Dear Friends,
In 1988, I went on my first thirty-day retreat. It was a silent retreat using the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. It took place at the Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The first week — though it can be much longer — looks at developing a sense of God’s presence in the world, a thorough examination of our personal sin, and how to orient oneself to God and away from worldly attachments. (Some retreatants spend the whole thirty days there).
In the second week, retreatants are to develop a deeper friendship with Jesus, looking at his hidden life in Nazareth, witnessing his preaching, his miracles, and his way of being in order to imitate him more closely in our own lives. It was a rather joyful and comfortable place to be, and I could have stayed there much longer as I was not looking forward to the third week and its contemplations on the trial, suffering, and execution of Jesus.
I was running a bit behind the other retreatants because I took an unexpected turn during the “second week” and returned to issues that should have been resolved during the “first week”. Other retreatants were beginning the fourth week of contemplating Jesus’ resurrection and the commissioning of his disciples when I began my “third week”.
Although I was happy at the Eastern Point Retreat House, for I had developed a satisfying and prayerful daily routine and I loved walking along the Atlantic shore near Gloucester with the waves bursting against its granite boulders, still, when I found myself contemplating Jesus’ crucifixion on a wooden chair in my small cell overlooking the sea, I was strangely bereft and crying and profoundly depressed, capable only of being angry at everyone. My anger was terribly misdirected. I was mad at my director for letting me get behind the others. I was mad because they would not let me talk to any of the other participants. Mad that I had come so far and ended up feeling this way.
It was a time full of loneliness, grief, and gloom that I could not explain. I confessed my failure to my spiritual director and she seemed shocked that I did not recognize what had happened to me, saying, “Don’t ask for a grace and not expect to get it.” I saw then, that I had been privileged to experience what the disciples of Jesus felt: their hopes dashed, their faith in ruins, and all their former longings haunting them. Without the glory of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, without the grand future they anticipated — their grief was not just over the loss of a friend, but of their reason for being. That grief made it difficult for them to see the risen Jesus and to believe in him.
Today, we hear the story of Jesus appearing to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. How, because of their grief, they could not recognize Jesus on the road. I experienced that same thing on the thirty-day retreat; I could not see Jesus because I was so full of my own loneliness and grief. It did not mean that Jesus was not there, but I simply could not see him.
You may have experienced this same thing in your own times of loneliness and grief. Life is full of struggles. During those intense times of grief, we may feel that Jesus is absent, but he is really walking with us on the road. He is trying to get us to see how the ways of God are different from our ways. He wants us to see the truth that only through this journey can we enter, like him, into the glory of the Kingdom.
We need to contemplate all the inspiring and upsetting events of Holy Week to fully appreciate the victory of Easter. If you have ever been in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, then you know that the distance between the place of crucifixion and the place of burial is short. Both places are in the same church building. As we celebrate this Easter season, we must not forget Holy Week. We will find that same truth in our own existence: in our most painful and trying times, we find the glory of Easter morning. Jesus walks with us on our road and opens the truth of the scriptures to us…just as he did for Cleopas and his wife.
And, like them, during our difficult life journeys, we will continue to find Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Sunday afternoon, our second graders will share with us the Eucharistic table for the first time. Please, keep them in your prayers as they experience this tremendous grace.
Peace,
Fr. Damian