Quiet Retreat Theme - 2008
"Restless is the Heart: God's Longing For Us"

Each time we walk a path in the woods our surroundings change.  The earth by its very nature is constantly changing and so are we.  We may not like that aspect of our humanity but God loves it!  In fact our restlessness is simply a reflection of a God who is never satisfied with how things are right now.  God planted within each of us the heart of a seeker so that we might never grow tired of searching for the holy within and around us.      

During this retreat weekend we will explore the possibility that restlessness is gift rather than burden.  We'll examine how God might use our unease and our worries to point us in a new direction and how God wishes to speak to our hearts about the power of the divine that lives within.  Hopefully we will rediscover that it is God who is at the heart of all that matters to us in this world.

God enjoys heart to heart conversations and so we will look at ways that we can eliminate the nonessential chatter of our lives.  We'll embark upon an honest dialogue about our joys, our sorrows, our celebrations and commitments.  We'll discover during this retreat that sometimes God speaks through words and that sometimes symbols speak more eloquently of the mutual relationship of love that we have with our creator.  And perhaps we'll even discover that simple silence is where profound sacred communication is at its best. 

At times our hearts seem fractured but God desires to lift us into a new way of being, fashioning within us a new heart, a heart that sings of the truth of our beauty.  This alchemy of the heart will find expression through our communal ritual of Reconciliation.   Within this sacrament perhaps the restlessness that seems to pull us away from God will be transformed into a restless desire for God's dream of salvation. 

Finally we will explore what it looks like to live from the heart.  We will discover how we might spread our wings of compassion over a world that is aching for the presence of God that only we can bring. 

-Sr. Janis Yaekel, ASC

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