Retreat, Day 1

I went to my first retreat last weekend: Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning. Two and half days of prayer, preached meditations, rosaries, examinations of conscience, and (it goes without saying) daily Mass and opportunities for confession.

What a great experience. How many times do you get such a break from daily life to concentrate on God? To really sink into prayer, to lift your heart up to Him who deserves all our love?

After so many years of growth the knowledge and practice of the Faith it is still very hard to believe in my heart that Jesus loves me personally by name; obviously I know this with my head but in my heart I can't draw a picture of Jesus reaching out to save me like He reached out to Peter when Peter failed to walk on the water. During one the prayers at this retreat I may have had a breakthrough. I pictured myself talking to Jesus like I would talk to my father, and said that I loved Him and wanted to love Him more, and I heard Him tell me that He loved me.

God as loving Father was a major theme of the retreat; that He feels for us all the tender love, the deep concern, the personal interest that our fathers had in us when we were infants.

Anyway I took notes after each of the preached meditations... not during the meditation, as if the meditation was a lecture in college; but later on, back in my room, after I'd had time to reflect. I want to post each of my notes just the way I wrote them on paper.

Following are my notes after the first preached meditation, given at 9:30 PM on Thursday night:

Friendship with God - intimacy with Jesus. Being with Him all the time - not once a week, not once a day, not even 10x a day - constantly. He wants to talk with us about our struggles, plans, fears, & much else besides.

Abortion - Barack Obama - Cdl. George's letter to the President-Elect - "abortion kills Constitutional order". Our duty to resist FOCA. The coming horrors - our responsibility to grow in sanctity.

Page 52 of "God and His Image": "Man prefers this hand that destroys and this mouth that promises but does not promise for the immediate future, that does not promise something to fill man with joy today, but will dig deep into him so that there may be born in him the man whom God intends eventually to shower with gifts. This is the hand man loves better than any other known to him."

Later I will post my other notes.