Prayer Retreat Notes

(Found here)

I was at a prayer retreat yesterday and took some notes. The excerpts from my notes may be a little disjointed without the full context? The retreat speaker was Fr. Joseph-Mary Hertzog, O.P.

Prayer:

• “Arm yourself with prayer instead of a sword; be clothed with humility instead of fine raiment” (St. Dominic)
• Prayer orders our desire toward God
• We need times of daily personal, meditative, contemplative prayer in addition to our times of structured prayer

Study:

• Remember that the study of sacred truth is getting to know a Person
• It is about a relationship—better knowing the Lord
• Even though it can be difficult, it is not drudgery
• Forms the mind
• Trains judgment/attention/patience
• Helps to resist slogans
• The intellect is made for truth and cannot afford error related to the highest things
• The wood of the cross can be the wood of the desk

Community:

• Is a school of charity
• It helps us learn:
• Patience
• Forgiveness
• Truthful speech
• Mutual encouragement
• Bear imperfections (sometimes there is nothing you can do but just bear it!)
• The virtue of prudence is needed to deal with the burdens of others
• Try not to be someone else’s burden
• Build up the people around you—what are their needs?
• How can I serve?
• Community is not optional; it is necessary
• God Himself is a communion of persons (the Holy Trinity) and we are created in His image
• Grace/truth come through community
• Charity needs others—no one learns charity in isolation
• Helps create fidelity of doctrinal steadiness—keeps one on track
• People are observing our charity/love in our Christian life
• Be available
• Allow yourself to be inconvenienced
• Our Christian communities:
• Should not just be discussion or spiritual consumerism
• Can be where the fire is kept so it can remain hot and then be taken outward

Apostolate:

• What is learned inwardly seeks to be diffused outwardly
• “We must sow the seed, not hoard it” (St. Dominic)
• “To contemplate and to give to others the fruits of contemplation” (attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas)
• Truth by nature is communicative
• Charity has to be shared—it is the overflowing of grace
• Create beauty in a coarse culture
• Be faithful—souls are often changed by ordinary fidelity
• We are one of God’s remedies
• Just seeing order is already evangelism—it’s already preaching
• Preaching needs to extend outward; it cannot be hidden
• Preaching makes Christ known verbally, intellectually, morally, relationally, and culturally
• Much preaching can happen simply in a:
• Tone of voice
• Habit of mind
• Faithful life
• A hidden vocation lived intensely can set the world on fire