School Retreat

We had a whole school retreat last week, the day before students left for half-term (many thanks for all those who prayed for it!). I was given responsibility for running the Upper Sixth retreat. Based on past experience, we decided to go for quite a low-key retreat, giving equal time to listening and talking (each student heard two talks and had two sessions of group discussion). Many of our students leave their faith behind when they leave school, so the main aim of the retreat was to get the students to realise that practising your faith at university, far from diminishing the 'uni experience', actually enhances it. To this end, we invited young people from various universities to come and give talks/testimonies and lead group discussions. If the retreat had any positive effect on our students (and I think it did!) it was to provide them with examples of happy, normal, young Catholics.

To keep the whole thing reasonably lighthearted, we used the following logo, linking two iconic images, one religious, and one which can be said to define Generation Y:

If any of you are interested, the group discussions were based on the following two texts, each accompanied by leading questions. On the theme, Happiness and Holiness, we looked at the following, taken from Pope Benedict's inaugural sermon:

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter’s Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears:

'Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!'…The Pope was speaking to everyone, but especially the young. Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our happiness?

And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.

Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.

And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.

- Pope Benedict

Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

And behold, you were within me and I was outside, and there I sought for you, and in my deformity I rushed headlong into the well-formed things that you have made.

You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all.

- St Augustine