The Retreat

The women's retreat I spoke at this past weekend focused on Father Thomas Dubay's book Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer. When the retreat leader told me the topic about a month ago, I hadn't even read the book. In fact, truth be told, I had been avoiding reading his books.

I know several people who have read his books and all of them have been totally changed by what he had to say. I didn't think I was ready for that at this point in my life. Right now I'm struggling to get in any spiritual time between the kids and the house project.

As always, God had other ideas. Quite possibly he did this because of my own crazy Lenten request. Yes, I know, be careful what you pray for. And boy, oh boy, have I gotten what I asked for and this book only added to the challenges before me.

As I read the book, I was shaken to the core. It was deep, not in the sense that I couldn't understand it, but rather, I clearly understood it and saw the need for it in my own life.

To tell on myself a little bit, I tend to be the kind of person who reads something and says, "Boy that was good, so and so really needs to read this." I don't do this with easy stuff. I can apply that to my own life. But the hard stuff, well, I'd much rather pass that on to someone else.

As I read Fr. Dubay's book, it was as if God quite literally hit me over the head and said, "THIS ONE IS FOR YOU!" It was an epiphany that came at the right time. I would just pick the book up and my heart would start racing.

I was relieved when I finished the book. The problem was that it hit so close to home that I felt totally inadequate to talk to other women about the topics. I was asked to pick two chapters to share about. My choices were “A Remarkable Resistance” and “Conflicts and Conversion” because these were the chapters that had me written all over them.

I was shocked when she asked me to take “Call to the Heights” and “Relevance and Motivation”. I wondered how in the world I could talk to women about becoming a saint and how to motivate yourself to do so. I felt so far from that place of holiness. And, to top it off, the book ends in the 7 Be’s which Fr. Dubay calls his surefire plan to achieve this deep conversion. The three I was given to teach about were “Be Determined”, “Be Humble”, and “Be Motivated”.

Maybe now you can understand how I just didn’t feel prepared to do this retreat. No matter how hard I tried, nothing I wrote sounded right, nothing sounded inspired. In fact, in the car on the way to the retreat, I was asking my fellow retreat masters how to live this out.

The only things I felt I had in my corner were the myriads of people who were praying for me and the knowledge that God asked me to do this retreat. I was also banking on the fact that the less I perfected my talks, the more room there was for the Holy Spirit to speak through me.

Each time I stood to talk I was very aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t try to teach these women anything. I shared with them, from the bottom of my heart, the fact that I was on this journey to holiness right next to them. I talked about my weaknesses and how God had spoken to me about some things I needed to change. There were times when I looked down at my outline and knew instinctively what to leave out and what to add. In short, I don’t ever remember being so inspired by the Holy Spirit.

There were lots of lessons to be learned…most of them by me. The Lord used this book powerfully to help me on my Lenten journey and I highly recommend it to everyone – especially, if like me, you feel you’re not ready to hear it. God showed me that he really will give you what you need when he calls you to do something. Even a sinner like me can relay his words to others. And, when the Holy Spirit is allowed to work, watch out! He’s really good.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a group of women more hungry to walk with the Lord. They were so kind to us. They fed us, made us feel like we were a part of them, and listened (and even took notes) to what we said.

I can’t wait to do it again.