This week was the opening sessions of the Lent Retreat in Daily Living I’m offering at St. Hubert’s parish and at the University of St. Thomas. (The retreat will run through Easter.)
As I’ve explained before, in a Retreat in Daily Living, participants commit themselves to a half-hour of prayer each day and go about their daily lives as usual. Prayer material relating to the theme of the retreat is provided for each day. In addition to a daily period of personal prayer, the participants in the retreat meet for an hour each week, during which they share their experience of prayer in small groups and I give a talk on the theme of the upcoming week’s prayer and address some of the dynamics of this type of retreat experience.
I decided to structure the retreat differently this year from the way I’ve done in past years. Rather than going through a shortened version of the Spirtiual Exercises of St. Ignatius, I’m using some very traditional devotions as the framework for our prayer.
During this opening session, after talking a little bit about this type of retreat experienced, I spoke on a very fundamental topic. At the beginning of any extended retreat program or an other kind of serious effort to engage in spiritual growth, it is important to spend time getting in touch with the depth and breadth of God’s love…to get a sense of who we are in the eyes of God, a sense of ourselves as God’s beloved creation.
Every time I give a Retreat in Daily Living, I get e-mails or comments from people who tell me thay are praying along with us. I hope you will keep all of the retreatants in your prayers and I hope some of you will decide to do the retreat along with us. I recorded the introductory talk I gave at St. Thomas and you can access the podcast here. (The podcast runs for 34:55.) And you can find here a copy of this week’s prayer material.
P.S. You can download the podcast from here. Remember that you can also subscribe to Creo en Dios! podcasts via iTunes. Simply search my name.
Creo en Dios! 
You can count on my prayers. I feel joy for all of you:-)
Susan,
I love what you’ve initiated here. The idea of a praying daily for half an hour certainly can draw one closer to our Lord. The meditation prior to beginning the prayer time is spot-on. What better way to begin a dialogue with the Lord than to meditate on His great and unchanging love for us (Jn 3:16). It is because of that love that we have the ability to approach Him as His own. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks beautifully to the love (agape in Greek) God desires to share with us and receive back from us.