Retreat

 

It's that time of year when our diocesan clergy go on retreat at the Jesuit set up on Lake Dallas, Montserrat. It's good to get away and refocus on the spiritual life. 

It's been good, too, to hear a series of excellent meditations by Bishop Iker. What an outstanding bishop. But more on this later, it's time for Mass.

Salve,

LSP

Retreat!

 

There we were, advancing in a different direction at our annual diocesan clergy retreat, which has resumed in full after two years of the Covid Craze. And good thing too, what a faithful group of priests, just a pleasure to be with.

Our retreat conductor was excellent, Abbott Luis Gonzales, OSB, who gave a series of conferences on the spiritual life, drawing heavily on Dom Columba Marmion. And what's wrong with that? Nothing whatsoever and we were challenged to advance in perfection.

That in mind, you'll be shocked and surprised to know there weren't any priestesses, guitar playing nuns, liturgical dancers or rainbow blessings at the retreat. No, only the Faith once delivered by Christ to the Apostles and thence to us.

Well, it was over all too soon but I left refreshed in spirit. Go to Montserrat's incarnation on Lake Dallas if you can, it's a good place and its silence is important.

God bless you all,

LSP

St. Francis Xavier

 

It's the Feast of St. Francis Xavier today and we marked it by a Mass and some wine and cheese in the church hall afterwards. Such is life and I'm not complaining.

Xavier, in case you didn't know, was a friend of St. Ignatius Loyola and a founding father Jesuit Order. You know, back in the days when the Jesuits burned with fidelity to the Gospel and the Church, the 1500s.

Not content with teaching philosophy at Paris, Xavier sailed to Southern India where he worked tirelessly as a missionary. Conservative estimates say he baptized 30,000 people, others say 100,000, and the churches he founded survive to this day.

Xavier was revered as a saint in his own day because of his remarkable holiness and many miracles. Not least healing, exorcism, and raising the dead. Scoff, if you like, but remember the churches he founded still exist, and, if you're a Christian, never discount Divine Power.

If you do, consider this. When and if you go against God you will be relentlessly destroyed, like Debenhams in the UK. Do not choose that route.

LSP

Suscipe

I know it's easy to scorn the Jesuits for being a bad crew of Marxists and associated evildoers, but Ignatius Loyola was a great saint. Here's one of his prayers, the Suscipe.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory, my understanding,

and my entire will,

All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.

To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace,

that is enough for me.

Powerful.

God bless,

LSP

Retreat!

We're advancing in a different direction, which means getting on I35E and driving to Montserrat Retreat House for the annual diocesan clergy retreat. You need a retreat after that drive, I tell you.

I was hoping for some quiet fishing off Montserrat's pier but it's underwater. Well, there's no telling where, when and how The Weather will strike in its vicious no-holds-barred war on humanity. Just look at New York, all that tax money and they still got hit by several feet of Climate Change.

So maybe there won't be any fishing, but there will be some Chesterton, The Crimes of England. I'm looking forward to that.

More anon, as the story unfolds.

LSP

Whassup?

Retreat!

So what's been going on in LSPland? A well-needed diocesan clergy retreat, for a start, led by the new Bishop of San Joaquin, Eric Menees. Menees gave a series of meditations on the duties of clerical life; all good practical stuff, emphasizing the priesthood as a way of life, as opposed to a job that you turn up for and then clock-off from at the end of the day. Sound advice, perhaps especially to those U.S. Anglican clergy who commute from a suburb to their office, stay there till late afternoon and then commute back to their little slice of subdivision heaven. But plastic siding aside, helpful for all of us. Thanks, bishop Menees.

St. Ignatius Loyola

The retreat house, which is run by Jesuits, had a fair amount of Ignatian literature to hand and I read some. Not only was Ignatius a soldier who laid down his arms for the religious life but he also, apparently, believed that everyone has one primary, or foundational "grace", and one correlative sin. Knowing the one can lead to enlightenment and progress in the other. For Loyola, the sin was "vainglory" and triumph at arms, which translated into Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, For the Greater Glory of God.

I like that. Respect to St. Ignatius Loyola.

God bless,

LSP