Father Dave and Brett joined Lino Rulli and Tyler Veghte of “The Catholic Guy Show” on SiriusXM’s Catholic Channel for the “We’re on a Boat Pilgrimage,” a cruise on the Danube River. They traveled with 150 listeners to famous Catholic Churches and cities across Eastern and Central Europe, including Regensburg, Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava and more.
They first visit the Regensburg Cathedral in Germany, which began construction in the 1200s but was not fully completed until centuries later. Father Dave reflects, “The folks here who began the construction of this beautiful cathedral, they didn’t see it to completion, and neither did their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren.”
“These are literal acts of faith,” Lino adds. “People in the 1200s built this thing so that centuries later, people would be brought into the Church, people would be inspired by art, and people would be getting closer to God. One of the women here on the pilgrimage mentioned that her great-grandmother was baptized in this Cathedral. How crazy is that?…These churches are places of worship, and [building] the Church is an act of faith. It’s generation after generation passing on that faith.”
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Father Dave and Lino next broadcast from inside the Salzburg Cathedral in Austria. “Salz” translates to “salt” in English and was an important asset for this region. “Salt is what would preserve your food, so salt was very expensive. In the same way, Jesus says that his followers would be the salt of the earth.” He continues saying that while salt feels common in our modern world, it was viewed as precious in Jesus’ time.
They also note how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized in this Cathedral. “In his family prior to that, several children had died at birth,” Father Dave says. “They were so concerned that they brought him immediately here from his house, which is maybe two blocks away. He was baptized a few hours after he was born in his home.”
While in Slovakia, Father Dave and Lino reflect on how non-traditional pilgrimages like this provide value to one’s faith life. “People are telling me about how powerful [it is], even though it’s not the same thing as being in the Holy Land or Rome,” Father Dave says, “The fact that we’re on a journey together, we’re seeing and experiencing these holy places; It’s having an effect.”
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Lino says how he is inspired to go to daily Mass more once he returns from this trip and says, “I think most of us have to give God a chance. You go on a pilgrimage, you go on a retreat, you go do something different. And you say, ‘I’m giving God a chance to work on my lowly state in life to see if I can make the changes, not just on a retreat or pilgrimage, but for a lifetime.’”
Father Dave echoes this and says, “Go with that; That is the Holy Spirit. There is no better time to commit to something than when you have that extra motivation and inspiration.” He shares similar feelings from being called to the priesthood following World Youth Day in 1993. “I started second guessing myself, because when I first experienced the call to the priesthood, I didn’t have a job at the time. So when I got a job again, I’m like, ‘Well, maybe that [feeling] was because I had a lot of time on my hands.’ And thankfully, I resisted that notion,” Father Dave says.
“If you have an inkling, if you have a feeling, capitalize on it and go with it while it’s right here in front of you. Because if you wait until you’re back at work, back at home, with all those demands and stresses, then it’s definitely gonna fall through the cracks,” he continues. “If you make a resolution here in the midst of this, you’re more likely to at least live it out for a little while.”
