What is the longest amount of time you have ever been silent while you were awake? Over the last three days, twenty young people across the Archdiocese chose to be completely silent… in order to listen to God. The days leading up to Palm Sunday were the perfect setting to put aside all distractions and deliberately turn toward the Lord. He did not disappoint!
Fr Paul Rowse, O.P. preached on the ‘Trinity in the Triduum’. Over three separate conferences, Father directed our attention to the revelation of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Paschal Mysteries. We pondered God’s love for us in his plan of salvation and at the same time saw the incredible love and unity between the three Persons of the Trinity in working out this plan.
The retreat was held in the green, rolling hills of Lysterfield at the Don Bosco Retreat centre. Looking out on the wide-open spaces helped the process of quieting and opening our hearts and minds to listen to God. The senses were filled with the natural sounds of native birds, the smell of eucalyptus and the occasional fresh touch of gentle falling rain. The glorious sunsets enveloped us in their warm colours.
Moments of communal prayer were particularly beautiful. Perhaps this was because our silence had helped us prepare to enter more deeply into the moment. The most profound moment was an extended time of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Saturday night. In the darkness, the only light streamed from the candle-lit Monstrance. Having earlier meditated on the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in John 17, this night seemed a rehearsal of Holy Thursday.
Following Palm Sunday Mass, Fr William Loh, OP led the group on a Rosary walk around the property. After a wonderful blessing for the end of the retreat, the silence was broken by happy conversation in our ‘Emmaus’ walk all the way back to the centre for lunch. In the natural world things grow in silence. The testimonies of the retreatants revealed the same holds true for our interior, supernatural life of friendship with God.
Reading these snippets of testimonies from the retreatants is a great encouragement to keep finding moments of silence as we return to the regular commitments of our daily lives.
“In the silence I felt I could connect more deeply with God and hear him…”
“We are all so terribly afflicted by the splintering of the mind… this is a type of emergency care, a field hospital, a reset…”
“These few days have really given me a chance to step back from the business and endless distractions of everyday life and truly focus on building my relationship with God.”
“What I am taking back with me – an invitation to a more passionate peer into the Gospels and thirst for his Word in a new way. To ‘marinate’ in every word, response and touch of Jesus in the Gospels.”
