Three Days with God

Notes from one man's Manresa retreat

THE SILENCE BEGINS

As this superimposed image suggests, men will soon fill empty chairs in Loyola Hall for the first lecture of their retreat, thus signaling the start of silence.

We are trying to find God’s way, like in Wisdom 9. In 1 Kings 19:9, God comes to Elijah in silence. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to us through mental and physical stress. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to give us the mind of God.

CONTEMPLATING CREATION

The grounds of Manresa unceasingly remind us: “Blessed is the day the Lord has made.”

We must first think about Christianity. We can think of it as to God, through Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. You come to this retreat every year as a different person. You have had trials, sorrows, joys, through out the year that changed you in some way. God is ever new. Everyday he gives us a new day. We should embrace this day, “Blessed is the day the Lord has made.” We need to remember that we don’t have to be a priest to find God. St. Ignatius was a layman. He found his spirituality as a layman with less background than we have today. We are kept in existence because of God. We need to look at creation through the wrappings. God gives us gifts because he loves us. This is hard to receive, because we are opening ourselves up to others. We need to calm ourselves down and realize the gifts God gave us. This helps to realize how much he loves us. It is not the many things, but the deepness of quality to use the little (few) things to see God. God is not in a rush. Savor what God has shared with you in that little moment.

LOOKING AT OURSELVES

Many retreatants use prayer and scripture to help see themselves through the eyes of God.

We spent time looking at creation around us, now let’s turn to ourselves. It is time to grow. It is time to give up the childhood approach to God that we were taught. We are harder on ourselves than God is on us. Go back and look at the stages that God has used to make me understand him. God has really made a lot of things right in my life, even when I didn’t realize it. All of the Bible’s stories were written in retrospect. All of life’s understandings are done in retrospect. We live life forward, but we understand it looking backwards. How do we treat others? We are part of today’s evil. We all add to this evil in the world. Every time we are a little inconsiderate, a little impatient, or hold a little hatred we add to this evil.

SIN

The sun provides warmth, the oak offers shade, and the lawn chair invites retreatants to pause and reflect.

Look at sin the way God looks at it. Sin is self-destruction and doesn’t make sense. Get up, look at what you’ve got and move forward. Be sorry, but more forward. “O’ happy fault, that gave us the redeeming Christ.” There is no time in life when we’ve got it made. We need to use sin and grace to help us grow, to be happy and to enjoy God’s mercy. We need to look at how OUR sin affects others. If you sin you are destroying yourself, if you destroy yourself, you have less to give to others. We are so sinful as a society that we think love is weak. We need to reflect on the father in the story of the prodigal son and not be afraid to LOVE. Repent and love for others. There is great joy in heaven when one sinner repents (Luke 15:7).

KNOWING JESUS

The statue of Jesus looks down from the crucifix in Manresa’s Sacred Heart Chapel

I challenge you to love this man Jesus. This is not an intellectual, emotional, nor an affective pursuit. Jesus came on earth to show us what God is like. He came and was everything like us, but sin. Absorb the way he thinks, his values, the way he behaved. Absorb the attitudes of Jesus, not just to imitate, but also to take some of what is his and make it mine. Luke has the best testimony of who Jesus is, not was, because he knew the living Jesus when this was written. We also look to Mary because she knew Jesus better than anyone. We give Mary honor because she is the most faithful person that we know. To know Jesus we need to know the life of Jesus. We need to understand his public life also. The apostles couldn’t understand that Jesus had to be a suffering Messiah. We see in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus can easily destroy evil just from his words. He was a good Jew, yet he was at odds with the Jewish leaders. The Pharisees were not bad people, but they put themselves in the shell of un-openness which the Holy Spirit cannot enter. Knowing Jesus we see how compassionate he is with those around him. In John’s gospel Jesus weeps for Lazarus. He cries because he experiences death for the first time and it is someone who he loves. He begins to understand what we go through when a love one dies. Lazarus’s death was a prelude to Jesus’ resurrection. However, Lazarus was not resurrected, but was restored to life.

JESUS’ RESURRECTION

The dominant figure in our own church at St. Charles Borromeo parish is that of the Risen Christ.

One of our greatest mysteries is Jesus’ dying for our sins. If we could understand everything about God either we would BE God or he would be human. We do know God; we all have a name that God has given to us. When he calls us by that name we know he is addressing our talents. The success of salvation has been completed by Jesus. Now it is up to us. We have what it takes, use it and preach the word. At baptism we are given the vocations of priest, prophet and king. Christ is present. We need to know Him. By knowing Him we need to spread His good news. We need to serve by loving.

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