Happy New Year! I hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas celebrating our new born Savior. As we roll right into 2024, I want to start the year discussing the importance of retreats.
If you ask most Christians to name the top three things they love, more often than not, they will list God first, then family, and then friends. After all, these are arguably the most important relationships we have as we journey through life. But do our lives reflect the order of these things as we claim them to be? Recently I was hiking with a friend and she was telling me that the pastor of her parish went on a retreat and upon his return, gave a powerful Sunday homily filled with emotion and renewed love for God. As we talked about this, I told my friend what I had discovered in 2023 and how the story about her pastor reminded and reinforced this revelation. Every year my husband and I find at least one long weekend to get away by ourselves. We have been doing this since our youngest was a year old. Thanks be to God, we had parents who loved helping with the young grandchildren, making this easy to do. Sometimes it wasn’t in the budget so it was a local trip (within the city so kind of like an extra long date!) and other times, we’d leave the state. We discovered that the time away reminded us why we got married. While raising young children (and now navigating young adulthood and that whole weird parenting set up), it was so easy to become tired, bored and worn down from the tasks and challenges presented on a daily basis. Over time, the way we spoke, acted and thought of each other wasn’t in a way that I ever imagined as a young and excited bride to be. Our first trip away as parents showed me why we got married in the first place. I was reminded that I not only love my husband, but really like him too! That was in 2007 and we haven’t looked back. We continue to carve out one, sometimes two or three little trips each year in order to experience that renewal and reset. After all, our spouses are SUPPOSED to be our priority second to God. Doesn’t it only make sense that if we can find the time to spend multiple weekends chasing our children’s activities and club sports that we should try to take just one for our marriages? Helpful Hint: it is OK to miss a child’s activity once in awhile. Instead, send grandparents, aunts, uncles or good friends to cheer them on. Show your children that marriage is a priority! In my humble opinion, the guilt some carry for missing a kid game oractivity is unwarranted. It is a backwards world when we let our marriages suffer because we can’t miss a single thing our kids do. Ok, rant over.
This same concept can be applied to our relationship with God. How often does our prayer life go stale? How often do we neglect to give thanks or spend silent time with what should be, our first Love? Just as I know it benefits a married couple to spend time alone, doing recreational and fun things, I also know it benefits the soul to spend time with God. It only made sense that the priest who became emotional during his homily at Mass was coming off of a retreat. Retreats give us that pause and the opportunity to spend time with the One we claim to love most. Retreats help silence our souls, where we can listen and hear God telling us how happy He is that we are spending time with Him and hear all He wants to reveal to us. Retreats are where many discern a vocation to religious life.. It’s where many hear God’s direction and guidance for careers, family life or any number of answers to questions we have. Retreats help us fall in love with God all over again, or fall in love with Him for the fist time if we never have before.
I want to challenge you to make just one Catholic retreat in 2024. There are many one day options as well as weekend retreats in the area. The Cincinnati Men’s Catholic conference with Fr. Nathan Cromley is on January 20th right here at St. Ignatius. I recently attended his women’s day retreat and it was just amazing. I advocate for a Catholic retreat because there is always the opportunity to receive the sacraments of Confession, Adoration and the Eucharist.
My hope is that this will become a regular yearly (at least) commitment you make to God. Go away with the One you claim to love most. Give Him your time and you will receive more than you ever imagined. I promise.
May God bless you and keep you and your families safe this year.
Kate Rewwer
Parish Health Coordinator
