Community Retreat Reflection
Written by Benedictine Center Staff
On June 13, 2022, the Monastic Community gathered in the dining room of St. Paul’s Monastery for their annual week-long retreat, led by Father Matt Linn, SJ: “The Beatitudes: Key to Peace and Healing in the Worst of Times in our Benedictine Spirituality.” The Oblates of St. Paul’s Monastery and the public were invited to watch the conferences via Facebook livestream, Monday through Thursday, which are now available on St. Paul’s Monastery’s Facebook page.
Father Matt read from the Book of Romans: “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Roman 8:38 NIV
Father Matt asked the Community: “What are you grieving? Name it. Love is bigger. Nothing ever stops this love in Christ Jesus.” Many of us have had the dull, never-ending pain of the May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in our hearts and minds. We’ve been trying not to watch the news, but watch the news anyway. There seemed to be a bit of hope when Academy-Award winning actor Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, went to the White House recently to implore lawmakers to take action with some degree of reasonable gun control laws. His blue eyes were on fire as he described the individual lives and characteristics of the 19 precious children and their two teachers who were lost that day. When Mr. McConaughey had the courage to go to the White House and speak live on TV, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope that something might change.
Father Matt told us that Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, instructs us in turning deep loss into grace. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. When we experience big loss, we know there is big love behind it. Love is the reason for our pain. We have such compassion in our hearts for those who suffer. Our shared love in these trying times can connect us with others. It is essential to exercise gratitude on a daily basis: gratitude shows us what we still have and can still do. The hope we have. The action we can take. We have a choice, Father Matt said: go under into despair or go into compassion. And pray. God is with us in our pain. We pray for the healing of so many shattered lives, and healing in our nation.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild things
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
