The 30-day retreat experience has been a period of solitude, where we practiced the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in silence. The Ignatian spiritual exercises consist of vocal or mental prayer, meditation, contemplation, and other spiritual practices. We were twenty retreatants: four Xaverians and sixteen other brothers and sisters from different dioceses and religious congregations. We journeyed together in solitude from June 07 to July 08, in the Sacred Heart Retreat House & Seminar Center, Novaliches. For me, it has been a time to relax physically and spiritually, after a long period of studies and other activities, in order to dispose myself to stay with the Lord and listen to Him in solitude. The retreat was also held under the Jubilee year of the Constitutions and the Letter Testament of Saint Guido Maria Conforti. In these documents, he has recommended us to have regularly the annual retreat as one of the important elements to nurture our spiritual life (TL. 8). Here, I want to share about the graces and experiences that moved me in the retreat, and for which I am grateful to God.
God’s presence in solitude.
The retreat was a very beautiful journey with God, but it was also long and demanding. In solitude with God, I tasted his love and mercy. Through meditation and contemplation of sin, God made me rediscover his graciousness and how intense is his mercy. I tasted how in spite of my sins, he loves me and bestows on me his graces. Through the contemplation of the mystery of the incarnation, the birth of Christ, his earthly ministry, his triumphal entry in Jerusalem, his passion, death and resurrection, God unveiled to me some aspects of his “otherness”, this is, how God’s way of being and acting is different from ours. I experienced God as the Father who loves, forgives, and supports me; and in spite of my weakness, he gives me a mission. I felt loved, cherished, and supported by God, but also undeserving of all these favors.
The encounter with Him in solitude has given me spiritual consolation through interior movements from which my soul drew great desire to praise, reverence and serve God, and the longing to get rid of all inordinate attachments in order to freely attain this purpose.
Journey of self-discovery.
The spiritual exercises have been for me a path toward self-discovery. They helped me dig deeper into my past and my present relationship with God, with myself, with others, and with the world. I have deepened into my private internal experience with God, my feelings and thoughts, to rediscover my deeper beliefs, values, hidden fears, insecurities, inordinate attachments, and my motivations. Thus, it was an instance to enhance my freedom through the integration of all these realities. Moreover, the experience has been a discovery of specific areas where the Lord is calling me to conversion in order to be more disposed to answer his call radically. It was a rediscovery of how God is working in me.
Journey in God’s grace
The graces the Lord has granted me and for which I am grateful are numerous. Just to mention some, I recognized the grace of perseverance in prayer for the 30 days. It was an unusual experience where I had to take four to six hours of prayer every day. In these prayerful hours, God made me more aware of his presence in my journey, sensitive to his touch and whispering. Also, He made me experience greater Joy and peace. He operated some changes in my life, first, the change in my way of praying, as I have prefered the option for more praise thanpetition, and the use of the interior senses in prayer. God has given me the grace of sound perception of people and the world, with the ability to be more loving, understanding and caring than judging people, and to find Him and his Love in everything. Meditation and contemplative prayer have dipped me into God’s mercy and compassion and infused in my heart these two virtues. I felt it an emergent call to be more merciful and compassionate like God by whose Mercy and compassion I live and stand in my mission. The retreat was a journey of ongoing conversion, this special grace that the Lord gives us to renew our person so as to resemble him. It was a process of conversion of my negative way of viewing reality into a positive one.
A fight.
Though the spiritual exercises were so godly, the devil did not stop buffeting. He was coming in various ways such as the desire to break with silence, tiredness, and boredom. Whenever I was haunted by these temptations, the best weapon I had to fight them was prayer. The more I prayed, the more I rid myself of them and enjoyed God’s consolation. Furthermore, the help of the Spiritual director was an efficacious means to notice and oust them.
And after all?
The 30-day retreat has been so beneficial. It has been an existential experience in the sense that it moved all my being and reshaped my internal life through prayer, meditation, and contemplation. The encounter in solitude has deepened in my soul the longing for God and the desire to follow Christ, to serve him by living out the Xaverian Charism he has revealed to Saint Guido Maria Conforti. It was the rediscovery of the meaning of my existence or the purpose for which God has created me: to praise, reverence and serve him, and thus to make use of all the gifts he has bestowed on me to attain this purpose.
After all, what I have done and experienced during the Spiritual Exercises, has now to be witnessed and lived out. This is the time to make use of the fruits drawn from the retreat in practical life, and time to move on in union with Christ. I am grateful to my community for the great participation to have this retreat successful.
