Five Day Spiritual Exercises

March, 2012 - This past week, the seminarians of the Institute of the Incarnate Word took their yearly five-day Ignatian spiritual exercises at the Fulton Sheen House of Formation in Chillum, MD.

Fr. Pablo Bonello, IVE, currently serving nearby at St. James Parish in Mount Rainier, preached the exercises in which nearly forty seminarians took part. The retreatants meditated over the course of the five days on Christ's life and mission, examined their lives and spiritual resolutions, and strove to conform their wills to that of the Lord's will.

This opportunity to delve into the "silence of God" always provides an intimate time of prayer with the Lord, imitating the many times He prayed in silent and deserted places. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recognized the crucial importance of silence for all Catholics in his Wednesday audience this week. In his audience, the Pope commented that "the great patristic tradition teaches us that the mysteries of Christ are linked to silence, and only in silence can the Word find a place to dwell within us."

Even more, "the prayer of Jesus is a reminder that we need to stop, to experience moments of intimacy with God, 'detaching ourselves' from the turmoil of daily life in order to listen, to return to the 'root' which nourishes and sustains our existence." May we always acknowledge Jesus as the root and center of our lives!

We give thanks to the Lord for the fruits of this retreat, and beg that He help us bear our crosses with Him in silence and docility this Lent.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!