KEEP THE SILENCE / FR JOHN JOLLIFFE, SM

KEEP THE SILENCE

FR JOHN JOLLIFFE, SM

A “silent directed retreat” is our response to Christ’s many invitations to accept his companionship: “Then he said to them, ‘You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while’” (Mark 6:31), and ‘“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is an act of hope and trust in him about whom the prophet says, “He will bring us back to life ... that he will come is as certain as the dawn” (Hosea 6:2-3).

he fundamental reality is that our capacity to exist at all T is only because God first loved us into life and loves us still. So to live within that love is our basic existence, our true identity, our inner peace. The old catechism taught that God made us “to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven.” St Augustine experienced the reality that “our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” A basic truth is that God is love, and so God acts in love, and therefore God loves us into life and loves us still, whether we accept it or not. Our inner peace grows when we re-centre our lives to be led by that core reality. Our dis-ease comes when we live contrary to it and to who we really are as people continually loved by God. A retreat provides freedom of space and time for us to humbly ponder that amazing mystery of God’s love, to appreciate its life-giving truth, to regain our confidence both in God’s care for us and in our ability to directly respond to him, and to choose to refocus the direction of our lives to live more freely and happily in God’s love. In a retreat we bring ourselves to our loving God just as we are. We come with our griefs and sorrows, hopes and anxieties, joys and worries. We may be seeking to regain confidence in ways of prayer. We may be seeking to work through some grief or turmoil, a struggle or sorrow. We may be wishing to deal with an area of sinfulness or to rediscover hope and our basic goodness. Our personal needs, and our active desire to ask God’s help, are starting points of our retreat journey closer to God. The retreat will

adapt to such personal needs and requests. However, a retreat does not lead inwards to trap the retreatant’s energy into a cycle of woes, but rather leads outwards onto God as the one who can heal and love us back to the fullness of life. Spiritual direction is not a directive or counselling session but aims at helping us in our prayer relationship with God.

A silent directed retreat is a time to “retreat” away from the distracting daily worries and concerns of life in order to regather our energies, build up our inner-life resources, and refocus our lives. We choose to “keep the silence” to better hear the voice of our loving and merciful God speak to our hearts and lives and to honestly notice our responses. A spiritual director helps us learn to discern the signs and direction of the movements of our inner spirits away from and towards God. By learning those patterns within us we can more readily avoid traps that lead us away from God and have more confidence in following the inspirations that lead us to God.

Some things a retreatant can expect in a silent directed retreat at Cor Iesu Fons Vitae Monastery, Ngakuru:

• A private room with ensuite. Main meals daily. Daily

Mass. Much unregulated silent reflection time. • An expectation that we all respectfully keep the silence and honour the prayerful reflection space. • Prayer time priority is given to set periods of individual silent prayer based on Scripture, each one followed by the individual’s prayer review journaling. • A daily opportunity for spiritual direction with a

Catholic priest experienced in giving spiritual direction.

That will be for about 20 – 30 minutes, based on what happened in our prayer. • The spiritual director can listen to our sharing on the area of life we wish to bring to the Lord for help. • He can help us discern the “desired grace gift” the

Holy Spirit is leading us to seek and pray for during the retreat, and can offer us suitable scripture passages as

God’s Word leading us towards that grace. • He can help us become more familiar with ways of silent prayer that help us listen productively to God. • The Catholic priest directors are also available for the

Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Some ways to prepare before our retreat.

• Free ourselves of other commitments and worries so we become more free to respond to God’s graces. • Spend time in prayer asking God to enlighten us. What graces does God want us to seek and ask for? • Pray for the courage to open our hearts to God’s grace with humility, repentance, faith, trust and love. • Bring our Bibles.

A retreat is quality time for rejuvenating our “adventure of the heart” with God, our wonderful opportunity to develop a greater friendship with he who loves us and seeks to lead us to the fullness of life, inner peace, and ultimately eternal happiness with him.

- Scripture references from The Jerusalem Bible.