This week, I have kept putting off writing about my Miles Christi silent retreat last weekend because it was such a precious, powerful experience for me. The holy priests who staffed the retreat guided us in an intense, truly challenging selection of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.
I could write a year of blog posts reflecting on the meditations and personal revelations that God generously poured out on me over the course of my retreat (and I think I will end up doing just that, in one way or another). God used this retreat to correct, illuminate and inspire many of the fundamentals of my faith–especially my personal relationship with Jesus.
My last post before the retreat, “Loving God for God’s Sake,” turned out to be a divine foreshadowing of a major message God had for me during the weekend. Before I left for the retreat, I was almost overwhelmed by the feeling that I was “missing” something fundamental in my faith. I didn’t know how to bring a real understanding of God’s mercy into my very heart and soul.
A weekend of near-constant prayer, spiritual meditation and frequent adoration before the Blessed Sacrament–not to mention complete silence on my part–was just what God needed to show my soul just the tiniest bit of what I had been missing.
What I like best about this retreat was that it was very spiritually challenging for me. I have been on a couple of retreats since my ‘conversion’ (if a Cradle Catholic like me can call it that) in college. Both of the retreats were fruitful to a certain extent for where I was in my life, but they weren’t challenging in the way that I think my particular soul has been thirsting for for a long time.
So there is my stab at writing about the wonderful retreat experience I was blessed with last weekend. I am so thankful and humbled: My God is an awesome God!
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