Dear Friends,
Thanks to everyone who helped last weekend with the Archbishop’s pastoral visit. He was delighted by the experience and spoke very positively about his time with you. I am sure it is enjoyable for him to get away from his daily administrative duties and have a chance to talk with people about the normal challenges of life. If he visits all 130 parishes before he returns to Cabrini, we may not see him again for a few years!
As we announced last week, you will have a guest priest here this weekend. You will have a chance to hear about the great work Focus missionaries are doing on college campuses around the country. I am gone from the parish for a week making my annual retreat. Church law requires priests to make a retreat each year. It is one of those church rules that is a joy to fulfill.
A retreat is taking time away from the normal things of life in order to rest, pray and get spiritually refocused. In the Gospels, there are a number of times where Jesus went and spent time alone with God in prayer. There were also times when Jesus invited the apostles to do the same. They would go to a mountain somewhere in the wilderness and would spend time in intimacy with God. That is the heart of a retreat, making time to put aside the normal things, things that can distract us from God and from what matters and to focus on the Lord and his role in our life.
I prefer silent retreats. Rather than gathering with a group to listen to talks, the silent retreat is time alone with God. To have no distractions like TV or the internet or the phone. To take time simply to pray, read, write and reflect on how the year has gone with God. To ask God to help me make any necessary changes. God always wants what is best for us, but sometimes we are afraid to do what is best for us. The only way to overcome the fear of something that is good for us is to face it. Once we do, we might come to like it. St. Ignatius encouraged those who were making his style of silent retreats to have four prayer periods a day for an hour each time. During those prayer periods, the retreatant meditates on some part of Jesus’ life or teaching.
Obviously, I will have lots of time to pray this week. You will certainly be in my prayers. Please keep me in yours.
Peace,
Fr. Damian