Last week we had our annual 4-day silent retreat.A retreat is always a great time to spend some extra time alone with God in silence. It is a time of renewing our spiritual lives and reorientating our life to God.
It was a really awesome retreat, led by Fr. Zachary of the Mother of God, SOLT. One of the many things Fr. Zachary shared with us was that in order to reach the heights of sanctity quickly, we should have a real, loving relationship with Our Blessed Mother. She will teach us, for she is the model, to have a real, loving relationship with the Blessed Trinity. We should cultivate this relationship with Our Lady if we wish to find the greatest fulfillment in life: great holiness, abiding in the love of God.
Br. Francesco Maria of the Life-Giving Sacrament, KHE
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During the retreat I chose to read our late Holy Father JPII's 1st encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. I found particularly inspiring the below quote. RH #20:
"When celebrating the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, the full magnitude of the divine mystery must be respected, as must the full meaning of this sacramental sign in which Christ is really present and is received, the soul is filled with grace and the pledge of future glory is given.(169) This is the source of the duty to carry out rigorously the liturgical rules and everything that is a manifestation of community worship offered to God Himself, all the more so because in this sacramental sign He entrusts Himself to us with limitless trust, as if not taking into consideration our human weakness, our unworthiness, the force of habit, routine, or even the possibility of insult. Every member of the Church, especially bishops and priests, must be vigilant in seeing that this sacrament of love shall be at the center of the life of the People of God, so that through all the manifestations of worship due to it Christ shall be given back 'love for love' and truly become 'the life of our souls.'(170) Nor can we, on the other hand, ever forget the following words of St. Paul: 'Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.'"(171)
Br. Fidelis Maria of the Sacred Host, KHE
