Retreat Notes 2024

Background from Bishop Kihneman

Each year, the bishops in our region gather for a retreat. This year’s retreat was led by Archbishop Emeritus Al Hughes. He is the previous Archbishop of New Orleans. During the retreat, Archbishop Hughes shared wonderful reflections. I’ve summarized his key points below.

Summary

Let us enter into repentant gratitude and make space for God. We do this by placing all in God’s hands as we ask for the grace we need.

The Joy of the Gospel Outreach

There are three types of outreach:

To those who are baptized and participating, we can form missionary disciples.
To those baptized who have moved away from the Church—to listen to them and accompany them.
To those who have never heard of or rejected Jesus and His Church.

In all outreach, we must let the Holy Spirit lead us along the way.

During the retreat, identity three hour-long periods of prayer a day to bring what is going on in our life and to place them in God’s hands.

I recommend during the prayer time, to read scripture text slowly and stop to dwell with it. At the end of the prayer time, explicitly respond to foster communion with God, and offer the prayer time as an act of love. We try to identify the grace we need this week and bring it to prayer. Afterward, get some rest.

Psalm 95; 1 Kings 19:1-18

The Power of Silence

Robert Cardinal Sarah wrote a book entitled, The Power of Silence. In the book, he says that charity is born of silence and is needed for us to understand ourselves. In silence, we are allowing God to evangelize us. We are hearing God’s Word for transformation in the silence. Persevere in prayer to become a bit quieter, leading to communion with God. Even when praying feels dry, in the end it’s about communion.

Prayer’s purpose is to make space for God. Am I really turning my life over to the Lord? Am I radiating the life and love of Jesus Christ to those I meet and when I celebrate Mass, especially?

One of the ways we can do this is through listening in silence to scripture.

In Pope Benedict XVI’s Verbum Domini, he encouraged the whole Church to uncover the Word through Lectio Divina. The process of Lectio Divina includes lectio (reading), meditatio (meditating), oratio (praying), contemplatio (contemplating). It could be compared to eating. First, you ingest the food, then you chew the food and savor it, then you consume it, and finally it becomes part of you.

Lectio is the reading of scripture. Meditatio is meditating, savoring the words. Contemplacio is contemplating our relationship to God. Responding to the Lord in gratitude, repentance, desire to grow closer to God. An expression of love and my desire to respond to God more intimately in love. Finally, true oracio comes from the heart—a heart that most deeply desires intimacy with God.

Over time this kind of prayer changes us and enables us to grow closer to God.

Is 55:1-11; Ps 63; Rev 3:20

Called to a Ministry of the Word

Mother Teresa said, “Without God we are too poor to be able to help the poor.”

We become ever better disciples by letting God, in an ongoing way, evangelize us. Affective response to God in prayer is what helps us become better disciples. The Model of Lectio Divina is one of the ways we can do this. As an example, when Scripture says, “Mary treasured all things in her heart,” that was her modeling affective response for us. Acceptance and adoration follow affective response. This allows the sacrificial offering of Christ to permeate our life.

Mt 13:1-9,13-23; Heb 4:1-13

Encountering the Lord in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation

In silence we can be purified and live in communion with God. The greatest obstacle we have is pride. We need God’s light to leave our ego drama to God’s drama.

Saul had to become Paul through contrition on the road to Damascus as he encountered Jesus (Gal 1; Phil 3). The Encounter at Damascus with Jesus changed everything for Paul. There was a movement from intense pride to utter humility, extreme possessiveness tainted his relationship with God and led to blindness. God drew him to total detachment that led to illumination—that all he was, was gift.

Who is really in charge of my life? Is God? Wanting to be in charge underlies all sin, our own ego drama. Personal and societal sin can feed our greed, which leads to our own sin.

An unreflective life leads to chaos. For example, pre-conversion, Paul’s zeal had not been transformed by God’s grace. After his encounter, he recognized the inevitability of suffering as part of the Gospel, placing all in the hands of God (Rm 3). He needed to let go to be free of his spiritual blindness and to let God take over.

Conversion for us is a movement from darkness to light. What is holding us back? How do we want to surrender to God’s will?

Encountering the Paschal Mystery in the Eucharist

Man disintegrates in the hell of noise. In silence, we are able to kneel before the throne. Encountering the mystery of our redemption in the Eucharist makes us Christian. Communion becomes a participation in the mystery of the sacrifice.

I recommend the book, Eucharistic Amazement by Fr. Andrew Spice. It discusses the mystery of the Eucharist in the Church.

LK 24:33-35; Jn 6; 1 Cor 11:23-29

Eucharistic Mission to Accompaniment

Mary’s relationship with the Eucharist: Jesus wanted her to experience Him risen from the dead. Mary treasured and pondered this in her heart and lived it.

The Mass is a Sacramental and Sacrificial meal. A sign that affects what it signifies. Christ is actively present in the Eucharist in the sacrifice of the cross. The Eucharist is a reality that is intended to be lived. We come Hungry and thirsty for God’s mercy that we may become one body and one spirit in Christ.

Entrance rite to be aware of our need to be forgiven.
Listening for the Word God is speaking to me.
Bringing the Word into the Eucharist prayer.
Sending forth on Mission of Eucharist.

St. Carlo Acutis said, “All are born as originals, but many die as photocopies.”

Lk 24:13-35; Jn 6

Difficulties in the Evangelizing Ministry of Charity

Silent love is the love that makes us available to God that says nothing but consent. I consent to be in God’s presence. I don’t need to say anything.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was a great saint and gave spiritual advice to many popes. One pope who was a spiritual disciple of St. Benard, Bl. Pope Eugene III (1088-1153), requested counsel. St. Bernard asked for the pope’s calendar, to which he “scrutinize[d] the papal calendar and expose[d] a disastrously overloaded schedule.” St. Bernard went on to give advice on how important it is to take time in silence and prayer and not to be so busy with the business of the papacy to overlook the mission of shepherding God’s people.

We face a world that wants to relegate God to the periphery. There is a disappointment of not finding God in the Church. Everyone seeks happiness which can only be fulfilled in God.

We need to express, show, witness that we are on fire with the love of God. Silence makes openness to God more possible. Courage and faith each day are needed to foster the fire of Love. We need to avoid the trap of maintenance in lieu of the Mission of Love, the fire of Love.

The Church will come alive when it celebrates the pearl of great price: to be in love with the Lord. We meet people where they are with the love Jesus, with fire of love as people seek to find or experience the Divine.

We need to help people to encounter the Lord, accompany them as they are called to change, and enable them to become disciples, disciple makers. Enabling people to meet the Lord in a transformational way, shaped through Gospel formation, bringing people to the Gospel through beauty. People encounter God through beauty. E.g. Visio Divina, Audio Divina, Lectio Divina.

I recommend reading the parables in Mt 13.

We need to discern how to approach the challenge to an evangelization ministry of Charity. Silence requires availability to God’s will. What will be the sign of the Church radiating God? It is witness to God’s love.

The opposite of that for us is clericalism. Clericalism is a form of narcissism by using other people or things for ourselves in an egotistical way. We can combat clericalism through the Evangelical Counsels.

Poverty, Chastity, Obedience

The Evangelical Counsels (Poverty, Chastity, Obedience) are critical.

Poverty: Gospel simplicity of life. Do not save up things of the earth. Is God nudging us to dispossession, detachment from this world’s values?Diaconia—service to the poor, and with the poor, for us to be evangelized by them. We need to exhibit a Holy detachment from things. For example, restorative leisure as apposed degenerate leisure.

Chastity: The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, self-gratification: self only is important and not God’s will. Gospel celibacy address our relationship with other people and with God, we are made for communion, self-gift. Are we going to live for ourselves or for others?

Celibacy is a way of love. A priest or bishop who is in love with God radiates joy and happiness. St. Bernard of Clairvaux discussed celibate love, spiritual self-giving love, vs selfish love. It is a pastoral self-gift.

Obedience: Are we subject to the Holy Spirit or the world (i.e. Satan)? Being grounded in the death of Jesus draws us to the resurrection.

Gospel Obedience: Jesus embraced the Will of the Father as he gave his life to him and for us. We are servants of all, to watch over the community of Faith, to be an example to all of Christ’s love.

It involves submitting my will to God’s will, to listen to God with the intention of do God’s will, to be confident that God will be there and give the grace we need. It is faith that God will accomplish what God wills through us and our work.

The promise of Obedience: We placed our hands in the hands of the bishop as the hands of God and promised obedience and respect. In obedience, we are in communion in the love of God. It is the invitation for us to be a father, brother, shepherd, and most of all, servant to the people and radiate the love of Him to all.

1 Jn 2:13-15; Mt 6; Mt 19:17; LK 22:24-27; Jn 13