Tag Archives: Study Abroad

Prayer: An Act of Thanksgiving

April 2018, , ,

Meghan Kozal, 2018-2019 Anchor Intern

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, I guess…”

“Did you just say and these, I guess?”

“Of course, that’s what the prayer is, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s thy gifts!  Not I guess!”

The traditional Catholic prayer before meals can sometimes get a little lost on us in its ritual nature, as the Old English terminology had for my sister when she was younger.  My own prayer before meals can often be hurried in my busy day-to day-life and even at times apathetic, as if I were actually praying “and these, I guess”. Recently, though, I was given the opportunity to be drawn out of the ritual motions and words of the prayer at the dinner table in Rungsted Kyst, Denmark.  

This past semester I lived with a wonderful host family in the small coastal suburb of the capital, Copenhagen.  My family included several host siblings: 10 and 14 year old sisters (Amalie and Victoria), 17 year old brother (Gustav) and, arguably my favorite, the small dog (Luna).  One of my favorite parts of living with them was our hyggeligt nightly family dinner.  

Gustav, Victoria, Amalie, and Meghan after dinner

I was used to praying before meals, as I had always been taught to by my family, and it was something that I had continued to do at Notre Dame.  My host family, though Christian, were not particularly religious and did not pray before meals. Being a guest in their house, I did not want to seem overly religious and make them uncomfortable, so I snuck in my prayer before our dinners while no one was looking.  My secretive prayers continued for some time until my youngest host sister, Amalie, noticed and asked my host mom what I was doing, though she said it in Danish. My host mom asked me if I was in fact praying, laughing a bit at my shyness, and was surprised that so much time had passed with no one having noticed.  After my host family found out that I always prayed before meals they would pause in serving the food when they saw me begin to make the sign of the cross. It was occasionally rather uncomfortable, as they stared at me in a bit of wonder and waited to continue what they were doing until I was done. I was happy, though, that I no longer had to sneak in my prayer and it really made me stop and think about the prayer I was saying, as well as make sure I remembered to pray it.

Nearing my last week with my host family in December, after I finished praying, Gustav asked me why I prayed before meals.  I hadn’t realized what a mysterious thing prayer could be to someone who had never really experienced it in this way, as it had always been a part of my mealtime ritual.  I told him that it was an act of thanksgiving. It was a recognition that I am blessed to have the meal sitting before me as well as the family surrounding me. In praying I am showing gratitude for all those whose labor went into the food reaching my plate while also praying that those who were not as lucky as me would be fed.  Gustav’s response struck me in his immediate acceptance, as he said that he thought the whole family should begin to pray before meals along with me if that is what it meant.

I, like I think many Christians do, heard about missionaries converting people in foreign lands and had a longing to go out into the world and do these awesome deeds, but I hadn’t realized that in praying before meals in the tiny suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark, I truly was a missionary.  Although I did not directly preach the words of the Gospels or bring my host family to Mass with me, in modeling a way that faith had moved me to reconsider a part of my daily life, the meal, I believe that I was able to show how my faith is one of gratitude and thanksgiving.

I realize now, though, that I left out an important part in my description of my prayer- that I was also praying with the gratitude for the space to be able to show my faith and for having been raised in a family and community that taught me the very faith I was able to demonstrate. I regret not having been more upfront about my faith from the beginning to my host family, as I might have been able to have the conversation about prayer and more with my host brother long before the eve of my departure.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

I don’t think that I will ever fully be able to see my mealtime prayer without this new lens of mission and purposeful gratitude, and I hope I continue to often find myself sitting at a dinner table with the choice to pray in secret or to profess my faith so that I do not forget the great blessing that is prayer.  

Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we continue to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Mass Beyond the Wall

October 2017, ,

Flora Tang, Senior Anchor Intern

To get to Sunday Mass in the holy city of Jerusalem, where I studied abroad last spring, is a walk not for the fainthearted. I walked down a rocky hill, through a gate, on a dusty road, past a few dozen heavily-armed Israeli soldiers, through a military checkpoint that cuts through a 25-foot tall concrete wall, enter the city of Bethlehem, walk along said 25-foot tall cement walls for 20 minutes, and then down the sometimes-nonexistent sidewalk of a busy main street for another 40 minutes before reaching the Church of the Nativity where Arabic-speaking Palestinian Catholics gather for Mass. Yep, just a slightly longer walk than the whooping four flights of stairs I must take from my dorm room to Mass in the chapel of Breen Phillips Hall.

The Separation Wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Credit: Shannon Hendricks

Living beside a Separation Wall and crossing it on the way to Mass is disheartening, to say the least. Even the Church of the Nativity itself bears the marks of bullet holes and repaired statues once shattered by bombs. The Separation Wall and all the everyday division, violence, and injustice in Israel-Palestine became a living reminder of the age-old problem of evil, of violence in the world, and of injustices committed in the name of religion. The walk to Mass every Sunday seems to shatter the very hope and certainty that my faith has always given me. What helps is that at the end of this long walk, at least there is Mass, where I can find just enough peace in the Eucharist. What doesn’t help, however, is that the Mass is entirely in Arabic, a language in which I could barely carry a conversation beyond “how are you,” let alone understand a single word of the readings or homily.

“But there are two words that I do understand at Arabic Mass!” I would sometimes joke. And those would be the only times when I can (finally!) participate with full heart and voice.

Salaam. “Peace.” A common greeting used by Arabic speakers of all faiths, a word I learned before even learning the Arabic word for “hello.” When I hear the priest repeat the word salaam for the third time in a sentence shortly after the Eucharistic Prayer, I would know that it’s my cue to turn to my neighbors and offer my “salaam” to them.

And, unsurprisingly, “Amen,” a word pronounced more or less the same in most languages. Well, technically, there’s only one “amen” that I know when to say. Whereas the rest of the “amen’s” during Mass erupt at completely unexpected times since I don’t understand any of the priest’s words preceding them, I would- almost out of habit- utter Amen before the Priest places the Eucharist in my palms in the communion line.

Soon enough, I came to realize that even as I do not understand the readings, the homily, or the rest of Mass, these two words alone perhaps have the power to illuminate the essence of my faith in a land -and in a world- marked by violence and injustice. Perhaps God does speak to my infuriated and hopeless self, even in a language I do not understand.

Peace. God’s call.

Just as we are called to offer one another the sign of peace during Mass, we are called to bring forth peace in the lives of others and in the world. As Jesus Himself said, “blessed are the peacemakers.” The violence and injustice I see in Israel-Palestine or in our own home communities are not reasons to be hopeless, but reasons to more actively live out Christ’s call to us to be peacemakers amidst this violence and amidst all forms of structural violence.

Flora and her study abroad group in the divided city of Hebron, Palestine.

Yet this peace that we are called to bring is not a pretense of peace that can be easily achieved by hiding away from violence in our own comfort zones. Nor is it through constructing massive walls that feign peace by dividing and silencing the other. “Peace is not the silent result of violent repression,” Blessed Oscar Romero writes. Christ’s peace, which differs from human peace, is a peace built on the foundations of justice, mercy, and love. And we, as Christians, are called to be agents of this peace.

Amen. Our response.

Uttering “amen” before the Body of Christ is not a simple word, but a weighty, radical response to God’s radical love for us. When we say amen, we make the radical choice to recognizing Christ’s own body, broken for us out of His radical love, under the appearance of a little white host before our eyes. The same “amen” also calls us to recommit ourselves to living out a Christ-like radical love by recognizing and healing the many broken “bodies of Christ” under the appearance of those in the world who are most afflicted, like Christ Himself on the Cross, by violence, rejection, pain, and brokenness. To say “amen” and kneel before the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, and then to go out into the world and ignore the many broken and rejected “Christ’s” among us is the opposite of what the very same Christ demands of us.

Up to this day, I still do not understand why God allows for violence, for humans to divide one another and to commit injustice against one another, or why violence is often committed in the name of religion itself. I still do not understand why a 25-feet tall wall stands between Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’ birth, and Jerusalem, the place of His resurrection. But just like the only two words I do understand amidst all the incomprehension at Arabic Mass, the only thing of which I am certain is Jesus’ eternal demand for us in this broken world to be peacemakers through living out justice and mercy, and to radically love the most wounded “bodies of Christ” as a response to His Eucharistic love for us– whether on campus, in our home communities, or in other corners of the world.