Last weekend we announced the first annual St. Simon Retreat. It is my hope that this becomes an annual opportunity for all parishioners to deepen their faith in God and grow in relationship with Jesus. Many parishioners after Sunday Masses asked me what exactly this retreat is about, and why they should attend. So, what is a retreat and why go on it?
A normal retreat is held at a retreat center, most often in the hills or in a secluded and quiet place, over the duration of a full weekend from Friday night through Sunday night. Sometimes, retreats are a full week or longer. Most retreats are “directed” meaning that someone gives sessions or talks to focus the reflection time. Most times the retreat talks are given on a particular subject to help deepen their faith or prayer life. Other times the retreats are targeted at particular groups of people such as teens on confirmation preparation, men’s retreat, women’s retreat, AA, or other addiction recovery, etc. Still other retreats are “silent” where the retreatants are trained to “listen to God in the silence” through spiritual exercises given in one-hour spiritual direction once a day. The remaining 23 hours of the day are in complete silence. These retreats can be as long as 30 days.
While I have attended or directed well over 100 retreats over the years, I have found every single retreat an amazing and transformative experience. It is a place where we put aside all of our “stuff” of life and rest in the Lord. It is a little space in our year to rest from our work of life and reflect on the many gifts God has already given us. Most of my retreats have been directed but each year I try to take a silent retreat as I find them to be the deepest for me. The most profound retreat I took was the 30-day silent Ignatian retreat. It totally transformed my relationship with God and in particular with Jesus. I wish to share some of the fruits from my previous retreats with you and hopefully inspire you to come with us on this retreat.
It always surprises me to hear that most Catholics have never been on a traditional retreat ever in their lives. I realize that it is somewhat a luxury to go away for a weekend and sometimes it is not practical or feasible for parents or couples with many responsibilities to simply go away for the weekend. And to be honest, it is daunting for some of us to go away with a bunch of strangers and spend a weekend in a lot of silence, reflecting on life. Sometimes, reflecting on life we may realize we need to make some changes and we are afraid of the need for change!
In this St. Simon Retreat, we are bringing the retreat experience to you in a modified form. You don’t have to give up your own bed or travel away for the weekend. It is all right here. All you have to do is show up and commit to Friday night and all-day Saturday. It is not the same as a traditional retreat, but my hope is to inspire you with this modified version to eventually build up to a full-weekend retreat in the future.
Why is it important?
This week I visited the school classrooms and one of the students in the class asked me, why should we pray every day? What a great question. I answered with a question — why do you eat every day? He answered because if I didn’t eat, I’d starve! A little dramatic but point well taken. Another student replied that she eats when she feels hungry and if she didn’t, she would get weak and sick.
We eat to feed our physical bodies and we pray to feed our spiritual bodies. Prayer is a nourishment for the spiritual body in much the same way that food nourishes our physical bodies. It is not the only way to feed our spiritual bodies, but it is a primary way. Just like doing an act of service also feeds our spiritual bodies. If we don’t pray, we will likely get weak spiritually and maybe even ill which is what we call sin.
A retreat then is a time to set aside a time to learn about spiritual nourishment and learn how to “cook in the spiritual kitchen of our lives.” We learn new ways to nourish ourselves and then practice some new methods that might work for us. Try some new recipes so to speak.
Sometimes, we need to be taught or reminded how to pray and we need a space to practice it. Like a fire that needs kindling … we need to kindle our fire that seems to have gone out. It needs stoking up … we don’t mean for it to go out or burn low, we just forget to feed the fuel of the fire because we assume it is always there. Like a fire needs to be stoked, our body needs to be fed nourishment and our soul needs prayer.
What is the kindling that needs to be fed into our fire?
We need to acquire the skills to capture the little moments of awe that are already in our lives. We need to pause at looking at God’s grace in our life and gather those kindling’s for our fire. To learn how to look at our surroundings in nature or our house and appreciate the gifts already present in something as simple as a blooming flower, the laughter of a child, the curiosity of a teen, the wisdom of our seniors, the layers of love in our relationship with our spouse, children, or parents. There is so much to marvel at in our lives, if only we take the time to soak it all in.
I realize that not all our lives are full of joy and happy moments, but it is often the “way we see” things that determine “what we see.” A retreat fundamentally helps us to see things differently, to see how God sees. So please come and join us for this retreat and learn to see God already in your life and help others to see God present in their lives. It is Friday, October 27 through Saturday, October 28. Registration opens soon.
Speaking of seeing God present in our lives, I want to acknowledge once more Pattie Sharrow and Nancy & Dan Perkins for their incredible hard work on the Rummage Sale. I saw God present in them and their undying commitment to serving the poor and needy. I am still in AWE of the Rummage Sale because it wasn’t just an event to raise money, it was so much more than that, it brought people together, built community and served local charities. Together with Pattie and Nancy, I thank the 100’s of volunteers who gave of their time and talent to make it such an overwhelming success. Next year we will need your help to put this on again and together St. Simon can help serve the greater needs of all our local community.
God bless,
Fr. Brendan