Retreat
I logged on to lj with the intent of chronically a little about the amazing graces poured upon me at the retreat this weekend. However I have realized that writing about it will not do it justice but rather frustrate me in my inability to express the joy and hope that I received so I'm just going to have to talk about it indiviually.
I will however comment on Spe Salvi which I just finished reading. Praise God for our Holy Father! I am continually struck by how pastoral and shepherdly is his writing. It felt as though what I was reading should be handwritten instead of typed, so much did it seem that he had sat down to write me a letter.
Here are a few of the highlights for me:
Christ: he tells us who man is and what a man must do in order to be truly human.
I feel like this is a re-phrasing of the JP IIs "Jesus Christ is the answer to which every human life is the question."
It also brings to mind one of the sub-themes of te retreat which is best phrased by Neuhaus in his book Death on a Friday Afternoon: "Who I am is a truth to be discerned, not a choice to be decided."
Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come tht are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes a "proof" of the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a "not yet". The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into the future.
As I was retyping this it struck me that it reverberates with another quote that struck my heart, one by CS Lewis from The Great Divorce: That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences:' little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.
The idea is also present in Hinds Feet on High Places. Along the journey Much Afraid is called upon to build altars of sacrifice and at each one she receives a stone of remembrance so she will not forget the lesson learned from the trial. She almost casts these stones aside in a moment of desperation but holds onto them. After she is transformed into Grace and Glory:
"He said, 'Give me the bag of stones of remembrance that you have gathered on your journey, Grace and Glory.' She took it out and passed it to him and then he bade her hold out her hands. On doing so, he opened the little purse and emptied the contents into her hands. Then she gasped again with bewilderment and delight, for instead of the common, ugly stones she had gathered from the altars along the way, there fell into her hands a heap of glorious, sparkling jewels, very precious and very beautiful...At that moment Grace and Glory remembered the cave in which she had sheltered from the floods, and how nearly she had succumbed to the temptation to discard as worthless those stones which now shone with glory and splendor...Supposing she had thrown them away, had discarded her trust in his promises, had gone back on her surrenders to his will? There could have been no jewels now to his praise and glory, and no crown for her to wear."
Going back to the encyclical: Knowing how to wait, while patiently enduring trials, is necessary for the believer to be able to "receive what is promised.
His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect.
We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. “But who can discern his errors? Clear me from hidden faults” prays the Psalmist (Ps 19:12 [18:13]). Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is.
All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action. This is so first of all in the sense that we thereby strive to realize our lesser and greater hopes, to complete this or that task which is important for our onward journey, or we work towards a brighter and more humane world so as to open doors into the future. Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance. If we cannot hope for more than is effectively attainable at any given time, or more than is promised by political or economic authorities, our lives will soon be without hope. It is important to know that I can always continue to hope, even if in my own life, or the historical period in which I am living, there seems to be nothing left to hope for. Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere.
It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.
Ok I better stop because the quotes are getting longer.
Thank you God for the gift of our Holy Father.