Going on retreat...

Beginning Tuesday, May 13, I'll be on retreat for eight days at Eastern Point Retreat House on the Gloucester coast.  Over the years I've made many retreats here, the first being my ordination retreat in 1973. (The photo above shows the original house on the left and on the right the new wing with retreatant rooms.  The chapel is in the older part of the complex as well as the dining room.)

I'll be making a directed retreat which means the week will be spent in silence, broken only by a daily half-hour conversation with my retreat director and with prayer and song at Mass each day.  The house rule for the rest of the time is silence, including meal times in the dining room.

I'm often asked if I find the silence difficult to handle: not at all!  I find the quiet to be a peaceful stillness that refreshes and restores my soul, my prayer and my relationship with Jesus. In fact, I long for this silence!  The beautiful seashore setting certainly helps a retreatant enter with awe into the Lord's presence.  The view from my window will look out on the ocean...

 

 

What does one do with all that quiet on a directed retreat?  It's time to slow down,  rest, pray, renew, read, reflect, pray, ponder, remember, wonder, pray - and to see how the Lord is moving and wants to move in my life...  I need and look forward to all of that!

While I'm away, posting will be light or perhaps not at all here on my page - I'll wait to see how and where the Spirit draws and leads me...

 
Here's a photo I took of the chapel in the main house at Eastern Point.  (That's a tabernacle in the center; the windows overlook the rocks and the ocean; and there are chairs all around the perimeter of the room.)  I'll be praying for you in this simple beautiful chapel and would be grateful for your prayers for me in return.

 

Chapel at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester

 

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