Set Apart

The other day my team and I had the opportunity to visit a Roman Catholic monastery near Vienna called Stift Klosterneuburg. It was founded in the year 1114!! It's so hard to fathom something being that old in my American mindset since our country is so young in comparison. This visit would've been pretty boring since I feel as if all the old European buildings are starting to look the same, but we had an insider tour. Our team supervisor Robert has a friend who is a resident at the monastery. The men living in this amazing building are called Augustinian Canons and are unlike monks but yet not your typical priest. They are dedicated to prayer and have made a commitment to live in this community in poverty. They have no possessions of their own and live a quite simple life dedicated to God. Some of them are priests over parish's and leave the monastery to attend to their duties for a parish.

I learned so much from our guide and new friend. His name is Daniel and he's a New Yorker who's been living in the Stift for 6 years. He taught us a lot about Austrian history, cultural differences, and Catholicism. It was an unbelievable breath of fresh air to meet someone who may look, act, and live completely different than me, but share the same passionate love for God! We laughed as he talked about a lot of the assumptions people have about priests, one of them being that priests don't eat. He was completely down to earth, real, and a joy to be around. We all hope to keep in touch with him and hang out sometime in the future. Since he is a priest that does eat food, he invited us for pizza sometime. :) I'm thankful that there is a unity found in Jesus Christ that goes deeper than some disagreements of how things should be done.