Dear Friends,
I returned last week from preaching two back-to-back retreats for the Salesian priests from the province of Shillong, Meghalaya, India. This state capital, known as the ‘Scotland of the East’, offers scenic vistas complete with lakes, waterfalls and mountain peaks that make it one of the prettiest hill stations in the region. I have lived, studied and worked as a priest in this magnificent city for twenty years. For me this journey to the Northeastern region of India was a Home Coming.
I had the opportunity to connect with priests and laity, and to bring them up to speed on my own journey to the United States and the joy I experience in ministry serving as your pastor. In addition to the two retreats, I had the opportunity to speak to 3000 high school students on choosing their attitude, and I also made a presentation to the teachers of the school on the theme, “We Teach Who We Are.”
The retreat is a time for the priests to undertake continued spiritual formation and enjoy fellowship with their brother priests. Most have not seen each other for a long time as they minister in multiple states of the region. It’s a beautiful thing when priests come together to recharge their spiritual life, nurture vocational identity and renew their personal commitment to conversion.
Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard in The Soul of the Apostolate paints a powerful image of what a retreat does to a priest. “If you are wise, you will be reservoirs and not channels ... The channels let the water flow away, and do not retain a drop. But the reservoir is first filled, and then, without emptying itself, pours out its overflow, which is ever renewed over the fields which it waters.” Chautard firmly believed that in order for priests (or anyone else, for that matter) to give themselves to others, they must first be filled.
