Listening for God?s footsteps in our life
From 3 to 9 May, we 14 novices, together with Brother Marco Antonio Vargas (Master of novices) and Brother Roberto Linares (in charge of vocations ministry in Central America, who directed our retreat) went, by way of San Pedro, to the house of spirituality of the Verbum Dei Missionaries, where we made our retreat.
There was a good atmosphere of interiorization and deepening our personal history, with the Orientations which Brother Roberto Linares offered us each day, to look at what he wanted us to live during the day and in each of the exercises.
« Lord, if I have found grace in your eyes, do not pass by my house without stopping » (Gn. 18, 3b). With this invocation, we began each of our exercises, in which we deepened our awareness of our « experience of love » and also of our « resistance to love ».
For the development of the retreat, we followed the method of Saint Ignatius de Loyola, a gift for the Church, while adapting it to our Marist charism: to thus thank Mary for her presence on our journey.
Our day was marked by 3 or 4 exercises of prayer, followed by a daily interview of 15 minutes, at the end of the evening, to look for the « footsteps of God » through the length of the day.
At nightfall, we came together to thank God together, with the celebration of the Word, for what He had offered us during the day.
We finished our retreat by making our « harvest » of all the « fruits » or « gifts» received from the Lord during these days, which were for us full of « grace » : to continue walking together and in the hand of the One who called us to follow him.
Thank you, Brother Roberto, for your availability and for the sharing of your life as a brother with our community during these days of meeting the Lord. We also thank all those who were very united with us by prayer during these days.
May Mary, our Good Mother, continue to do everything for us, in the hand of her Son, so that we find growing in us « new hearts for a new world ».
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René Montes (2nd year novice)