Monday, October 8, 2012
Dear Friends,
I have decided to share with you my experience during my thirty-day retreat in Jerusalem. It was the greatest retreat I ever lived. During half of the retreat I lived the Passion and Death of Our Lord in a very special way. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Father Melvin
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My Thirty-day Retreat – Part 1
I made a thirty day retreat in Jerusalem from 18th April till 18th May 1990. This was an extraordinary time of grace for me as I spent half of the retreat on the passion and death of Our Lord. I experienced to a limited degree the suffering, the agony and death of Jesus for us. I kept a diary of these days as Jesus directed me, and here it is.
18th April 1990 – The Holy Eucharist was celebrated at 17:00 for all participants (about 40) to begin this month-long encounter with the Lord. In the homily Fr. Luc Lefief M.Afr., my spiritual director, asked us all to climb the mountain to be with God. He said that God was waiting for us and that he had something special to tell us. “Open your heart and listen to Him,” he said. This Eucharist was a time to prostrate oneself before the Lord in adoration and to acknowledge our littleness and our great need of God. After the liturgy we had a half hour conference on the disposition we should have in order to begin the retreat.
19th April 1990 – A full day of retreat is coming to an end. It is done in complete silence–we only talk to our spiritual director. I saw Fr. Luc at 10:45 for 45 minutes. He explained how he wants the retreat to proceed. A timetable was agreed upon: I will do four meditations of one hour each day. I explained to him that a certain darkness has come over me since last night and I don’t know what it means. “We will speak about that tomorrow,” he said. I had my four meditations of one hour today. I especially asked the Lord to guide me during the course of this retreat so that it be for me an important step in my life and in my journey towards Him.
The weather is very nice, sunny all day and the temperature is just right.
By the way the local people who live right around us are mostly Moslem and they accompany us on our retreat as they are in Ramadan, the famous month-long fast. They will finish next week after 28 days only as they follow the lunar month. I prayed for them today.
20th April 1990 – I saw my spiritual director again and we spoke about this darkness which is still with me. I also told him that I seemed absorbed in the passion and death of Our Lord and I cannot concentrate on anything else. He said that this is not normal and I should try to mediate on other subjects and he gave me Jesus’ Transfiguration to mediate upon. I tried for one hour but it was impossible to focus on this scene. What a struggle this was for me.
Now that I am on retreat I don’t go out any more visiting the holy places in the city of Jerusalem. Yet, I am very much aware that I am in this most holy city so famous because it is considered central for the three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I feel that it is very important for me to be here because Jesus walked its streets, prayed in its temple, cured the sick, some right in the yard of our house where we are staying (St. Anne’s). It is in this city that he gave us the “Our Father” and established the Eucharist when he ate the Last Supper with his apostles. It is here that Jesus suffered his passion. The Agony he underwent in the Garden of Gethsemane, just across the street from here. His trial before Pontius Pilate was held only a few meters from our house and the Way of the Cross started at the gate of the house. His crucifixion, death and resurrection took place about ten minutes walk from here and the Ascension happened on Mount of Olives which is up the hill from the Garden of Gethsemane. Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, was experienced by the apostles only 15 minutes walk from St. Anne’s. It is good indeed to be here.