Three Days

Michele's arrival in 3 days will coincide exactly with the end of my 30 days of retreat. It occurred to me yesterday that when I was preparing for my departure from the office, I was focused entirely on preparing files for hand-over so that I could leave my business affairs behind me in, hopefully, relatively good order. In contrast, during these final days at Manresa House, I find that rather than preparing affairs to leave behind, I am, instead, preparing myself for re-entering the active life. As such, rather than marking an end of a period in my life, my upcoming departure will, in fact, be marking a new beginning. The decision to come here was, indubitably, the right one for me. At first, I must admit that I had been hoping to avoid the Ignatian exercises for a variety of reasons, but now that I have been exposed to them, I realize that they have helped prepare me for the experience for which I originally came here, to wit, to know myself better and to discover proper expression. This will, I realize, be a life long exercise, and I definitely have a long way to go to actualize this objective, but life at Manresa House provides a good mileu for this launch. The routine of community life is comforting. Up at 06:15 for mass at 06:45, breakfast at 08:00, meeting with Fr. Victor for 60-90 minutes each morning after breakfast, lunch (a huge lunch which is the main meal of the day) at noon, a walk in the countryside for an hour or two, a short nap, a light supper at 20:00, and in bed by 21:00. All the times in between are filled with reading, exercises, and prayers. One day, while praying, I actually started laughing out loud at how great it felt to have the opportunity to engage in these little chats with God without any distractions at all but my own thoughts. During my afternoon walks, it is so quiet on the streets that I hardly see anyone because everyone is inside enjoying their daily siesta. As such, it is very easy to conduct these wals in peaceful silence and continue to reflect on my daily exercses. Fr. Victor told me that there is an expression in Gozo which says that the streets are so quiet in the early afternoon, that you could kill someone and bury them without anyone noticing. Being here and sharing in the quiet community life of Manresa House is a true priviledge and one that I shall both miss and cherish equally.