I just arrived back from St. Monica’s Parish in Santa Monica, CA where I presented to them the Cairns on the Second Mountain of Life retreat that I gave at St. Simon’s last year. It was very well received and lots of people came to the sessions each night. It was a particularly healing trip for me as I was able to connect and spend time with many people who were close to Fr. Dave, my spiritual director. I stayed in his suite and felt his presence in a very real way which was wonderfully healing. I suspect he had a lot to do with the success of this retreat as his spirit moved the people to return to Lord for their Lenten journey. They all miss him dearly and it was a good connection for them too.
Speaking of retreats, this Tuesday, March 15 at 7:30-8:30pm immediately following the Candle- light Prayer for Peace Vigil, we will start our own Lenten retreat, From Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well. As I mentioned last week, we will focus on how our journey of life is limited here on earth, but also continues into eternal life. This first week, I will focus on the context of our life and how to put our death into context with what we believe. Let me explain by a metaphor.
When I prepare couples for marriage, I always tell them something important in our first meeting. I say to them that my role as a priest in the marriage preparation is to help them to stay focused on the “marriage” as opposed to the “wedding day.” Everything else that happens in that 6–12 month preparation period is completely focused on the “wedding day.” There is a huge industry around weddings and for good reason, as it is a money-making venture for all involved. There is a reason why Shark Tank investor, Kevin O’Leary, invests millions of dollars in the wedding industry—because people irrationally or emotionally spend on all sorts of things that never impact their “marriage” but only their “wedding day” for a few hours.
I emphasize with the engaged couple that they will spend the rest of their lives together as a married couple and I want to help them get off to a good start. I want them to have a great wedding ceremony and I will help them put together a wonderful program for the sacrament with beautiful music and great preaching. Of course, I have some paperwork to do to make the sacrament valid but that part is easy. But then I remind them that my primary role is still to help them be prepared for “marriage for life” and to help keep that context in front of them always. Interestingly, every couple relaxes and enjoys the preparation process and tell me that it made a difference.
As a priest in the parish life, I feel my role is to prepare people for “eternal life.” Everything in the secular world tells us that this earthly life is all there is—they focus on selling us everything for here and now as if it is a “wedding day” celebration focused solely on the “earthly life.” It is easy to get caught up in this and emotionally buy into all the niceties of the earthly life. But my role as priest, and the role of every spiritual leader, is to help us stay focused on the “eternal life” aspect of our existence and to help keep that context in front of us always.
For us to do that well, we need to talk about some of the hard things—we need to talk about death and dying. Every one of us will die and we will probably watch several of our loved ones die first. Yet, we rarely talk about it and most of us are unprepared for the inevitability of death. This retreat series will talk about death and dying and how we can be better prepared to handle our own death and the deaths of our loved ones. If we can have some honest conversation about it, I believe that we can help each other die well and full of faith, hope and love as we die. Come and join me for one of the hardest conversations we need to have.
God Bless,
Fr. Brendan