|
|
|
Posted: July 3
(Monte Cucco, Roma) I just gave the final conference this morning on the eighth day of a retreat. Fifteen religious women from various congregations and from all over the world signed up for my retreat, and they are doing really well. It always amazes me to see the power of the kind of prayer that Ignatius developed hundreds of years ago, his method of praying into the Gospel stories with one's imagination and heart. Faith and a bit of creativity open up the stories which begin to speak directly to people. I have been giving a 45-minute introductory talk each morning and then I see people individually during the day.
I only give two retreats a year, but they are important moments, sort of a pastoral oasis in the midst of a life that can seem very bureaucratic at times, very technical at others. I talk much more frequently about how to navigate through airports than I do about God's love. So these eight days are precious. Plus, I get to tell a lot of stories and act a bit, which is always enjoyable. Today I actually used one of the stories from an earlier blog (the Easter story of Maria Augusta and the necklace); it fit in quite well as an example of Ignatius' meditation on the Contemplatio (learning to love like God loves). Mostly, though, I listen to their stories of how God is moving in their lives and challenging them to grow. Directing a retreat is a privileged moment to be sort of a first-hand witness of grace in action from day to day.
One innovation I have introduced that Ignatius did not have available is to talk about a movie for each day of the retreat. There is a theme for the day, a primary Gospel story for the day, and a movie for the day. I cannot talk to the whole group about what each person tells me; you have to respect the confidentiality of the conversation. So I talk about movies which provide good examples of the dynamic at play each day. The first movie was "The Straight Story" which introduces the notion of the journey. Alvin Straight, the main character, makes a wonderful journey to be reconciled with his brother after a heart attack alerts him to the fact that he does not have much time left to live, so he wants to take a journey and mend key relationships. Since he lost his driver's license due to poor eyesight, the only way he can take the 320 mile trip across Iowa is to ride his lawn mower, which he adapts to pull a small trailer. His trip is a pilgrimage of sorts and it introduces the pilgrim theme so deat to Ignatius. Retreatants pray over their own paths and the challenges they need to face.
Other films are "Babette's Feast", "The Spitfire Grill", "Places in the Heart", "The Fifth Horseman is Fear", "Romero", "Dead Man Walking", and "Truly, Madly, Deeply." This is not a mainstream list of blockbuster movies; most of them had some success and a few have won Oscars. But they all are stories that relate to conversion, reconciliation, pilgrimage and responding to love. It would take more space than this blog permits to explain how each movie relates to a specific gospel story, but each one does. (If anyone has any favorite movies that you think might fit into a retreat, I would be happy to get your suggestions.) I am also thinking of looking for a "painting of the day" for next year, as an additional way of developing the retreat.
As I was writing this, I thought back to Father John Walsh who taught us at the juniorate at Florissant. He was one of the first men in my province to get advanced training in the arts (he got a doctorate in theater from Yale), and he developed a very successful drama program at Marquette University before coming to teach young Jesuits. I got to Florissant a little bit before he did in 1966, but he had a profound impact on myself and many of my companions. He brought a steady stream of foreign art films into our lives, which sparked my love of cinema and made me want to make movies myself. He also directed plays and taught a number of variations of the one course that mattered to him, "God and Man in Contemporary Cinema (or theater, or art, or ...). The titles changed over time, but he was always looking for God's presence in our world in places where most people don't seek for God. And that is pretty much what I am still doing in this retreat and my everyday work. I just learned that John died on Saturday; like all members of the province, he will receive our prayers, but I offer up thanks and fond memories as well.
back to previous entries