we met up at the dock, where we boarded a boat for a Rhine river cruise. The boat was quite crowded, with just about every inch of the deck occupied with chairs, many of them filled with seminarians catching up on sleep. Somewhat tired though I was, I was determined to stay awake and get myself onto the local time. In any case, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the idyllic-looking castles that rose up on either side at every bend in the river, and was happy to assuage my hunger with a bockwurst (as with most German sausages, served on a piece of bread that was only about a third of its length) and to toast my fellow seminarians with a first German beer. The whole thing was rather deja vu, in that I had spent the first day of my Austrian travels five years ago on a similar cruise through wine-growing territory, but that time on Europe’s other great river, the Danube. I was glad to find the Rhine equally enchanting.

We disembarked at St. Goarshausen, where we met out buses, which had come up from Rudesheim in the meantime. We then set out on the final stage of this first day’s journey, heading for Holland. We continued parallel to the Rhine for a great while, and Aaron Nord and I amused ourselves discussing the possible historic uses of the various castles we saw, and the ethical implications of the tolls (i.e., "protection money") collected by medieval barons which had been their primary purpose. The bus ride seemed interminable to some, and we may have got lost at least once. We stopped once and set out in search of somewhere to find dinner, only to be surprised to find the remains of the famous Remagen bridge, which the Americans had captured intact in 1944, and used for ten days until the Germans finally bombed it to pieces. Eventually, after several more hours of driving, we found ourselves across the border into "Niederland"and before long we were in Sittard, where our host families met us. John Mayo and myself were welcomed by a young couple who spoke very good English; they had come to help drive our luggage, but we were in fact staying with the lady’s mother, Leah Lemans, a widow lady who lives on a potato farm. Mevrouw (Mrs.) Lemans understood well enough what we said to her in English, but said little to us herself; however, she said volumes with her hospitality from the outset. After a late dinner which she offered us, John and I were glad to retire, after a seemingly endless day.

Friday, August 12

I was supposed to have woken up when John Mayo knocked on my door at about 7:30, but I seemed to sleep right through that and had to be awoken about an hour later. We caught a hurried breakfast together with Mrs. Lemans’ two older sons, who lived nearby and were getting ready for another day of harvesting potatoes. We were then driven by our hostess into Sittard, to a location near the Precious Blood convent there which would be our meeting point for many events. After a morning session of catechesis mixed with group discussions and praise & worship, we set out after lunch on walking tours of old downtown Sittard. It is a city in the province of Limbourg, the far southeast corner of Holland, which seems from what I can tell to be an historically Catholic region. On our brief tour we saw several very remarkable churches all within a few blocks. First was St. Michael’s, a Baroque church built by the Dominicans who came to combat Protestant influences after the Reformation. A little ways down was the Basilica of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a colorful neo-Gothic church built in the late 1800’s near an Ursuline convent, in thanksgiving to Mary for saving the life of a girl in the convent school who had swallowed a needle (I found it hard to believe I was reading the Latin inscription correctly on that, but it was later confirmed by the guide). Finally, there was the old medieval church of St. Peter’s, a late Gothic building filled with both Gothic and Baroque furnishings. It was somehow a surprise for me to find that there were parts of the Netherlands, which I’d always imagined as Protestant, that had such an historically Catholic character. At the same time, it was puzzling to realize that, despite the great historic monuments which the Church possessed there, so few of the people of today come to worship there. Some Americans whom I talked to suggested that European secularism is in part a reaction to religious wars and other ills that arose from the many centuries of Church-state cooperation. But I don’t think that can be the whole of it; the most radical secularization in Holland took hold in the mid to late twentieth century, long after the age of the Wars of Religion. Part of me wonders whether, even in the most Christian of centuries, the majority of Christians weren’t simply following the prevailing cultural norms, with no more deeply held faith than the average modern person. Did medieval Christendom result in many people living their lives with only a veneer of Christianity, and no deep-seated reality? And yet I can’t bring myself to think that the all-persavive nature of Christianity in medieval society didn’t really at least ensure that when it counted, most everyone was thinking of Christ and of what really mattered. A final note on the churches of Sittard: I found a remarkable number of statues of the South American St. Rose of Lima, because she is, oddly enough, a patroness of the city. This is due to her intercession which was sought, at the suggestion of the Dominicans, in a 17th century plague.

After our tours concluded, we headed off across town to the fairly modern parish church of St. Paul, where we met a group of Dutch Life Teen youth, and had Mass with Bishop Everard de Jong, the auxiliary bishop of Roermond. The bishop made some jokes about Americans which many in our group apparently took the wrong way, but he struck me as a very zealous and talented young bishop intent on preaching the truth of the Gospel without compromise to a society that would rather not hear it. I was struck by various details of the liturgy that reflected very traditional practices, from the veil which covered the ciborium in the tabernacle to the bishop saying "Procedamus in pace"; such things challenged my general perception of the Dutch church as being ultra-liberal, something I would continue to see in the upcoming days. After Mass, we had some social time, then returned to the church for a presentation on how Life Teen had been begun in Holland, thanks in large part to a Carmelite sister and other people from St. Louis.

(to be continued...)