September 18, 2022 - Pastor Message
04/26/2024THE YEAR OF HEALING
SPIRITUAL HEALING
“The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ People were going and coming in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in a boat by themselves to a deserted place” (Mark 6:30-32).
The idea of making a spiritual retreat goes back before Christianity when people seeking spiritual enlightenment journeyed to the wilderness to escape the distractions of civilization and to confront the evil spirits that they believed lived there. We see vestiges of this idea in Jesus’ own forty days in the desert at the beginning of his public life when, right after being baptized, the Holy Spirit drove him into the desert to confront the devil and his temptations. Later, early Christians, who sought a closer relationship with Christ and who found the hustle and bustle of daily life sidetracked them from their purpose, left the world behind to live permanently by themselves or in small, like-minded communities in deserts and mountains, forming the roots of what would become consecrated religious life.
Jumping ahead to our own time, the same principles that drove the people before Christianity and the early Christians, including Jesus and the apostles, into the wilderness to seek spiritual healing and growth drive countless Christians today to make spiritual retreats. While few of us are called to do so permanently, most of us are called to do so regularly or at least once in a while. Priests, for example, are actually required by Church law to make an annual retreat, which I will do together with some of my brother priests from our diocese this week, September 19 - 22.
The specific purpose of a spiritual retreat may vary, depending on the type of retreat that it is, but, in general, the goal of every retreat is to set aside our distractions and refocus our lives on the things that matter most, in particular our relationship with God in his Son, Jesus Christ. To accomplish that, it is helpful to actually retreat, to get away from those distractions by physically going away from the normal places in which we live. This can be a retreat center, like the St. Thomas More House of Prayer in Cranberry, near Oil City. It could also be simply a family cabin or camp, an Airbnb on the shore, or even a part of our house or backyard that we designate for spiritual activities, like a spare room we’ve converted into a private chapel or a corner of our sitting room or bedroom we’ve made our prayer space. The point is to get away from all distractions so that we can focus completely on God.
The next step is to set aside a sufficient period of time. It takes time to shift gears emotionally and spiritually from our fast-paced daily life, which we tend to live on the surface, to the slower, more intentional pace of a retreat, where it is not important that we do a lot but rather do what we do in-depth, taking the time to really think and pray about what we’re doing. In fact, retreats are not really about what we do at all but what God does, so we need time to open our hearts and minds wide enough to let him in and do whatever it is he has planned for us. There is no specific amount of time that is “right”, again it depends on the kind of retreat, but we need to make a serious commitment to that time and let God take over. So please keep my brother priests and me in prayer as we go off by ourselves to a deserted place, that God may do what he plans for us, and please consider making a spiritual retreat yourself, which can play a vital part in a healthy spiritual life.
Fr. Marc Stockton
-
Current News