A few months ago, I signed up for a virtual retreat hosted by Lindenwood Retreat Center. It started with a two-hour in-person retreat on Sunday afternoon when we were given a page of Bible verses to pray with and supplementary readings. We were to pray with these verses for at least 45 minutes each day and meet with our spiritual director (virtually) for 30-45 minutes as well. Each day we were given new verses to pray with and we could choose to pray with any that called to us. At the end of the week on Saturday, we met for a longer closing ceremony where we discussed the graces and challenges of the week.

I didn’t take any time off this week because I’ve already taken quite a lot off and plan to take more off this summer for the 8-day silent retreat at the Saint Joseph Retreat and Conference Center (SJRCC) and the Eucharistic Congress.

I thought, I can do this. No problem! How very on-brand for me- thinking I can do everything.

Postcard Anecdote

A few weeks ago, I had an artist date and picked up a stack of postcards from Hammond Salvage. Among them was a very old postcard with a little chapel in the woods at Ancilla Domini in Donaldson. At the time I thought, oh neat, it’s the same name as the Ancilla College that Lindenwood Retreat Center is at. When I got it home and looked at it later, I saw it was Donaldson, IN. I thought Ancilla was in Plymouth, but their actual address is in Donaldson. So I brought the postcard to the retreat because I felt I should give it to someone there. I arrived an hour early due to a misunderstanding and met a fellow retreat participant, let’s call her P.

I explored the Mother House a little bit and the Chappel but ran into P in the cafeteria. We had coffee together and talked and I thought- oh this postcard is for her. I thought to give it to her before we left. However, later in the retreat, I realized it was for one of the spiritual directors, let’s call her D. In the closing ceremony, I learned that the postcard had become a kind of touchstone for P and D (who turned out to be P’s director for the retreat). In the end, D ended up giving it to P. I told them the story and how I initially thought it was for P and we just laughed. What a merry-go-round that little card has had!

I wonder how it arrived at the salvage shop in the first place. Who bought it and why didn’t they send it? It looked like it was from the 20s or 30s. So who cared about it enough to save it all those years? And now that it has moved out of my hands, to D and on to P… where will it go next?

On the way back home, I stopped to take pictures of an abandoned church in Donaldson. I was so sad to see the beautiful stained glass windows broken and their wood frames rotting. I wonder how long until the wood gives way and the glass falls?

April 4, 2024: Day 1

Reading 1 – Psalm 139 1-18

I started the prayer by giving all my anxiety and worries to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales, St. Francis of Assisi, and the Blessed Mother Mary to hold on to and pray over so I could let go of them while I prayed. I learned this from Father Huemmer at the SJRCC and it has been so helpful.

I pictured myself walking into a shallow river, pebble-bottomed and clear, like the Chagrin by my childhood home in Ohio. I kneeled in the water and felt it surround me, up to my waist, and then the warm sunlight on my head and shoulders. The juxtaposition of cold water and warm sun was pleasant.

As I read Psalm 139, I was struck by how God is always with me and I felt very loved. In prayer, just talking with God I had many mental images. I don’t know if these are just flotsam of my mind rising to the surface or God speaking with me, so I write them all down. I saw myself talking with a group of people in a beige room with beige chairs. One woman was maybe in her 20s-30s and had long blond hair and earnest eyes.

I also had an image of an old woman’s hands. They were very wrinkled and pale white. There were many bruises blooming in purple, pink, red, and blue-black on the top of them as though they had been stuck with many IVs. They reminded me of my mother’s hands when she was in hospice, but they were not her hands. I wanted to hold them in mine and comfort this woman, but when I took the hands in mine, they were so cold.

I asked God, what do You want from me and I heard, Meet with me, talk with me and I thought about how prayer is always the first thing that I neglect when I get busy.

Reading 2: Luke 1:26-38

As I was beginning to pray, I saw a bunch of young people gathering to clean a river and I think the young woman with the long blond hair from my last prayer was among them. We were by a concrete bridge and the river was filled with trash. The young people were so excited to gather and work together to clean it. They were laughing and handing out trashbags and more and more people joined them, coming from every direction. They descended on the river until it was filled with people, as many people as there was water. I asked for the grace to know and follow God’s will in my life.

I prayed the passage using an app on my phone so I could just listen to it. I pictured myself in the scene as Mary. I felt confused and afraid, as I often do. In prayer, I felt God in my heart burning and light. I said that I am often afraid, but will try not to be so and said “May it be done unto me according to Your will.” I talked with God more about my fears.

I pictured myself walking down the river and said, if I am going the wrong way, please guide me. Then I pictured Stuart and Midi walking with me and I grabbed their hands and we were all walking joyfully in the shallow river and I felt we were walking the right way, together.

Tuesday, April 9: Day 2

Prayed with Luke 2:1-20.

Felt like Mary- keeping all the things in her heart and pondering them. I spend so much time pondering. I often want to chase understanding and sometimes you have to kneel patiently and wait for understanding. Even then, you still may not understand what is happening.

In prayer, I also saw a woman in a Middle Eastern country by a clay brick-lined well. She was drawing water from the well to give to sheep.

I had to cancel my spiritual direction meeting on this day because a surprise meeting popped up when I had planned for direction. In retrospect, I could have just not attended this meeting and watched the recording instead. I could have gone to spiritual direction, but part of me didn’t want to. Meeting with a person one-on-one to talk about myself is about the most unpleasant thing I can think of.

Wednesday, April 10: Day Three

I chose Luke 2:20-40 and was immediately struck by the fact that Simeon was glad that he saw Jesus and could finally die because the Holy Spirit had told him he would not die until he saw the Messiah. In the modern world, people would do everything they could to NOT see the Messiah because “the search for immortality” is alive and well in our culture. If someone knew the thing that would surely signal their death, they would run the other way. But because he was devout, Simeon knew that to stay forever on earth is a curse and that dying, especially after seeing Jesus, was a great gift. It reminds me of how God prevented Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. He did this so they would eventually die and be redeemed, instead of living forever broken and cursed.

I wonder if Simeon was among the first people Jesus released when he descended into hell. I used to be so afraid of dying that I had debilitating anxiety about it, but I am not afraid anymore. I am thankful that life on earth eventually ends and we can be free from pain, brokenness, and suffering and then love each other and God in the way He designed us to.

I am also curious about Anna the prophetess. I never noticed her before in reading Luke.

I asked God for whatever grace He wanted to give me because He knows what I need better than I do. I heard “listen” in colloquy. I think this speaks to my self-reliance interfering with my ability to trust God. When do I stop running away and turn around and see God? Like Simeon, is that when I die? But instead of dying bodily, is that when I fully die to self? I think this happens in phases. It is a process, an everyday conversion.

In spiritual direction, I told Sister Joetta about these experiences. I didn’t have any specific questions yet, or at least none I felt comfortable asking. When I reported feeling afraid and confused she asked, what I felt scared or confused by in prayer. I said that this way of praying, the thought that God could be talking back to me. If I told my non-Christian friends about this, they would think I was crazy.

She asked what she could pray for me and I said for fortitude in making time for prayer. I was noticing that each day I was spending less time in prayer.

That is all for now

This post is already so long that I’m going to split it into two posts. You can view Part 2 here: Lindenwood Retreat Part 2.