De Cura Animarum: On Retreat With Year 10

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

On Retreat With Year 10

I am now on retreat with the Year 10 from school right now and it is so incredibly loud and a non-retreat atmosphere. All sorts of theological questions about how to get wild teenagers in the mode for retreat. There seems to be a great need for a lot of teaching and preparation about what a retreat is all about because I think I am convinced it's not what I am presently experiencing. We are at the Youth Village of the Diocese. Pray for me!!!

4 comments:

Pater OSB said...: Better thee than me. You are most definitely in my prayers.; 19 November 2009 04:56
waterbrook said...: just relax and go with the flow..they might just teach you something about retreat as you teach them..i always find youngsters so full of life, the life of god..have fun; 20 November 2009 20:49
Jeffrey Steel said...: Waterbrook, that is exactly true indeed. I am always open to learn...Things eventually settle down and they settle down. Great kids; I love them!; 20 November 2009 20:52
Dominic said...: I just made an Ignatian retreat, a Rule of Silence throughout - It is astounding how much more you take in when the mouth is shut.; 22 November 2009 00:20

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"I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater... She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say... Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it. That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."

- Flannery O'Connor