Reflections on "Retreat to Go Forward"

When I was a student in Rome studying at the International Seminary of Propaganda Fide (The Propagation of the Faith) I recall acting as a tour guide to a group of American tourists, who anxiously wanted to see the statue of Michael Angelo's Moses, housed at the Esquiline Hill. I remember we arrived at the church at 12 noon when an old priest was locking the doors of the church. The people were insistent and complained and asked why he was locking up the doors of the church, where upon he replied; "You Americans are always in a hurry! Rome is the "Eternal City" the statue of Moses has been around for four hundred years, come back tomorrow!" But they continued their protest and inquired; why do they close the doors of the church at 12 noon in Rome? Where upon the old priest replied: "Why? The reason is that here in Rome... between the hours of 12 noon and 3pm, even God takes a siesta!"

In our day and age it has been said- "We're too busy making a living...We have no time to live." Today everybody is stressed; everybody is doing more and more. We are losing what I would call our "sacred space of listening." We fail to realize that the present moment is all we can call our own!

How often we fail to live in the present moment. As a result we become frustrated and anxious having to come to the realization that yesterday has gone and we can not change it. Tomorrow has not come yet and it is not necessarily a promise, but a gift. Living in the present moment frees us to live and cherish the real.

Recently I took a mini-retreat, (even we who supposedly are God's ministers need to take "time-out" to allow God to re-create His spirit in us). Too often, we're a part of the "doing church" and fail to be a part of the "being church". Some people wish for things to happen, some people wait for things to happen, while others watch things happen.

Retreat, for me is a time of mystery, when I am a part of the "waiting, watching, & wondering Church", in which I allow God to speak to me and un-clutter my life and empower me to listen to His voice. Making a retreat for me, is a moment of truth which delivers me from the heresy of over action and enables me to put my life in perspective.

I thank God for the opportunity of such an encounter, and I hope and pray all could have a similar experience. We need that sacred space and time to wait on God as it were, and to listen to His voice...as it is spoken very often in the sounds of silence.

God Is Counting On Us

Back in the not so good-old days in The Sixties, some Advant-guard Theologians were shaking up The Pius establishment by declaring, as Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche had, that "God is dead", one enterprising pastor caught a ride on the publicity bandwagon by declaring, "God is not dead; he's only asleep!" To substantiate his claim, he cited various pervasive evils in our society that no self-respecting god would permit if awake. The "drug culture", the "sexual revolution", violence in the cities, and certain other blemishes on the face of our culture as exhibits A through Z. To prove that God -- if still in the business of being God -- had, at least "nodded off".

Similarly in Psalm 59, David assumes that God's apparent absence or apathy in the face of evil is that God has fallen asleep at the switch. But David skates periously close to heresy when he demands of God, "Rouse yourself, come to my help...awake and punish the nations." (Psalm 59-v4, 5)

But our God is not dead, nor does He sleep. As another Psalm asserts, "He who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." (Psalm 121:3-4)

The Philosopher Rabindranah Tagore, and Indian mystic, was once so appalled by the suffering children on the crowded streets of Calcutta, that he lifted his tear filled eyes to heaven in the reproach, "God, why don't you do something about all of this?" and he reported that the answer came to him from Heaven: "I most certainly have done something about it; I made you!"

As President Kennedy said so well in his Inaugural Address, "We continue asking His blessings, asking His guidance, but mindful that here on earth, we must make His work our own."

If evil thrives where you live, who is it that is really asleep? The world that is asking whether or not God is alive or dead...can only find its answer in us!

Pentecost

In life we want to cling to someone we love and depend on, we just can't bear the thought of that person leaving us. When Jesus told his Apostles that he was leaving them, they plunged into gloom. He said to them, "It is for your own good that I go away, because unless I go, the Spirit will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you." (John 14-24 & 25)

It must have been very hard for the Apostles to see how the Lord"s going away could be for their good, yet no one showed more respect for people than Jesus. He did not dominate them, but served them. He gave all people a chance to grow in faith and shine. Had he always remained with them in his physical presence, they would have never come to age themselves. So Jesus sent them his Holy Spirit. He handed his entire world to them an gave them a mission of spreading the good news of the Gospel. What the Spirit did was bring his love awakened energies in them, that they didn't know were there, so they were able to do things they didn't think they were capable of. After Pentecost their hearts were on fire and there was a wind at their backs!

We too need the Holy Spirit so that we can become fearless witnesses for Christ and the Gospel. On Pentecost Day, the Apostles spoke a new language which was the reversed of "Babel". We too need to speak this language. What is this new language? It is the language of peace rather than war; it is the language of cooperation rather than competition; it is the language of forgiveness rather than vengeance; it is the language of hope rather than despair; it is the language of tolerance rather than bigotry; it is the language of friendship rather than hostility; it is the language of unity rather than division; it is the language of love rather than hate. Through the gift of the coming of the Holy Spirit, people of different languages learned to protest one faith to the praise & glory of God. That is the real miracle of Pentecost, and it is a miracle which praise God, still happens.

Home Sweet Home

In the beloved and most popular Psalm 23 we read at the conclusion "only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come."

All of us want to have a dwelling place when we can live and have reference and roots and call "sweet home".

Probably no word better summarizes the suffering of our times than the word "homeless". It reveals one of our deepest and most painful conditions. The conditions of not having a sense of belonging, of not having a place to call our own, where we can feel safe, cared for, protected, and loved.

The first and most obvious quality of a home is acceptance and intimacy. When we say "I wish I were home", we express a longing for that intimate place that offers as people suffer much from conflict at home, even though much emotional suffering finds it's roots at home, and even though "broken homes" are increasingly blamed for crimes and unrest in society. The word "home" continues to carry with it a hope, a warm love, and remains one of the most evocative symbols for possible happiness. Our songs tell us this, "There's no place like home for the holidays".

In terms of relationships, we need to have friends that being with them means that we're at "home".

Our faith even calls us to experience life as "going home" and even death as "coming home at last". Yes to echo Psalm 23, "only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come."