BEND — I wrote last week that Catechists and Youth Ministers, if they are to be truly effective in handing on the word of God, must themselves be evangelized and sanctified. This week I want to continue this same theme and consider the value of retreats for catechists and youth ministers as well as for those who exercise liturgical functions in the Church. There is no doubt that catechists and youth ministers as well as liturgical readers need to be equipped with appropriate skills to perform their functions with the degree of expertise appropriate to the duties which they have undertaken. But these ministerial roles in the Church are much more than simply functions, for in the context of each of these roles the persons themselves do much more than simply teach, administrate youth programs or read the scriptures at Mass. While doing these things, hopefully with great competence, they are also teaching by the very content and lived reality of their lives. The old adage which states, “Your actions are speaking so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying,” is especially applicable here.

If the catechetical and liturgical work with which we are routinely involved is to bear the rich and abundant fruit the Lord promises, then we, who are in some ways the scatterers of the seed, need likewise to be concerned about how well we have received and how well we live the gospel messages. I have written often over the past months about the need for our diocesan youth camp/retreat center to help assure a firm faith base for our youth. While that has been more strongly emphasized than some of the other spiritual needs of the diocese, there is no doubt that the need extends far beyond the youth. In fact, if our concern for youth is genuine and if we are willing to say, “I would do anything to help assure a firm faith foundation for the young people of our parish,” then that “anything” involves each of us in a personal way. That “anything” which we truly should be willing to do for the sake of our youth must include an intense and consistent attention to the state of our own spiritual lives. Of course, that intense and consistent attention to the state of our own spiritual lives is something we need to do, not only for the sake of the youth, but primarily for the sake of our own spiritual well being.

While visiting with the youth in Australia, I suggested to them that there was nothing which they had found in Australia which they did not already have within them. While this is true, it is also true that they would not have discovered that which was already theirs if they had not been a part of the WYD experience. I do maintain that going to Australia is not absolutely necessary for this spiritual discovery to take place, but being removed from those things which routinely surround us does appear to be necessary. This is something which we experience relative to vacations. I often think that a perfect vacation would be simply to stay at home and be as unavailable as I would be if I were out of the country. Such an idea, while it sounds very attractive to me, will never provide the kind of separation which travel to a distant location provides. Spiritual retreats operate with the same dynamics. Being separated from one’s usual comfortable surroundings seems to be essential to the spiritual process of the retreat. It is true that there is nothing that can be heard at a retreat center which could not be heard on a tape at home but it is also true that the spiritual impact of those words is categorically different when one is away at retreat. Perhaps even the process of going from one place, where we are at home, to another place, where there is a different and hopefully attractive atmosphere, is symbolic of the desire to move from one spiritual “place” to a new and deeper level of spirituality. I have often puzzled about the Lord’s explanation of new wine: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good’.” (Luke 5:37-39) New spiritual insights may, perhaps, be added in small doses to our existing spiritual “wineskin,” but if there is to be a more dramatic conversion and renewal, of which we are all routinely in need, then a new “wineskin” is necessary. That new wineskin is a fresh perspective, a renewed openness to the Spirit, a willingness to acknowledge that, while the way we have always done something is good, the new “wine” might be better. I suspect that a good portion of our natural resistance to going away for a spiritual retreat is a complacency about our spiritual lives being “good enough,” in effect, “The old is good.” At least in the Diocese of Baker, another reason for not doing so was the simple fact that there was no place in the diocese to go. This is something which we are working very hard to remedy. This is something which we need a lot more than we realize. Just as the young people could not have fully anticipated the grace that would come to them during the course of WYD events, so also we cannot adequately understand what God might have in store for us on our next retreat. We must go to experience it.

We cannot fully appreciate the value of “getting away” together for a more intense spiritual experience, such as the trip to Australia WYD, without actually making the trip. We cannot expect our old wineskins to be replaced by new wineskins with new wine if we do not occasionally “leave home,” leave our comfort zone, and go to a place prepared for that purpose.

All of this applies to every Catholic and every follower of Christ. It does, however, apply in a more urgent way to those more involved in some form of ecclesial ministry. I do look forward, with a hopefulness which is still quite guarded, to the possibility of offering catechist retreats, youth minister retreats, reader and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion retreats, acolyte retreats and deacon retreats to foster deeper conversion in the hearts of those more actively involved with the Church. At the same time I look forward to establishing or continuing vocation promotion retreats, family camps, youth camps, Rachel’s Vineyard retreats and a variety of other wholesome and potentially life-changing experiences. This could be happening as early as the Fall of 2009.