Dear Fellow Pilgrim,
Thank you for answering a call to go on retreat, to "come away to a quiet place and rest awhile" (Mk 6:31). A good way to respond to this divine invitation is to:
get rest as much as you can,
ask for an open and generous heart,
treat yourself to one or more of the opportunities below to pause & ponder.
As you read or listen, linger where you’re drawn and notice what stirs within you. Then take a little time to journal, prompted by the question that follows each option:
The Journey (below): What voice urges me to go on retreat?
A Reflection: Have I been living with an attitude of a pilgrim or that of a tourist?
Mgsr. Connolly’s Epiphany Homily: How’s my soul?
THE JOURNEY
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice—
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
“Mend my life!” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do—
determined to save the only life you could save.
– Mary Oliver, Dream Work