Dear Parishioners of Mary Immaculate and St. Rose,
Traveling to foreign lands is a great way to get a new perspective. There are so many things that we take for granted.
My voyage down the Danube was a very beautiful and relaxing experience.  There were so many buildings that are a thousand or more years old.
The countries that I visited were all occupied by the Nazi government, so I heard many stores about the atrocities that were carried out against the large Jewish communities that existed there before World War II.  Then most of the countries were occupied by the Soviets after the war and had to endure communism until the late 1980s.
The Nazi and communist governments were also very hard on the Catholic Church in eastern Europe.  Yet the signs of Catholicism are everywhere.  There are beautiful Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo churches everywhere.  In Prague the Charles Bridge is one of the most famous sites in the city.  This bridge that spans the Vltava River is lined with statues of the saints.  Near one end is a crucifixion scene.  There is a candle burning there all the time.
On the street corners there are often religious scenes or statues of the saints.  There are reminders of out Catholic Faith everywhere, but our guide told is that most people in the Czech Republic are not religious.  It makes me wonder how they walk by all those churches and religious symbols everyday and yet are blind as to what they represent.
But then it occurred to me that that is the great temptation of modern life: we become blind to the presence of the sacred in our lives and we try to live without God.  It makes me all the more determined to be aware that all the beautiful things that surround us reflect the grandeur of God.  And when I am reminded of God, then I will lift my heart and mind in prayer.
                        Msgr. Cox