Our Lady’s birthday, September 8th, came with a drizzle although students had prayed for clear weather during Pope Benedikt XVI’s visit to the Marian shrine of Mariazell.  Maybe the rain was a sign of the graces this special day was bringing.  In the face of this rain, ITI students, faculty, staff and their children walked an hour to the pilgrimage site and stood with hopeful hearts and weary feet, waiting for the Papal Mass to begin.  ITI president, Msgr. Dr. Larry Hogan; Byzantine Chaplain, Fr. Juraj Terek; and two ITI students, Fr. Yuriy Kolasa and Fr. Tomas Labanic were all able to concelebrate with His Holiness.  Fr. Juraj Terek, a priest from a former communist country, said, “I never dreamed I would be able to concelebrate with the Pope”.

In his homily, His Holiness addressed Our Lady and asked her to show Jesus to us – the truth and the life.  He said the attitude that considers man incapable of truth is at the root of the current crisis in the West and in Europe.  With this attitude, good and evil are no longer distinguishable and science with its good possibilities also becomes a threat. Man is afraid that truth will lead to intolerance, but His Holiness asked us to look at Christ as he is shown at the shrine – in Mary’s arms and on the cross.  These images show that the truth is humble; not handed on through external force, but proven in love and handed on as a gift. 

After Mass, the Pope gave his blessing and the Mariazell statue of Our Lady was carried in procession through the crowds.  Despite the rain and the long hours of waiting and standing and listening, our weariness dropped from us halfway through the Mass and it was with joyful hearts and light feet that we made the hour long hike back to the buses and home.

The next day, the faculty and staff of the ITI had a special invitation to attend the Pope’s visit at Heiligenkreuz Abbey.  While there, the Pope greeted several members of the ITI faculty and blessed their children.  His Holiness then venerated the relic of the Holy Cross for which the Abbey is named and addressed the crowd that had come to pray with him.  He drew our attention to the importance of having Papal Theological Institutes where God is not merely the “object” studied in theology but also the “subject”; where lived devotion and scientific rationality are complementary and interdependent.  This was a great confirmation from Pope Benedikt XVI that the ITI should continue to “study theology on its knees” (Hans Urs von Balthasar).