2^nd Sunday of Lent, A            February 17, 2008

Today I’m here to sell you something.  It is a trip up a mountain to be personally transformed.  What happened to Jesus can happen to you.  How, pray tell? 

Have you ever come back from a vacation frazzled, tense, exhausted, and ready to take a vacation?  Now, that’s not why you go on vacation.  Vacations are supposed to get you relaxed, refreshed, rested, and renewed.  If you have never gone away and come back feeling that way, then it’s time for you to experience it.  However, such a trip up a mountain to be personally transformed is not called a vacation.  It is called a spiritual retreat.  To retreat spiritually is to withdraw for a time from your everyday life in order to advance in living your life with Jesus.

I know some of you have enjoyed taking one or more spiritual retreats in the past.  I also know that many more of you have never known the satisfaction that a spiritual retreat brings.  I’m here to tell you what you are missing.

A spiritual retreat can be as short as a weekend and as long as a month.  If you are a newcomer, you should start with a weekend and work you way up to a longer retreat, say a week. 

The first misconception about a spiritual retreat is that it is only for religious professionals, like priests and sisters.  Not at all.  My father, who was a carpenter and master wood craftsman, went on a spiritual retreat weekend every year when I was a child.  Each year when I go on retreat, the vast majority of those on retreat are lay people like you. 

This June will be my 49^th annual retreat in a row.  I know I couldn’t have survived as a human being, let alone a priest, without those annual trips “up a mountain” to be transformed.   

Another myth about retreats is that you are supposed to spend all day on your knees in prayer.  Hardly.  A retreat is not a mental exercise.  It is a total personal experience meant to renew every aspect of your being, mind, heart, emotions, body, attitudes, you name it. 

Some retreats are literally up a mountain.  Four years ago I spent eight days on retreat at a co-ed Carmelite hermitage in the Colorado Rockies.  I had a little cabin with a picture window looking out at 14 thousand foot peaks.  The Carmelite monks and nuns told me that no spiritual retreat there was complete without a climb up a mountain.  So, another fellow and I spent one whole day climbing into what seemed like the stratosphere and back down again. 

Other retreats are figuratively up a mountain, like the ones I have spent at the Jesuit retreat house on the ocean in Gloucester, MA.  There one can spend hours standing on the cliff like rocky shore watching the surf empty in and out of tidal pools and praising God for such marvelous beauty in creation.

You can retreat at Mt. Savior Monastery in Elmira, where there are numerous forest trails to enjoy walking as you reflect on your life and God’s place in it.  Men on retreat at the Trappist monastery in our diocese can volunteer for a work shift alongside the monks in the monastery bakery out of which comes Monk’s Bread.

On some retreats like those in monasteries you have much unstructured time in which you can make your own schedule free from the TV, the computer, the I-Pod, and other distractions.  On other retreats like in Gloucester, you meet every day with a director to discuss the spiritual insights you are gaining from your reading, your prayer, and other aspects of the experience.  On still others, like at Notre Dame Spiritual Center in Canandaigua in our diocese, there are several daily talks by one of the priests, and time for conversation, discussion, and socializing.

There is a retreat opportunity to fit your style and spiritual needs.  If you have never been blessed with a retreat experience and don’t know how to start, please ask Mary Boris, or Sister Mary, or me, and we can guide you to a retreat just right for you.  If you are looking for a meaningful Lenten resolution, maybe committing yourself to taking a spiritual retreat sometime before the end of the year is just the thing for you, to transform and renew your life and your relationship with Christ and your neighbor.