The Holy Spirit is My Retreat Director…and He’s Good!
I’m finally recovering from the cold I caught while away in France. Travel often leaves me sick, like a little good bye gift from the host country. But, now that my head doesn’t feel like the weel impact zone of an airport tarmac, I can commence with the blogging about the trip and the retreat!
The first week of our two week journey was spent in Plavilla, France, with The Community of the Lamb, a religious community to which a few of the priests I traveled with are aquainted. The community lives as “a new branch of the tree of the Order of Preachers” with distinct Dominican roots and a Franciscan flair. We joked that the week we spent with these joyful men and women of this new movement of the Church served as a pre-retreat-retreat. Witnessing their committment to poverty, begging for all of their food and hitchhiking wherever they need to go, the modest living conditions complimented by the beautifully simple liturgy, Eastern-inspired chant, and pastoral zeal helped to open my heart to what God had in store during our stay in France.
As is often with any retreat, the retreatant must spend a few days disconnecting from the umbilicals of the world in order to let God begin to lead the soul to true recollection. The simple life, the community prayer, the joy of the community, and the quiet of the countryside provided the necessary formula for the days that would come.
One afternoon, we went to Fanjeaux, up the road from Saint-Pierre (the name of the area where the community is located). Fanjeaux is a sleepy little village where St. Dominic lived and was the pastor of a church. Several miracles occured there as well. Most notably, a trial occured between which catechism was correct, those of the Albigensians (a gnostic sect) or the one that St. Dominic had written. Both manuscripts were cast into the fire and Dominic’s lept from the fire three times. A piece of the beam on which the book hit as it flew into the air is preserved at the Dominican house behind the church.
Dominic was known for his relentless charity towards the Albigensians, who claimed that all material things were evil, and was known to outdo and confound them with his austere life. He is rumored to have said, “… heretics are more easily won over by examples of humility and virtue than by external display or a hail of words. Should we not rather arm ourselves with devout prayers and, carrying before us the standard of true humility, proceed in our bare feet against Goliath?”
We also stopped to venerate a stone cross where Dominic would meet the waring Cathars. As they would seek to put him to death as he made his pastoral rounds, they found themselves unable to do so as he sang loudly the Magnificat and other Marian hymns as he passed through their midst with a smile.
Our second to last day in Plavilla, we took a longer day-trip to Lourdes, to venerate the site where Our Lady appeared and revealed herself to Bernadette Soubirous, a peasant girl, stating that she was The Immaculate Conception. Our Lady also brought forth a spring of water which flows to this day. Following Our Lady’s invitation to Bernadette to wash and drink from the spring, many have come to seek healing from the baths at Lourdes. All of us took the bath and offered our intentions to Mary, who then brings them to Jesus on our behalf. We offered Mass in a side chapel named for St. Michael the Archangel of the upper basilica and ate a tasty pizza lunch before returning to the community.
We departed for Ars in order to arrive in time for the beginning of the International Priests’ Retreat. We offered a few prayers of thanksgiving for safe travel at The Basilica of St. Sixtus, inside which is the parish church of St. Sixtus which was St. Jean Vianney’s parish. Inside we viewed his catechism desk, his confessional, his pulpit, and the altar where his body lay in repose.
The retreat was very fruitful. Over 1200 priests from all over the world were in attendance along with cardinals, bishops, and a special video message from Pope Benedict XVI to us! We prayed together in common, took meals together (except for those few days when a few of us ventured out to seek a necessary crêpe or two. The retreat was preached by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna (and incidentally the bishop in charge of the Community of the Lamb, which made for a few chance meetings with him.), whose insights were quite useful for the priest in any stage of ministry.
There was a grand Eucharistic Procession, the presence of the heart of St. Jean Vianney which is contained in its own reliquary, and the relics of St. Thérèse de Lisieux, whose feast we celebrated while we were there. What a grace it was to be present in Ars alongside two saints so devoted to priestly ministry!
Our retreat officially ended in Ars, but the Holy Spirit pressed our hearts into service for yet another mile as we concluded our journey with a trip to Cluny, the site of ancient monasticism’s principal hub now in ruins following the French Revolution, and to Paray-le-Monial, the town where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received the visions of Jesus revealing his Sacred Heart to her and to the world for devotion. I was privileged to celebrate Mass at the altar above which St. Margaret Mary’s relics were entombed in the chapel where she received the apparitions of the Sacred Heart. This is a devotion that is very dear to me, so despite taking on a cough and beginning to feel sick, I was deliriously happy.
The next day, we drove to Lyon and stayed overnight near the airport where we would depart for the United States very early.
The Holy Spirit makes an excellent retreat director. Had we not been open to the promptings of the Spirit our retreat may have only been in Ars. But, as Providence would have it, there was (and is) much more for the heart to experience for those who wait on the Lord.
It’s good to be back with a fresh dose of grace!
Fr. Chris | Tags: Community of the Lamb, Dominic, france, John Vianney, priest, retreat
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