Since I returned to the faith, I have a spiritual practice
of attending a weekend retreat once a year.
For three days I leave my worries behind seeking God for nurture,
renewal, healing and just to be with Him alone without any distractions. These weekend encounters have become a definite
need in my life for so many reasons and I do believe that everyone should make
the time to unplug and seek God in a quiet place in community. The past three years or so I have been going
to the Sacred Heart Retreat House for a women’s silent retreat, but this year I
was encouraged by my fraternity to attend the Regional Franciscan Retreat in
Malibu. Thus, Friday morning I picked a
couple friends and we all headed up to Serra Retreat House to spend our weekend
with other Secular Franciscans from Southern California.
I do love Saint Francis
and all weekend long I learned so much about him and his spirituality – I truly
felt like he accompanied me during my stay.
He gave me a new sense of what it means to be holy. The root of the word holy means, “separate” or
to be set apart for God. To have a
desire to be a saint and this wanting will push me to be what God created me to
be. I found it so refreshing how saint
Francis follows in the steps of Jesus, but the journey is Francis’ and the steps
he takes belong to him. For the longest
time, I was terrified of losing my identity in my quest for God, of becoming a
clone as Nietzsche often described Christians.
Yet, the saints teach us that though we must imitate Christ, we are not
copies of one another because each of us is unique. God created each of us without using a cookie
cutter mold, making only one of each. Our
saints reflect real people that were tremendously different individuals, but
their desire to be what God created each to be was what made them the same.
God chose me before the world began and He craves that I
will choose Him too. Yet, my yes is so special
because though I must follow in the footsteps of Jesus or even imitate the path
of a dear saint the journey belongs to me alone. In my journey I make Jesus’ values my own and
it is this personal quest that doesn’t make me a copy, but an original person
walking in the steps of our Lord.
Francis exhorts us to model ourselves after him, but more like kindred
spirits and not bad copies of him because there’s only one Saint Francis. He leads us to ask how do I make this journey,
these values my own? I must follow Jesus
and the path has been carved by so many saints before me, but the steps in the
journey will always belong to me (wow).
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