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The author reflects on her experience of giving retreats to members of her own congregation first, and then to sisters of about one hundred other religious orders. Retreats can have a deep impact, provided we let the Word of God touch us and transform us.

In women’s circles these days, and especially among women religious, the focus of our discussions is often about gender justice, gender equality, gender sensitivity, empowerment of women, etc. When I was the Leader of my Congregation, I used to reflect about who would empower us. One of the ways to make my religious sisters to experience gender equality, as the Spirit inspired me, was to empower them to preach retreats to our own members. I consider this ministry as participating in the preaching mission of Jesus: Mt: 4: 23. When we evaluated this mission, it was very positive and encouraging.  As the leader of my Congregation, I had the opportunity to preach many retreats to my own sisters. After I completed my term as the Leader, my experience motivated me to take up this ministry. The more retreats I preached, the more positive feedback I received from various groups. I have had the privilege of preaching retreats to nearly one hundred religious congregations – religious women, religious brothers, priests and the laity – both in India and abroad.

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Sr Inigo Joaquim SSA

What is required for a good retreat? What issues come up during retreats? What is the main fruit of a retreat?

Retreats are of various kinds—silent, charismatic, praise and worship, directed, preached, etc. People attend retreats for various reasons and often describe their experience differently. Retreatants come in groups or can be directed individually. I have given several retreats—to priests, seminarians, sisters, and laity; to groups, as well as individually. Some retreatants come for retreats to find comfort in difficult times, others come to deepen their faith, some because it’s mandatory, some come out of curiosity, some for healing and some because of the preacher-director. A beautiful verse from scripture that highlights the desire for God, the desire to hear what God wants of us is taken from Matthew 4:4b, where we hear: “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Then, having heard and responded, we can say that we have and keep God on call. In a retreat context, this hearing and responding are done in a more intense way.

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Fr Konrad Noronha SJ

The author explains the meaning of the journey to the Centre, which retreats aim at. Experience has shown him, too, what is the best help for reaching there.

Ever since the beginning of creation, and more than ever today, we find the human quest for meaning and fulfilment in life. The search for this fulfilment in most of us, priests and religious included, is in the creation rather than the Creator.

Initial Harmony and Its Loss

God created humanity in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26). He breathed His very breath (Presence, Spirit) in the human person (Gen. 2:7). Hence we have the very presence of God within us. At the beginning of creation, our first parents were in deep communion with this presence of God within them. They were living in constant awareness of this presence, experiencing the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:21). They were in communion with God and in harmony with the whole of creation. Jesus uses the word ‘Kingdom of God’ to express this experience of the love of God. Hence our first parents were enjoying the kingdom of God within them (Lk. 17:21).

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Fr Alvito Fernandes OCD

Touching experiences of personal transformation abound in retreats. What are your own experiences of deep personal change? How can we make a good retreat?

“Going for a retreat meant taking time in the middle of a very hectic life as wife, mother and lecturer. I asked God for two things: That I may meet a good priest for confession, and get a  good counsellor. Both my prayers were answered.

“I was assigned for counselling to a laywoman of my age (mid-forties). Her very first words shook me. After praying for me, she said: “Jesus says: ‘In the recent weeks, I have not been seeing you for daily Mass, as I used to earlier.” I was shocked. Being extra busy, I had not been going to church on week days. How did this counsellor read my soul? She is telling me that Jesus missed me!” (Rekha, 47 years)

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

Percival Holt, President of the Indian Catholic Youth Movement (ICYM), speaks to MAGNET about his experience of the Synod of Youth held in Rome last year, as well as the preparatory work done before that. Percival holds a Master’s in Biotechnology. He was interviewed by Sr Celine Vas BS, our associate editor.

MAGNET: You attended Pre-Synod Meeting at Rome in March 2018. How was your experience?

Percival Holt: It was my first encounter with so many bishops, priests and youth representatives. The best thing about this synod is we had three hundred youth representatives from all over the world.
At the outset Pope asked the bishops and young people to shed our prejudices about each other. He thanked the youth for answering the questionnaire (sent to 150, 000 youth all over the world). He thanked us for our honest feedback.

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In this article, Kevin Sullivan, an experienced lawyer, and involved in ministry to couples for years, speaks of the wonderful difference retreats have made in his personal and family life, and how spiritual retreats differ in impact from the corporate “retreats” given by experts. What we do AFTER the retreat makes a huge difference.

RETREATS MORE POWERFUL THAN PARISH MISSIONS

As you read this, the Lenten season is well underway. In our parish and throughout the United States, Lent brings with it the possibilities of parish missions and retreats. Many of our fellow parishioners will attend and the mission will be the talk of the parish for at least the next three or four days. I am somewhat reluctant to confess that I am not a big fan of parish missions. Don’t get me wrong: The few missions I have attended over the years have always been wonderfully preached and informative, encouraging and even inspirational.  The problem is that, while I find them satisfying, engaging and even at times entertaining, they have never had the life-changing impact of the powerful full retreats I have been blessed to participate in over the years. Well! You might ask, whose fault is that? That’s a good question to which I am inclined to answer “Mine, of course. ” Why is it I get so much more from a good retreat than I do from a great parish mission?

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Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

They are brought in helpless, penniless and in pain—and often unwanted by family members. Here they find more love than had expected, better care than many families give, and a peaceful end in a godly setting.

“Sister, come quickly! He is violent!”

The two nurses were evidently terrified. They rushed to Sr Tabitha’s office, and blurted out, “Sister, please come. He is violent. We do not know what to do.”
Sr Tabitha rushed to the bedside of Anand (name changed), a middle-aged man suffering from mouth cancer, who had been admitted two weeks earlier.

She looked at him, and held his hand.

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Sr Celine Vas BS

Basing herself on her own experience of running a hospice for the terminally ill, Dr Lavina explains, with touching true stories and evident expertise, palliative care and what it can do for a person when a cure is no longer possible.

One week after his admission to the hospice facility, Mr. D’ Souza exclaimed: “From being a cancer patient, I became a human being, a person. The hospital used code words to label me.  For the longest time I was ‘Ca Lung’ and the doctors and nurses called me just that. I had forgotten what my real name was.” Mr D’ Souza was breathless and in severe pain. Every breath was laborious as a large tumour was constricting his lung.  He was hooked on to an Oxygen Concentrator which eased his breathing. He was prescribed Morphine, which relieved his pain and, with that, his spirits lifted too. He was able to speak to his family and even laugh reminiscing old memories. “Why couldn’t you bring me here earlier?” he asked his family.

This is what palliative care does. It does not expedite the dying process, as some think, nor does it prolong life. It focuses on the quality of life and makes the last days as comfortable as possible. In palliative care, the emphasis is on the person and not on the disease. This requires a paradigm shift from the traditional pathology-focussed model of health care delivery. It looks as if, somewhere in the diagnosis-treatment spectrum, the person is often lost sight of, and is reduced to a mere bed number or a diagnostic label.

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Dr Lavina M Noronha

The moment we hear the word “budget,” we may experience an unpleasant feeling! Reason: We tend to see it as an external control, a force limiting our freedom to spend on the things we want . If this is our understanding of the budget, then certainly it will give rise to a negative feeling.  But, in reality, a budget is totally something else.  This article is an attempt not only to clear our misunderstandings on the budget, but also make us see the importance and the need for it in our life and in the life of our institutions.

What is a Budget?

To say it in simple words, a budget is nothing but making a plan to spend our money.  When we say, “making a plan,” we always use it in the context of making a plan to achieve a particular goal.  Likewise, in finance too, when we talk of making a plan, we mean making a plan to achieve a particular financial goal.  Thus, a budget is made not in the air; it is made in the context of achieving certain financial goals, i.e., our needs. In other words, a budget is nothing but creating a spending plan for our needs. And we cannot create a spending plan unless we have money to spend.  Hence, “budget” is understood as drawing up a spending plan for the resources we have. It allows us to determine in advance our future goal and the way to get there.  It helps us to manage our money wisely, so that we can have enough money to do the things we need to do or would like to do.  Depending on the circumstances, it may also mean cutting down on other things so that we can save enough money to do the things we need to do. It helps us to focus on the things that we need and prioritize our spending accordingly. It is to enable us to save money for our greater goals and in the light of it to spend only on our actual needs and not on all our wants.

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Fr Alex Gnanapragasam SJ

Crystal and Kevin share their memories of how palliative care made a huge difference to two persons they loved dearly: Crystal’s aged mother after her stroke and a close friend struck by advanced breast cancer.

CRYSTAL

I’ll never forget the evening Kevin and I received a phone call from my father, announcing that my mother had experienced a stroke and had been taken to the closest hospital. Up until that day, I was unaware of the significant decline in physical and mental functions that occur with a stroke. However, it didn’t take long for me to discover that the effects can be devastating. Over the next few weeks, as my beloved mother struggled to walk on her own, speak with clarity and heal, I came face to face with the difficulties of medical conditions that didn’t have a quick fix.  There was no cast for a broken limb, no antibiotic for bacterial disease, but rather a program of recovery that might or might not bring improved health.

Despair and Hope

As the weeks became months and the months became years, there were moments of despair and moments of hope. Whether a result of incompetent medical intervention, or simply the ravages of the stroke on an elderly woman, there never was a substantial recovery to her former self.  A partial healing left her wheelchair bound, with the ability to speak but with the inability to communicate effectively because of her damaged brain. As a family, we were simply happy to still have her with us and able to show her love and attention.

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Crystal and Kevin Sullivan