Parish Men's Retreat
October 22 - 24, 2004
The following are some of the thoughts of the men who were on retreat this year at Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center.
We had just moved to Connecticut, I had started a new job, our house was being built, and our son just turned one. I had numerous reasons that I could use to convince myself that I was too busy to spend a weekend on retreat, away from family, work and "life". Yet I was drawn to go away and spend some quite time alone, especially since I recently felt as if I was not getting very much out of my weekly attendance of Mass. For the past two years, I had become more of a spectator at our church in Boston, and was feeling like I was just going through the motions every Sunday morning at either 9:00 or 10:30.
The retreat theme this past weekend was "remember who you are". A simple enough statement but a question that I really had never given much thought to. Over the past seven years I had worked 60+ hour work weeks resulting in a PhD and numerous publications. Was this who I was or who I was turning into? Was I just a name on an article in an obscure journal, a name on a piece of paper on the wall, someone who somehow existed more at work that outside of it? While these things were important to me career wise, I felt as if something was missing in my life. After many prayer services, and numerous wonderful presentations about learning to fully trust God, I realized and accepted that I was defined neither by my "accomplishments" nor what others thought of me, but rather by God and His standards.
Upon arriving home, I felt renewed and refreshed, and had a different opinion about work and my career. Importantly, I also had a more open attitude towards Gods will for me. I encourage anyone who needs a break from the daily grind to attend next year's men's retreat, and to not be too busy with life to stop and listen to Gods voice.
Steve Taylor
On the weekend of Oct. 22, 23, and 24, from Friday evening to Sunday
afternoon. I attended a men’s retreat at the Holy Family Passionist Retreat
Center in West Hartford , CT. There were 20 other parishioners from Sacred
Heart but alltogether there were more than a hundred and fifty men there.
It was a very uplifting and spiritual experience for me and all the
others.
The director of the retreat is Fr. David Cinquegrani who is a very
gentle priest but who gave some very powerful talks and he is also a great
musician
and composer, playing the organ, the piano and the flute.
There were two others on the retreat team a young man named Brandon
Nappi and a Sr.Mary Ann Strain. Both were excellent speakers and
were very informative and inspiring.
We each had an assigned private room on one of the three floors of
this enormous building and each floor had a common washroom in the
center of the corridor.
We got up at 7:30 and assembled in the beautiful grand chapel for
prayers. Breakfast was at 8:20 with plenty of good food in the dining hall.
Each table had nine people sitting around it and the food was brought to the
table by a serving staff.
At 9:30 we had our first conference and opportunity for reconciliation
and at 12:30 lunch. In the afternoon they had different workshops that one
could attend and at 5:00 we had a Liturgy of the Eucharist, (Mass) . This was
then repeated Sunday morning with beautiful singing, four part solo and
orchestra before our departure.
There was plenty of opportunity for quiet reflection or walk in the
garden
as well as personal counselling if one requested it.
This years theme was “Remember Who You Are !”. Father David wanted
this theme to provide us the time and the means to search our hearts for the
memories that would sustain us. “To be aware of the gift of faith, the
blessing of our family and the hope offered in our baptism to live out our call as
disciples of Christ.”
In the words of the First Letter of Peter : “You are God’s chosen ones,
a holy nation, a people claimed by God to proclaim the glorious works of the
One who called you from the darkness into a marvelous light. Once, you were
nobody, but now you are God’s people; once there was no mercy for you, but now
you have found mercy. So live as people of the light !”
We all received a great gift on our retreat and I would think you would
too if you took advantage of it.
Tony Meynadasy
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