Was I ever in for a treat when I paid a visit to Mount St. Francis Retreat Centre the other day. I had gone up to the Franciscan retreat centre at the top of Big Hill in northeast Cochrane to speak with its director, Susan Campbell, about its upcoming mid-August 75th anniversary. Susan gave me the silent treatment – in a most positive way! In the course of chatting about the centre’s history, the topic of silent retreats came up, one of the centre’s specialties.
Ah, silence! The topic was obviously so important to Susan that it filled the rest of our visit. In fact, at my request, she summarized her thoughts in a letter I’m sharing with you this week. Susan?
WHAT I FIND SO IMPORTANT ABOUT SILENCE, especially on retreats, is that it allows the quiet presence of God to work, bringing healing, wholeness and peace. So many people find silence uncomfortable and will do anything to distract themselves from entering into that still centre deep within. There are many reasons for this, but I think one is fearing a voice that is disappointed, recriminating, condemning. Some have been told that voice is the voice of God’s judgement. Most often, it is the voice of a wounded spirit.
Some believe that God is a distant and punishing God who focuses on their faults and failings. What St. Francis understood in the core of his being is that God is a God of mercy, compassion and love. God’s love is reflected in all creation. Franciscan writer Eric Doyle, OFM, wrote that Francis recognized in all creation that “there is a love from beyond the world in the heart of everything.” Creation was created in love, for love, through love. Coming from the one source – the love within God – all creation is interconnected. That is why St. Francis called all creation brother and sister: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wolf, Sister Water… . He would spend a great deal of time in silence, contemplating God’s marvelous creativity, closeness and compassion.
He saw that most perfectly in the coming of Jesus – God humbly becoming little and powerless to bring to humanity a message of love. In Franciscan spirituality, Jesus was always going to come to share the message of God’s love for all, even if humanity hadn’t sinned. This is because Love desires to be known. God desired to show humanity the depth of God’s love. What was started in the incarnation was completed in the crucifixion and death of Jesus. This act of surrender was, for Francis, the ultimate sign of how much God loved us because God forgave us. “If the cross of Christ does not convince us that God’s love is unconditional,” Doyle says, “then nothing will.”
It is in the silence of our heart, open to the presence and action of God’s love, that we grow in that love in our own lives: in our relationship with ourselves and with others, with the world around us, and with God. The peace and stillness that a retreat provides holds us in a sacred space where we can become vulnerable and allow God to speak an often-silent word of love, acceptance, forgiveness and hope.
Peace,
Susan Campbell, Director
Mount St. Francis Retreat Centre
THANK YOU, SUSAN, for your thoughts on sacred silence, so appropriate for this Lenten season.
© 2024 Warren Harbeck
