Today we wandered around Salzburg one last time. We took Maria back to the Mirabell Gardens...


We watched some students from University of Dallas play chess in the square outside the Cathedral...

A Rainy Day in Salzburg

Today was the only day that it rained on us. You can see in the picture of St. Florian how gray the skies are. St. Florian is the patron of Austria; statues and pictures of him abound. He was a commander in the Roman army and was martyred c. 304 by being thrown into the Enns River with a stone tied to his neck. He is also the patron saint of firefighters; you can see him emptying a bucket of water.

Hohensalzburg Fortress

Today we visited one of the largest medieval castles in Europe. Construction began in 1077 as the Salzburg archbishops sided with the Pope during the Investiture Controversy. So imposing are its fortifications that the castle was only attacked once in its entire history. This was in 1525 during the peasants' revolt early in the protestant revolution. The castle was further strengthened in the 30 Years War (1618-1648) but was never attacked. It was finally surrendered to Napolean without a fight and thereafter served mainly as a barracks. Here is the link to all of our pictures from the day.


In this picture (below) we are standing on the top of the square tower that you see on the left in the picture above, the one with the flag. I promise, the mountains are not a fake backdrop.

This is the courtyard inside the fortress. It is very reminiscent of Tolkien's Gondor. In fact, we ran into one thing after another that seemed to come right out of the Lord of the Rings, including a ringwraith...

Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The royalty of Christ rests upon a twofold basis. He is our King by right of birth and by right of conquest. The first refers us to the personality of the Son of God, whereby, in His divine nature as God and by virtue of the hypostatic union, He is the sovereign Lord and Master. The second places before us the God-Man coming down on earth to rescue fallen man from the slavery of Satan, and by the labors and sufferings of His life, and passion, and death, to win a glorious victory for us over sin and hell.

After holy Mass this morning we headed for the Mirabell Palace Gardens. This was the summer residence of the prince archbishops of Salzburg. Maria's favorite part of the gardens was the dwarf park (see below).

Saturday in Salzburg

Today we followed Rick Steves' self-guided tour through the city. The highlight of the day was the beautiful Cathedral dedicated to Saints Rupert and Virgil. Although the Church was first built here in the 8th century, the present building was constructed during the 30 Years War in the sixteenth century. We were very impressed by the theology present in the very architecture itself. For example, the three doorways into the Church have representations of faith, hope, and charity, respectively, showing that entry into the Church is only by way of the supernatural and theological virtues. Below is the nave leading to the high altar.


After seeing churches of such beauty (the Franciscan Church and the Church of St. Peter's Abbey were also very impressive), we were frankly shocked and scandalized to see what has been done with the University church, the English speaking parish in Salzburg. Below is a picture of the "people's altar".

"The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is locked into itself. The common turning toward the East was not a "celebration toward the wall"; it did not mean that the priest "had his back to the people": the priest himself was not regarded as so important ... As one of the fathers of Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, J.A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not lock themselves into a circle, they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us...." (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 80).

Commemoration of St. Evaristus, Pope, Martyr

St. Evaristus, successor of St. Anacletus I, governed the Church for nine years; he was condemned to death under Trajan in 109.

We caught the train this morning at about 9:30 and made it to Salzburg around 1:00. We had to change trains twice, each time with only 5 minutes to get off of one train and on to another. It was hectic but we made it! Here is Maria on the first leg of the journey.

Commemoration of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria, Martyrs

St. Chrysanthus was converted by his wife, St. Daria. They came from the East to Rome. After many torments under the prefect Celerinus, they were buried alive in a sandpit in 284.

Tomorrow morning we are headed for Salzburg! We are, needless to say, very excited, especially about being able to hear Mass every day at the FSSP chapel. This coming Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King on the traditional calendar (it doesn't occur until the end of Nov on the Novus Ordo calendar). We were planning on returning to Gaming on 31 Oct, but after only brief consideration we couldn't resist staying for another day in order to hear a solemn high Mass according to the traditional roman rite on the Feast of All Saints. In fact, it's quite tempting to stay on another day in order to hear Mass there on the Feast of Souls - black vestments, the Dies irae ...

Well, we shall see. We aren't taking the computer with us so this will be our last post until we return. Most likely thursday, perhaps friday, will be the next time we get a chance to give you all an update.

St. Raphael, Archangel

Benedict XV extended to the Universal Church the feast of the holy Archangel St. Raphael, who is known to us from the inspired words of the Book of Tobias as the angelical physician of soul and body.

I hope that Nana is proud of her little Italian granddaughter!

St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop, Confessor

Anthony Mary Claret founded the Missionary Sons of the Heart of Mary, the Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate, and other communities of nuns. For many years he labored in Catalonia, for six years in Cuba as Archbishop of Santiago, and finally in Madrid. He died in exile in France in 1870.

Many apologies for not posting yesterday. I hope nobody was too worried about us (no one has appendicitis this time). For some reason the SIM card of our ISP went kaputt! functioniert nicht! But not to worry, this morning I spoke enough horribly mangled German at the Post Office to get a new one from them.

We're very excited about our trip to Salzburg this coming weekend, but the weather forecast is for rain every day. How sad. It's been raining here for the past two days and all the snow has turned into slush (hence, no pictures today). Pray for sunshine for us!

Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

God is good towards us: let us be the same towards our brethren. If we pardon our brethren from the bottom of our hearts, our Lord Jesus Christ will remit our debts.

It's still snowing! We thought it would stop, because last night as we were walking towards the Kartause for a reading of Pope John Paul II's The Jeweler's Shop we noticed that it was warmer than it had been earlier in the day, and the snow had all turned to slush. However, we awoke this morning to a fresh layer of snow, and it continued coming down into the afternoon. As beautiful as it is, we are hoping it warms up before our trip to Salzburg. Good thing we have a new, heavy duty stroller for the baby! Grrr. For some reason the image uploader is not working. You'll just have to click on the picture slideshows on the sidebar to see all the snow here. There are new pictures in the "Gaming" album and in the "Maria" album.

St. John Cantius, Confessor

The holy priest St. John Cantius, a native of Kenty (Poland), was a professor at the University of Cracow. Famous for his heroic charity and zeal, he died in 1473.

Wow, is it ever snowing outside!

Becherovka

Today I made our regular shopping trip to the cheaper grocery stores in Scheibbs. However, one of the women I was in the car with wanted to go to another town as well, where there was a small outlet mall. One of the stores in this mall was a Euro Spar, which is a lot like the Spar that we live over, only more of a supermarket than a tiny town grocery store. I wasn't planning on buying anything (unless I came across American ingredients that I haven't been able to find over here, such as Vanilla extract and baking soda.) However, I decided to check, hoping against hop, to see if they had any Becherovka, John's absolute favorite liquor (I like it too). We haven't been able to find it anywhere, we even looked for it in Vienna. We were afraid we were going to have to make a trip to the Czech Republic just for that. However, surprisingly I did find some, and I made John's day when I returned home with it. Even as I write this we are enjoying our favorite drink of Becherovka, tonic and lemon. John decided he had done enough penance eating the lentils I made for supper, and we could celebrate a little!