Excellent Retreat!

Today, Good Shepherd staff went to Prince of Peace Abbey for our Lenten Retreat.

With the guidance of Fr. William Rausch, a Franciscan priest from Los Angeles, we were led to reflect on ways to reinvigorate our ministries and overcome obstacles or "ruts" we mind find ourselves in during the ins and outs of our parish life.

Some memorable quotes from the first talk (I only got to attend that once since I had to get my son home for his nap!) were:

• In Jewish though, God bringing them out of Egypt was not a past event but a present one, even the ones that were never in Egypt. So, we have to ask ourselves, "What is my Egypt?" What is the bondage that God wants to deliver me from?


• It's impossible to "forgive and forget." In fact, it may even be dangerous to because sometimes you need to remember. But what it means to "forget" is not to put it out of your memory but to diffuse the anger or emotions which that memory brings with it. We can look back on past hurts or offenses against us with the wisdom and be cautious, but we don't want to find ourselves feeling the same emotions of those past hurts. If we do that, we will never let it go, we will always be burdened by the anger that that caused us and we will not learn to give people a change and work with them.


• It is important to be careful to not set unrealistic expectations of oneself so as not to cause resentment of ourselves if we don't meet our goals.

These are just a few great insights from the talk which really stuck out in my mind.

It was so enjoyable!

Not only was the environment beautiful and a great way to foster prayer and reflection, but we were able to attend Mass with the Benedictine monks and many people from the community as well as other retreatants.

The staff enjoyed lunch together, some reflection time where we could wander the grounds and pray, walk the stations, and reflect, and Fr. Rausch gave more talks before he fought the traffic to head back home.

Thank you to Prince of Peace Abbey for your hospitality...thank you Fr. Rausch for your wisdom, and thank you Fr. Michael and the Good Shepherd staff that coordinated it so we can be renewed and refreshed to better serve the parish community!