I’d like to share a bit of what I experienced on the retreat I preached from January 8-14 at a place in the Colorado Rockies near Estes Park, which is about a two-hour drive (depending on weather) from Denver.
There were 64 seminarians there (a bit less than I was originally told, but quite a substantial group nonetheless), and, most gratefully (which I wasn’t originally told), several other priests who came along for most or all of the retreat to help out with confessions and individual spiritual direction.
I arrived in Denver to a light snow on January 7, and I spent the first night in the seminary. The picture here is of the seminary “chapel,” which is about three or four times the size of our monastery church! A very grand and beautiful place, and as usual, I gravitated to the tabernacle and the statue of Our Lady, begging for help to accomplish this daunting mission.
I was still quite nervous about it all, since this was the first time I preached a retreat to such a large group—and seminarians, no less, who are educated and already somewhat formed in their spiritual lives—for a full week. I had been wondering for a while if I hadn’t made a huge mistake in agreeing to take on this formidable task! My job was to give twelve talks (about 45 minutes each), seven homilies (as the Spirit led), and to be available for three separate blocks of time each day for confessions and spiritual direction. So there wasn’t much free time, and if I wanted to pray I had to get up early in the morning (not too difficult, since it was hard to sleep at 9000 feet with extremely dry air and the attendant nosebleeds—nothing serious, though). I could also stay up a little later at night, since they had adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for three hours each night.
Usually they have their retreats in the archdiocesan retreat center, but since that had burned down a couple months previously, it was agreed that another place would be more suitable. So we ended up in a kind of mountain resort called the YMCA of the Rockies, somewhat rustic but qui
te well-appointed, and no one was lacking for anything. In fact, they kept the place a lot warmer than I do here at the monastery! It is a huge complex, about 1000 acres, with many large lodges and several dining halls. The long frigid walk I mentioned in an earlier post (as I was composing my last will and testament) was just what everyone had to do to get from their lodge to the dining halls.
The views were beautiful and the weather was tolerable most of the time. It actually snowed only once during the week (January is the driest time of the winter there), but it was often quite windy and cold. I guess the most difficult time I had with the weather was one evening on the way to supper when it was 12 degrees and the wind was a blustery 40-50 miles per hour, forcing clouds of granular snow into my face. My monastic habit functioned as a sort of sail, so I feared being transported like Elijah to some mountain crag where no one would ever find me.
But more often than not, the sun was shining and the heavens and the earth were telling the glory of God. Being used to mild California weather, I bro
ught enough clothes to bundle up until I resembled the Michelin man, but in fact I didn’t even need all I brought. I kept my hands in my pockets except when taking pictures; I forgot how fast fingers freeze up when exposed to real winter weather! This picture shows the moon setting over the mountains one fine morning on my way to breakfast. My cheap little camera can’t figure out how to deal with the brightness of the moon, so it makes it look like a blob of light, but that thing in the picture really is the moon!
I suppose there’s not a whole lot I can share about the talks and homilies. It’s one of those “you had to be there” kind of things. But I was quite gratified to see that all the talks were quite well attended (it wasn’t until the retreat was about half over that someone told me that that the talks were optional for the seminarians), and that they were evidently interested (a couple random yawns, but no snoring), and later on the feedback was quite positive. So I thank the Lord for his grace and the Blessed Mother for her prayers. I made it a point to try to integrate her into the talks as much as I could, and many of the seminarians were grateful for this
The Holy Spirit seemed to be quite present in this group, especially during the Masses. They sang robustly and well, sometimes in Latin Gregorian chant. It has been my experience in the past that when I concelebrate at a Roman-rite Mass (which I rarely have occasion to do), I feel a bit awkward, not knowing all the rubrics and sort of faking my way through, with the result that I can’t focus sufficiently to enter fully in the mystery of the presence of Christ in his Sacrifice and Communion. But it was different here. I was moved, sometimes to tears, at every Mass! This was a very beautiful blessing of this retreat.
I also mentioned the mop-up list in one of my homilies, and they really took to this. I must have received about 500 new names for the list before I packed my bags to leave. More souls for the Kingdom!
The adventures weren’t over just because the retreat ended, however. After everyone left the mountain resort on Saturday afternoon, I went with Fr Raymond (who got me into this thing in the first place) to visit a hermitess still higher in the mountains. We didn’t have chains on the car, so we had to walk the last icy, steep half-mile or so to her hermitage. When we neared the top, a neighbor (which means he lived somewhere within a few miles) drove by in a strange vehicle with no doors or windows or roof, but it had good tires, so he took us the rest of the way—as I thanked God for every step He spared me. The man promised to drive us back down when we were ready to leave, if Lucille would just call his cell phone. She was a delightful older woman, deeply spiritual and full of the joy and peace of the Lord. We had a most pleasant visit, and then we celebrated Mass in her little chapel. By then it was dark and we had to leave, for we still had the drive to Denver ahead of us. You might have guessed by now that she couldn’t find his number, so we had to walk down that steep, half-mile, snow-and-ice covered hill in the dark! She gave us a little flashlight, though, and this (+ angels) saved us from certain death.
So the following day I was on a plane back to California, intact, and frankly gratified that everything had gone so well and that the Lord had blessed me every step of the way. To celebrate my return to lower altitudes, milder weather, and a somewhat less rigorous schedule, I got a nasty headcold and cough that I’m still trying get rid of as you read this.
But it was a successful mission—though not one I’m ready to repeat anytime soon!—and it looks like it really was the Lord’s will that I said “yes” to the invitation to preach this retreat. May it bear fruit in the lives of these dozens of priests-to-be, so that they will be better equipped to live their faith and win souls for the glory of God!
