Retreat High

Anyone who has been on a retreat knows the feeling of "retreat high". It is a small but glorious glimpse of the joy of heaven. I was on an Ignatian style silent retreat. Those retreats usually last for a few weeks-one month, but because we are just a bunch of college students, we had to pack it into one intense weekend.

In case you wanted to know the structure if an Ignatian Silent Retreat, click here. I began explaining it in this blog post, but it was getting too lengthy, so I am making it optional.

Going into the retreat, I had no expectations. I had no idea what to expect, and I didn't know a single thing about the structure of this particular retreat. I wish I had known more of what to expect, because once silence began, I felt awkward, and uncomfortable. I suppose that could have been a natural reaction. But as the weekend continued on, I actually began to savor the silence, and relish in it. Silence is truly God's loudspeaker! Although I didn't hear an audible voice, God gave me an opportunity to really look inward in a way that I could never do without silence.

I truly enjoyed my retreat experience. It was wonderful growth in my personal relationship with God, and because it was so personal, I won't get into any details, but I will share one insight I had that I shared with the entire group on the last day during large group sharing.

At the retreat center, there was a beautiful courtyard with lovely paths, trees, and benches to sit and pray. At the center of the courtyard was a large golden statue of Jesus and His Sacred Heart. He was glancing slightly at the ground, with his arms in front of him. One night (after walking around the entire courtyard to make sure no one was there), I went to the foot of the statue. This was after an intense examination of conscience, so I was almost afraid to be near anything that resembled Jesus, so I sat and just stared at the feet. You could see the marks where the nails had been driven through on the cross. The way the moonlight played off the statue, it looked like a scar. I reached out to touch the scar, and was utterly surprised when I found that it was not a scar, but a deep hole.

There was a piece of the body of Christ that was missing. My sins helped put the nails through those feet. Because of my own sinfulness, the most holy, kind and beautiful human to ever walk the earth was tortured and shamed.

We are all part of the body of Christ, and when we sin, we are not fulfilling the awesome call to sainthood each of us have. When we take ourselves away from God, we take away a piece of the body of Christ.

But do not despair dear friends! We are saved! We are redeemed! All we have to do is stop sinning (easier said than done, I know). God gave us the beautiful sacrament of confession, where our sins our forgotten, cast as far as the East is from the West.

I am so excited for Easter.