Diocesan News
“Come away to a quiet place and rest awhile.” (Mark 6:30)
Toward the end of seminary formation, there is a retreat every seminarian has to take part, a big one. At Corpus Christi College, that usually means the 30-day Ignatian Spiritual Retreat at Sevenhill in the Clare Valley. Channa Tilkarathna and I did ours recently, and I can say now, having come out the other side, that it really was one of those experiences people describe as life-changing, not just something you say.
We got to Sevenhill on June 15. Fr Rob Morris SJ and Fr Brendan Kelly SJ, along with John Ahern CFC and Mrs Deirdre, were there to welcome us in, and together with seven other retreatants, a mix of Anglican and Catholic clergy and lay people, we settled into a month of prayer, silence and honestly, a fair bit of quiet unraveling and re-settling of the soul. We were shown around first, St Aloysius Church, the old Jesuit history room, the library, the crypt, the vineyard and (a personal favorite) the cellar, before being introduced properly to the Exercises themselves. Each of us was paired with a spiritual director who walked with us daily for the whole month.
St Ignatius structured the Spiritual Exercises in the 1500s as a way of guiding people through prayer and contemplation, and they are comprised of four Thematic ‘Weeks,’ not calendar weeks, more like phases. The First focuses on receiving God’s unconditional love, examining personal faults, and recognising God’s mercy. The Second sits with the public life of Christ and what it means to follow him. The Third moves into his Passion and death. And the Fourth is the Resurrection, and a recommitment to love and mission going forward.
Most days had four or five hours of personal prayer worked into them, meditation, contemplation, colloquies, the Examen, applying the senses, plus daily Mass and an hour of Eucharistic Adoration after dinner. Meals were silent except on repose days. It sounds like a lot written out like that, and it was, but there was something about the repetition Ignatius builds into the whole method that made the prayer go deeper rather than just piling up. That, more than anything, is where the retreat’s title came from for me, being, for once, truly ‘alone with none but Thee, my God.’
I was glad the retreat left room to move, too. I got into a rhythm of walking the property most days and running the Riesling Trail into Clare when I could. The winter weather cooperated, mostly clear, mostly sunny, so Sevenhill’s countryside got to show itself off a bit.
If I had to pick out what stayed with me most, it would be the hour of Adoration each evening and the daily Examen. Sitting with the Blessed Sacrament, then going back over the day in prayer, that combination did something to deepen how present God felt in the ordinary parts of the day, not just the retreat itself.
The one thing I didn’t love was the night meditation St Ignatius recommends somewhere between midnight and 4am. Getting up in the cold after a full day already spent in prayer took more willpower than I expected. I kept thinking of that line, “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41), and, yes, I felt that one personally.
Food-wise, we were looked after well, though I’ll admit I missed chili once I ran out of my own stash. Still, there was good variety, some very good desserts, and the Sevenhill wine didn’t hurt either. And then there was everything else that’s harder to put a value on, the silence, the birdsong, the cold clean air, all of it added up to something I’m still turning over in my head.
It was, in the end, a genuinely life-changing month, and my hope is that whatever came out of it in prayer stays with us long after Sevenhill. I keep coming back to St Augustine’s line, that he ‘consigned his past to God’s mercy, his present to God’s love, and his future to God’s providence.’ That’s roughly where I’ve landed too. And I hold onto the promise that Christ is with us always, “to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).
By Simon Zakari – 5th Year Seminarians – Diocese of Ballarat
(Based on the shared 30-days Ignatian Retreat Experiences of Simon & Channa)