Dear Friends,

  Here I am on Sunday evening, after a day of beautiful weather here and with a sense of summer approaching and the children and teenagers just getting out of school for their summer break till January 2.  Yes, it takes me a moment to make that shift and think that I am in the southern hemisphere and so many things are reversed from what I became so accustomed to.  (Still, the moon is very full right now and Venus still appears brilliantly in the western sky each night, just as they do for you in the northern hemisphere. Some things remain the same!)

  I have some personal news to share, something that makes me happy beyond description.  Just this last week a niece of mine and her husband in Charleston, SC succeeded after two years to adopt a 9 year old boy and his 7 year old sister.  My relatives have been childless all their married years and have so wanted to have children.  Learning that they would not be able to do so, they proceeded with adoption efforts.  So on Monday it became official and I must say everyone I know in my family is so happy for them.  It is a wonderful addition to our family.

  In my previous blog-postings I have tried to give you, the reader, a sense of this place and its natural beauty.  Today I want to attempt to describe for you some of the interior beauty I am privileged to witness as I engage in the work of this place, guiding retreatants in their 8 or 10 day silent retreats.
There are over 35 people here right now making retreats.  They started Tuesday evening and will finish this coming Thursday morning.  So that makes 8 complete days; a few of them came on Sunday evening, a week ago, and are making this a 10 day retreat. 

  First, let me impress on you what we mean by silence.  We mean no cellphones, no newspaper reading, no access to computers, no talking with others, not even looking or greeting each other as we pass one another during the days.  We say our hellos at the beginning of the retreat and have this common understanding among each other that there is no offense meant when we pass each other and do not greet one another.  With that common understanding, we are able to enter into a profound, deeply focused silence of mind, imagination and heart.  It is truly powerful and makes one much more sensitive to God and God's whispers during the retreat as one considers certain bible passages to reflect and pray on.

  I am one of about 10 guides; I have five retreatants, four of them Kenyan women and one of them a woman medical missionary (ObGyn) from Nigeria who works in Tanzania, the nation just south of us.  Each retreatant has a maximum of 45 minutes a day to talk with me about what has happened during their prayer during the previous 24 hours. What this group has said to me, in confidence, is profound.  I hear the souls, the deeper desires of these people, their struggles to be true to their call and deeper selves and then to thrill with them as they experience God's very personal love for them.

 One of them will engage in a ceremony at the end of this month in which she will vow and formally offer herself to God as a nun for the rest of her life in the community she comes from, the Loretto Sisters.  She is a nurse among high school children but is expecting a change of ministry right after that vow ceremony.  She has described her time alone with God, as she roams the grounds here and sits before the Sacrament, that she feels wooed by God, on holiday with God, so relaxed like never before, freed and cherished.  She has found very meaningful passages in the Old Testament where God says to Israel that He is marrying her.  She owned these passages for her own self.  She just beamed.  Two days ago she said everything seems to shine with a certain light, like everything is alive with God's presence and oozes the divine presence.  This morning she said everything now seemed very quiet, not the excitement of the previous day but that she was OK with this shift, not worried as if God disappeared, that she was OK with this "silence" of God, because she trusts that God is deeper than all those previous manifestations; that it is fine when God wants to give you those experiences but that it is OK also to let God be with her the way God wants to be with her in a less spectacular way ... in a more quiet and prosaic way.  She is learning to let God lead and give at a level deeper than what she is able to sense or think or feel.  s

   All these women are in their late 30s or early 40s. 

  Another one has the name of Magdalene, and so a big part of her retreat has been to take quality time to think and pray about Mary Magdalene in the Scriptures.  It has been very moving to hear her describe deeper levels of her own identity as she ponders her namesake in the gospel stories where Mary Magdalene is spoken about:  at the foot of the cross and in the garden on Easter morning.  God is so amazing at how He speaks personally to people who are willing to get this quiet, to really slow down, and listen deeply with their heart as they ponder parts of the bible that reveal to them God's personal love for them and what their call is for a deeper, richer life in Him.  My privilege is to meet with them each day for 8 or 10 straight days in such silence and observe the amazing unfolding of their hearts and observe their discovery of what they mean to God and to Jesus.  When they taste such love as so personal and so NOW, not just 2000 years old, but now, it is very powerful what happens to them and their relationship with God, with the way they see their life and the work they are doing.  My role is to hear closely each day the progress of their prayer (probably 4 one-hour periods of prayer per day, summarized briefly in a journal) and to suggest passages to pray on for the coming 24 hours.  I also confirm the validity and power of what they share with me, and then point out further implications in what they shared with me, in what they prayed on and might do well to spend more time reflecting on and discussing with God.  My role is a little like a waiter in a restaurant who serves as well as possible these special days between God and the retreatant.  They come to the restaurant for a great meal and a wonderful meeting together and my job is to be sure the evening is a fabulous time for the both of them . . . not to hover too closely but also not be too far away and not sufficiently available when I am needed.  There are many times I walk away greatly humbled and full of joy after finishing with the five retreatants.  I ask myself, "Is there a better work anyone I could be involved in?  Can anyone get closer to where God is active and creating something wonderful, right now??!!"  Sometime I think I know why Moses in meeting God in the burning mush took off his sandals and simply bowed forward and put his face to the ground, so moved was he by the holiness and proximity of God. 

  Now as grandiose as this work is, I witnessed today something of the same wonder of God's presence in a rose bush a few feet away from my front door.  It has about 5 or 6 yellow roses all in full blossom and giving off a rather detectable sweet aroma.  I had to stop and just gaze at and wonder at what is the Maker of these roses like when they are so beautiful and yet will be gone in a few days!!

  Something of the same question struck some of the retreatants I am guiding when they were focusing on an aspect of God's love in their own lives.  I suggested that they take time to move from the gifts to the Gift-Giver, from thanking God for all the gifts they were so touched by and spend time look straight at God, the Gift-Giver; to look into  God's eyes, so to speak,  and hold steady in their asking God, "Just who are you?  Who ARE you??!!  ...and to let that question move around inside them during the day.  It is very powerful when a person can get that still and "look into the depths of God's heart, into God's eyes" and get in touch with the joy and fullness of life that pours out of God for you.  Many people are afraid to get that still, to be that present and vulnerable before our Maker and Divine Lover.  But when someone comes on retreat and enters into the depth of silence we insist on and really engages God like this, powerful things happen.  People see with their heart and experience at a depth they never before knew possible. This changes their lives.  They are never the same.  I recall a spiritual guide I had as a young priest telling me, "Once God has taken you to a certain depth, you will be bored with less."  Yes, once your soul has plumbed to a certain depth, you will be restless to get back to at least that depth and to go further into the heart of God.  We are made for the ultimate and we are restless until we get there.    It is sad that many people want to live a distracted life, constantly extraverted and engaged in surface interests. Yes, many people choose to live this way.  In this way they can avoid what they fear, yet they long at other times for something that will take them beyond their ho-hum lives. In the worst cases of this, we find addictions of various kinds, vain efforts to quiet this voice that calls them to trust and come alive to a Love they keep "looking for in all the wrong places."

  It is bedtime here.  I need to get a decent sleep and be ready for the five retreatants tomorrow. I start with them at 8:45 AM and end at 1 PM, with a break from 11 - 11:30AM.  I wish you all a good week, and thanks so much for the encouraging feedback I have received from those of you who read what I write here.  I will be continuing work on the editing of my book during afternoons.  I am making progress and I am encouraged by what I have done so far.  I hope to finish by January 1.

Bernie Owens