Making a retreat
- My Having made my usual annual retreat, at the Abbaye de la Pierre-Qui-Vire, I agreed to lead three retreats for lay people and for religious in France and Belgium.
Each retreat is a spiritual event. Something always happens. Praying together, listening to the word of God, sharing the Word and receiving it from someone else : all these constitute a call, and an invitation, to openness.
What one was not expecting can happen.
To make a retreat is a chance to put down our burden, to look back over the road we have travelled, re-read the story of our life, make connections between the various events that have marked us, and look towards the future.
When I am listening to the retreatants, I realize that they are carrying very heavy crosses. But I am amazed at the way the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives. I thank God for these men and women who, in spite of the burden of their experience and their trials, continue to believe in Christ with admirable fidelity.
An invitation to a meal -A coloured man came up to me in the bus in order to talk to me. He was from Bangladesh. He shared his difficulties with me : finding somewhere suitable for his family to live; his wife, who is an Iranian, works; he too; his two sons, aged 15 and 17, are getting on well at school. But their apartment has only two small rooms with a kitchen corner; and they have been there for 10 years. He begged me to come and have supper with them one evening. His sons knew me and would be delighted. I accepted the invitation and got off the bus.
Two weeks later, I went to his house as promised. The man I had met on the bus was waiting for me in the street. He was delighted to see me. His sons had made a bet that I would never come to eat with them!
The apartment block was old and noisy, but their own apartment was very neat and tidy. When there is very little space, everything has to be kept in its place!
The mother, with her two tall sons standing beside her, was delighted to welcome me. The two lads were obviously embarrassed. But they soon got over that. They showed me their tiny room, with bunk beds. The younger boy goes to bed early. The older boy works late into the night with a small lamp. They asked me to write a few words on a piece of paper.
In the other room, a table had been set against the wall for the meal. There were only four chairs. The father remained standing in order to do the serving. It is in this room that the parents sleep, when the table has been folded away.
I sensed the pride the parents take in their two sons. They are doing everything they can to enable them to succeed. The family is a sacred value.
I shared with them the bread of friendship in the privacy of their little home. I had the feeling that I had become part of their life. Sharing makes brothers and sisters of us all.
Baptism and weddings - Summer is a good time for the celebration of those sacraments which bring together families and friends. A young couple whom I did not know and who had drifted away from the Church got in touch with me. They had no link with the institutional Church, but human love and a birth invite one to go beyond oneself, prompt questions about the meaning of life, and can open people up to a spiritual quest. These young people were not looking for rules and regulations but for meaning. They have had the experience of travelling a particular road, and they want to be true to what they bear within them.
When we assemble in the Church for the celebration of a Sacrament, I like the couple, the interested parties, to speak first, to explain to all present the reason for the step they are taking. This what happened at this wedding, where the young married couple said to the assembled guests : "You must be wondering why we have come to Church to be married. It is true that we do not agree with some of the official lines the Church takes. We also know our own weakness and our doubts with regard to the faith. But in spite of everything, we want our love to be blessed by God and we entrust our word to the fidelity of God". Thus the tone was set, and the assembly felt itself involved.
