Spiritual Retreat 2018

May 30, 2018
  • RE2018.05.30

Upon arriving in Madrid, our group discovered that their flight to France would be delayed due to a transportation strike in that country. They took advantage of the delay to tour Madrid (a bit more than planned) as they learned to overcome their first “travel adventure” of the summer.

A couple days later, they arrived in France and back on schedule in order to begin their spiritual retreat.

From May 29 to June 2, the seminarians are on a silent spiritual retreat in Ars, France, the village of the great role model for priests, St. John Vianney. Every year most of our seminarians have remarked that the spiritual retreat is the main highlight of the program. And, our hope is that this year’s retreat will also prove to be a special time of silence, prayer, and spiritual growth.

QUOTES ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SILENCE FOR THE INTERIOR LIFE
from “The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise” by Robert Cardinal Sarah

  • “God carries us, and we live with him at every moment by keeping silence. Nothing will make us discover God better than his silence inscribed in the center of our being. If we do not cultivate this silence, how can we find God? Man likes to travel, create, make great discoveries. But he remains outside of himself, far from God, who is silently in his soul… how important it is to cultivate silence in order to be truly with God.”

 

  • “Every day it is important to be silent so as to determine the outlines of one’s future action. The contemplative life is not the only state in which man must make the effort to leave his heart in silence. In everyday life, whether secular, civil, or religious, exterior silence is necessary.”

 

  • “The silence of everyday life is an indispensable condition for living with others. Without the capacity for silence, man is incapable of hearing, loving, and understanding the people around him. Charity is born of silence. It proceeds from a silent heart that is able to hear, to listen, and to welcome. Silence is a condition for otherness and a necessity if one is to understand himself. Without silence, there is neither rest nor serenity nor interior life. Silence is friendship and love, interior harmony and peace. Silence and peace have one and the same heartbeat.”

 

PHOTOS OF THE 2017 SPIRITUAL RETREAT IN ARS, FRANCE
www.flickr.com/photos/theromeexperience/with/36664027144/