Manresa House of Retreats has changed over the years
| Over the years, many changes have been made all over Manresa - both inside and out. This photo shows the beauty of the landscape and the well-paved road just beyond St. Joseph's Hall. | |||
God loved Manresa just the way it was, but far too much to let it stay that way
Manresa House of Retreats has certainly changed over the years. As sure as the rich get richer, the pampered get even more pampered.
Making a retreat at Manresa House used to be a rigorous undertaking. There were many distractions to overcome in order to follow the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. One had better be equipped with appropriate reading material because the library was barely within thirty years of being up to date. A simple walk around the grounds after dark was a risky proposition. The perimeter roadway and the main walkway from the fishpond were not paved. Turning an ankle in these areas was quite easy to do. Every path and ground level porch was lined with thick Monkey Grass. The grass had strategically placed bare spots to allow the armadillos to run through in order to scare hell out of any wayward retreatant. Now most of the Monkey Grass has been replaced with flower beds and the armadillos have all been trapped and released in some far away wooded area. (Or perhaps in the Saturday Gumbo). Walking in the woods was only for the most adventurous retreatant. Once past the statue of the Blessed Mother it was every man for himself. Puddles were everywhere, some the size of small lakes. No matter how pretty the weather and how dry the ground going into the woods, the walk back was always colder and wetter. Now the woods are filled with beautiful statues of the Lord and other religious figures to help keep the retreatant in a prayerful state of mind - instead of overpowering thoughts of Ned Beatty and his famous canoe trip. Deliver us Lord from these evil thoughts. Another area which has been changed forever is the dining room. In the old days all of the food carts entered the room and exited the room from the same door. Sure it took longer, but the wait produced patience in the Man of Manresa. Every table was served with different sized serving bowls. Some glass, some plastic and some aluminum. We now have no need to covet our neighbors bowl, it's exactly like ours. We were all forced to place a blob of butter on our plate whether we wanted butter or not. There were no individually wrapped pats of butter, we shared a single stick of butter. (How was there always have a full stick of butter at every meal? Did someone mix all the unused butter together and make new sticks three times a day?) And ice was a luxury at the table! Only the first two or three men at the table got ice. Ice was earned by spooning it out of the metal water pitcher, the un-insulated metal water pitcher. Speaking of un-insulated - the coffee was served from an un-insulated metal pitcher that burned a minimum of two retreatants per year, per table. Walking to the river was not the pampered experience it is today. Getting to the levee was once a feat in itself. No longer must the smell of rotting cabbage be conquered. Gone is the single plank of wood that crossed the ditch in front of the levee. Now a three-foot wide wooden bridge makes the ditch hardly noticeable. And getting to the levee used to be as daring as most Men of Manresa could stand. The walk to the river's bank wasn't even considered by most. The few who took the challenge would have to break away fallen branches, walk through more mud and puddles and pray the river didn't come up to swallow them. Now, the pampered retreatant is free to walk the vast clearing of land between the levee and the river and sit on any number of freshly painted benches to contemplate life's tough questions. In days gone now, the prayerful man considered himself blessed if a piece of driftwood was found to sit on. It seems that in this day of super pampering all that is left for the Man of Manresa to do is to exercise. Not physical exercise of course, but Spiritual exercise. What an awesome experience it is to exercise in the presence of the Lord. To contemplate how wretched we could be without God, to contemplate how merciful God is, and to receive God's forgiveness in the Life, Death and Resurrection of His Son and our Lord and Savior, Jesus. To paraphrase a favorite saying of Father Romagosa's, God loved Manresa just the way it was, but far too much to let it stay that way. 