Are you yearning to go deeper with God but unsure how? Would you like to grow in your experience of God while at the same time learning more about yourself? Are you open to learning and incorporating new ways of praying and connecting with God? Do you want to break out of a life focused on sin and live a life more full of God’s grace?
If you answered yes to these questions, you might want to explore the New Spiritual Exercises - a Retreat in Everyday Life. It’s a journey where we dive into familiar stories of Jesus’ life and grow in new understandings of those stories and new understandings about ourselves. We will learn new ways to pray and share our experiences with others in our retreat group. So if you are looking for an intimate and connective experience, maybe God is nudging you to explore this retreat.
For six days a week, you will be guided through meditations that help you explore your relationship with God, yourself, and others. Rather than experiencing a retreat condensed over three days (or 30 days in the case of St. Ignatius’ original spiritual exercises), this retreat offers daily times for you to connect with God over a year. You will also meet with Colleen for spiritual direction once a month. Spiritual direction is a space for you to reflect with someone on what God is doing during your prayer time. The retreat begins Aug. 31 and ends May 10.
Unsure of whether you want to commit?
Hear this prayer from Teilhard de Chardin titled, “Above All, Trust the Slow Work of God.”
Above all, trust the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time — that is to say, grace — and circumstances acting on your own good will, will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that [the divine] hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.
Amen.
If you have questions or want to learn more about the Retreat in Everyday Life, contact Colleen Runty via email at colleen.runty@gmail.com.