My Retreat — 2015: How It Went

On Monday morning, during the time between Morning Prayer and breakfast, I was at my desk, probably reading the Hopkins and Hildegard book, when an envelope was slipped under my door. As I reached down to pick it up, I figured it was from the guest master, with some information about my stay. I opened it and found, to my delight, that it was from the junior monk I have a crush on. He had written it on the day before I arrived and it was a thank you note for the icon I had given him when he took his temporary vows on July 11, 2014. The icon was of the saint whose name he took  at that time — who just happens to be one of my favorite saints. (I also gave icons of their saints to the other novice who took temporary vows and to the junior who took permanent vows. Neither of them sent me a note.) I managed to see him right after Mass, just before they left for the lake, and he said that he had wanted to thank me sooner, but didn't have an address. Needless to say, I was very pleased with the whole business.

Of course, the main purpose of my being there was the retreat, and I wrote about it in a journal. I had chosen the book I was using mainly because Hildegard of Bingen was a Benedictine nun — even though the subtitle of the book I was using was "Turning Pain Into Power," and I don't think I'm in pain, physical or mental. Still, I managed to get or reinforce some useful ideas.

• Holiness isn't so much avoiding sin as doing good.
• What Hildegard calls "the lyre of profound devotion" and "the timbrel of mortification" could be helpful to me in becoming less self-centered and more God-centered and other-centered.
• Friendships, both same-sex and opposite-sex, can be places of disinterested love and mutual encouragement in virtue.
• How would I describe myself? Bookish/scholarly, acquisitive, synthetic ( in the etymological sense of the word, as opposed to analytic) thinker, teacher, argumentative, reserved, verbal.
• I need to be accepting of my imperfections. I need to realize that if I'm not as much of a leader, not as gregarious, not as well-organized, not as good an administrator, not as self-confident as other people, it's okay. They have their positive attributes and I have mine. We aren't all supposed to have everything. My "perfection" is to be my true self.
• Take the long view. If what I do seems pretty unimportant or ineffective, there can still be a "ripple effect." Hopkins' poems were hardly noticed during his lifetime, but now they're prized and inspire people.

I'd say the fourth and fifth points are the most important. I decided that, given who I am, blogging and tweeting are appropriate forms of activity. I even decided that I should create an exoteric blog in addition to maintaining this pseudonymous one. In it I can share thoughts on current events, religion, politics, and culture under my own name. So far, it hasn't picked up a lot of readers, but, depending on the topic, at least some posts get viewed, and it takes some time I might be using looking at sexually oriented material.

I've misplaced my diary (not the same as the retreat journal) from then, so I can't give a day by day account of what else happened, but here are a few things.

• On Monday, a couple of priests showed up and stayed most of the week. On Tuesday another priest arrived and stayed a couple of days. They were apparently all alumni of the college and friends with some of the monks.
• One day after breakfast I asked Fr. Peter, the subprior, if anybody would be visiting Fr. William or Fr. Jude and said if they were I'd like to go along. William and Jude were juniors when I arrived in 1966, so I had known them fairly well. Jude gave me my first cigar. On my rare visits after I left, William would tell me I should visit more often. William had suffered a severe stroke the week before my retreat in 2014; Jude had become badly debilitated; both were in nursing homes. Peter said he'd check. After lunch Fr. Peter told me he and Fr. Iain would be visiting Fr. William that afternoon, and I could go with them. William has regained some use of his limbs. He's fully alert, but his speech is impaired. Apparently some of the monks understand him fairly well, but we hardly could at all, so we did most of the talking. It was good to see him. I had wanted, and I was happy to let him know I was visiting the monastery, as he had wanted, and thinking of him.
• I visited the college bookstore a couple of times. First I needed pocket Kleenex® packs and also bought some body wash to take home. Another time I bought the books Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (I've never read To Kill a Mockingbird or even seen more than excerpts of the movie) and Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship, edited by Michael Pakaluk, a textbook of one of the courses. Both should be worth reading if I ever get around to them. I especially want to read what Aelred of Rievaulx says about spiritual friendship. Lots of gay Christian writers like him.
• On Thursday evening retired Abbot Matthew (he's in his 60's) and a younger monk were going to participate in a charity road race in downtown Manchester, and Bishop Joseph (he's in his 80's) was going to attend a clergy dinner in Rye with another monk driving him. That would take several of the best singers from the already depleted contingent of monks at evening prayer. So Fr. Peter decided to move evening prayer to 4:30 — before the four monks left — and to have dinner without table reading — which meant that those of us who were still around could chat among ourselves.
• Fr. John is Director of Education for the Diocese of Manchester, and at dinner I heard one of the visiting priests, on learning of Fr. John's position, ask him what qualifications he had for the job. He began by replying that he had been in education for over 60 years. He went on, but I didn't hear the rest. I was amazed at the priest having the nerve to ask the question.
• On Friday, the retired Bishop of Manchester showed up for Vespers, dinner, and recreation. When he was a newly ordained priest he wad assigned to my grandmother and uncle's parish, and she sometimes spoke favorably of him. So at recreation I mentioned the connection, and he remembered them.

All in all, I think it was time well spent, both in gaining insights which should be helpful for my spiritual growth and in developing my friendly acquaintanceships with some of the monks. What I'd like to do is not just to have another retreat some time, but also to make occasional visits which would simply be visits.

Boston Symphony

For all you music lovers who follow this blog, I just wanted to call your attention to the post on my music blog about the opportunity to hear BSO's summer concerts at Tanglewood each weeken from now through the end of August.

Oops! Blog Birthday Remembered

     By the time I finished writing the previous post, I had forgotten about the "Blog Birthday" part. Well, actually my first post was on October 31, 2008. So there you have it.

     And as long as I'm doing that sort of thing, this is post No. 139. I hit the century mark with my first post in July. It was "Happy Canada Day," with a link to the national anthem.