Walking with God

Sister Miriam James Heidland speaks to participants at the Women’s retreat at Our Lady of Corpus Christi Campus. Mona Lisa Biberstein for South Texas Catholic

For over 10 years now, the campus of Our Lady of Corpus Christi has been a refuge from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

First as an academic institution where college students could be formed both intellectually and spiritually as a means to grow closer in their relationship with God so that they would be equipped to carry out Blessed Pope John Paul II’s call for the New Evangelization. Then the priests and lay staff of Our Lady of Corpus Christi soon realized that they could expand the work of the New Evangelization in a new direction and that the Holy Spirit was calling them to serve people of all ages, not just the youth.

Thus, since 2010 the Our Lady of Corpus Christi Retreat Center has offered retreats for individuals and parishes within the diocese so that people can come, be still and listen to God amidst a world that often makes it hard to find Him.

“We’ve found that many people are hungering to grow spiritually, yet they are finding little opportunity, support and direction to do so. This is a deep need that we can fill in service to the diocese of Corpus Christi,” Father Dan Estes, SOLT, Director of Our Lady of Corpus Christi Retreat Center said.

The most effective way that the retreat center provides the opportunity for people to truly encounter God is by offering three specific retreats; the Spiritual Exercises retreat, the Divine Mercy retreat and the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary retreat.

The foundation of these retreats is the Spiritual Exercises Silent Retreat, which is a three-day retreat. Our Lady of Corpus Christi offers this retreat monthly in order to accommodate busy schedules.

The Spiritual Exercises are based on the 30-day Ignatian Exercises, developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius developed a series of exercises to help discern and obey the will of God. With divine assistance, he discovered the path, the materials for meditations and directions which formed the framework for the retreat. He called them the “Spiritual Exercises.”

The three-day weekend retreat at Our Lady of Corpus Christi condenses the exercises into eleven 20-30 minute talks that follow the flow of the exercises, beginning with the purpose in life, God’s creation, sin, redemption through Christ, reflecting on His life, passion, death and resurrection and finding God in all things.

Retreat participants are given time to reflect and pray with questions and meditations to help them in between talks. They also have the opportunity for spiritual direction and Confession. They participate in daily Mass, pray the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Stations of the Cross.

Silence is maintained during the retreat so participants can focus on the points for prayer and listening to God. The Spiritual Exercises are made effective by the silence, the flow of God’s graces and the specific material for prayer. This process helps to deepen one’s relationship with God and disposes one to find Him in all things.

Participants practice the Spiritual Exercises through a new concept of prayer that is presented, following a routine that incorporates the sacraments, scripture and periodic spiritual direction. In so doing, the retreat helps the faithful to come to know Jesus, love Him and thus be moved to serve Him.

The retreat center is often referred to as a “house of deep prayer” not only because of the serene atmosphere and place of solitude where one can listen to God, but also because priests, deacons and religious are readily available for spiritual direction. Upon special request, the faithful may participate in a five-day, eight day or the full benchmark 30-day directed retreat and prayer in daily life as well as the 19th annotation, designed for those who want to make the Spiritual Exercises but whose life circumstances make it impossible for them to make a full-time 30-day retreat.

“Ultimately we are trying to help them enter into deeper prayer coming to know God by listening to His voice. In coming to know Him better, they will love Him more and will serve Him more as well,” Father Estes said. “The Spiritual Exercises have been one of the most effective means in bringing people into a deeper relationship with God since St. Ignatius and they continue to do so. We recognize the need of so many people who are desirous of growing in their spirituality but are having trouble finding a way to do so.”

A convenient aspect of the Spiritual Exercises is that they are open-ended and that one can never exhaust the riches contained in them so that it satisfies the desire that so many people have to grow in relationship with God and to become more spiritual.

“One can continually come back to them and deepen their relationship with God,” Father Estes said.

He explained that there is a progression with these three retreats. Along with a deepening of one’s relationship with God, the Total Consecration retreat helps to foster in the faithful a deeper devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary by following a 33-day period of personal reflection developed by St. Louis Marie de Montfort leading up to a Marian feast. The Divine Mercy retreat helps to foster a greater devotion to and understanding of Jesus’ Divine Mercy as revealed to St. Faustina Kowalska.

“We believe that a strong devotion to Jesus and Mary, the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, is the quickest and surest way to attain union with God; and so we have the two retreats focused on Jesus’ Sacred Heart and coming into communion with Him through the intercession of Our Lady and her Immaculate Heart,” Father Estes said. “Finally, because there is a great need for mercy in our world, we have been blessed with the Divine Mercy devotion. We encourage people to grow in their understanding of God’s mercy and to be people of mercy.”

The three-day Spiritual Exercises retreat begins at 5 p.m. on Thursday and ends at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Our Lady of Corpus Christi also offers parish and group based retreats. For more information, call (361) 289-9095 or visit www.deepprayer.org.

(Editor’s note: Beginning with this issue, the South Texas Catholic will examine retreat opportunities available to the faithful in the diocese to help grow in their relationship with God during this Year of Faith.)