This weekend we went on silent retreat as a community. Yes…silence. I had never been on a silent retreat before and was excited to have this quiet time. Being in such a busy city with so many amazing things going on, I wanted to have a weekend to be quiet just be with the Lord.
It was kind of funny because I’m definitely not a quiet person. A few of the others and myself were kind of nervous about how the retreat might go, and if we could keep silence through it. I was mostly thinking I would randomly break out in laughter at dinner or some other point.
The retreat house is on a hill looking over a beautiful lake, and across the lake is the Pope’s retreat house. The hills were filled with shades of green, orange, red, and yellow leaves on the trees. I’m not really sure if there can ever be a “true fall” here, since the leaves don’t actually seem to be falling off the trees any time soon!
Right when we got there we had mass, followed by dinner. We got all of the talking we could do out, and once we left the room, we began our 36 hours of silence.
The weekend was beautiful. Fr. Carola, our chaplain, led five of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatious of Loyola. We had a lot of time then to reflect on those readings from scripture, celebrate the sacraments, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, enjoy the outside, and listen to the Lord.
It is quite an amazing experience learning to step back from the business of life and just speak with the Lord and most importantly, to listen to Him speak to your heart. It was even kind of awkward emerging from silence on Sunday during lunch, because I was just getting used to it. But the awkwardness quickly lifted and the room roared with laughter and excitement as we all shared our experiences and the joys from the weekend. Dr. Cavanaugh noticed that we were especially chatty at dinner that night, and joked about how we were trying to make up for our lack of talking all weekend.
The Lord really blesses the times when we make the decision to take time away to pray and listen to Him. I am so happy we were given this opportunity, and hope to do it again!
It was kind of funny because I’m definitely not a quiet person. A few of the others and myself were kind of nervous about how the retreat might go, and if we could keep silence through it. I was mostly thinking I would randomly break out in laughter at dinner or some other point.
The retreat house is on a hill looking over a beautiful lake, and across the lake is the Pope’s retreat house. The hills were filled with shades of green, orange, red, and yellow leaves on the trees. I’m not really sure if there can ever be a “true fall” here, since the leaves don’t actually seem to be falling off the trees any time soon!
Right when we got there we had mass, followed by dinner. We got all of the talking we could do out, and once we left the room, we began our 36 hours of silence.
The weekend was beautiful. Fr. Carola, our chaplain, led five of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatious of Loyola. We had a lot of time then to reflect on those readings from scripture, celebrate the sacraments, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, enjoy the outside, and listen to the Lord.
It is quite an amazing experience learning to step back from the business of life and just speak with the Lord and most importantly, to listen to Him speak to your heart. It was even kind of awkward emerging from silence on Sunday during lunch, because I was just getting used to it. But the awkwardness quickly lifted and the room roared with laughter and excitement as we all shared our experiences and the joys from the weekend. Dr. Cavanaugh noticed that we were especially chatty at dinner that night, and joked about how we were trying to make up for our lack of talking all weekend.
The Lord really blesses the times when we make the decision to take time away to pray and listen to Him. I am so happy we were given this opportunity, and hope to do it again!
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1 comment:
That's amazing. Maybe someday I'll be able to even do a small silent retreat! Cool!
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