“God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us.” Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle (1577)
For this blog entry, I thought I’d report on my retreat at the monastery from Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon by sharing the journal entry I wrote late Friday morning:
I am at the monastery for the second retreat in my Shalom Program. This time I’m staying at the monastery in guest room 307. The retreat started yesterday evening. Sister Michelle Dosch, my Shalom leader, gave me some retreat materials then and we met for Morning Prayer (6:45 a.m.) today. This is a silent retreat, so I have been spending the morning in intercessory prayer. Last night I prayed for people in the light—a soaking prayer—and now I just used one of the retreat texts and prayed for people with it: “Do not fear, ________, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43: 1b-2). That is a powerful verse to pray on someone’s behalf, and I am grateful to Sister Michelle. I’m feeling very alert and relaxed while I am on this retreat. I love the room I am in, and I can’t believe the space of time that stretches out before me for reading, writing and praying. What a gift! I’m trying to gift it right back through my intercessory praying. After I finished using Isaiah, I counted up the people I’d prayed for and found the number to be over 75 people. Those prayers will be circulating in the spiritual realm for more than a thousand years, and I am thankful for the opportunity to be of service.
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