For this retreat, we will be using a number of things to help you pray and reflect.
There will be some carefully selected Scriptural passages, which you will be invited to read at particular moments during the retreat.
Research has shown that online reading almost always lapses into skimming. Make an extra effort to read the Word of God as slowly as you can. Resist every temptation to speed-read.
We will suggest some songs and video clips to help you read and appreciate Scripture. Use them if and only if you find them helpful. Feel free to skip them if you think they’ll get in the way of your prayer.
But the most important means of prayer perhaps is your imagination. The best way to enter into the mysteries of Lent, after all, is to enter into the story of Jesus of Nazareth in the last few days of his earthly life.
During this retreat we shall try to walk with Jesus.
Use your imagination to see him with your mind’s eye, to hear his words spoken to those around him thousands of years ago, but in a most mysterious way, also spoken to us here and now. Imagine what he must have thought and how he must have felt as he went about completing his redemptive work.
In other words, as Steve Garnaas-Holmes wrote, “watch Jesus“:
…mostly this is a story about a person…. Keep your eyes on him. In every scene, at every turn, every opportunity, what is he doing? He’s just loving people. He gathers to eat with his beloved, and he gives himself to them. He washes their feet and prays with them. When Peter brazenly promises to stand by him, Jesus knows better, but he gently draws Peter back in, and gives him a way to go on, even before he fails. When they arrest him and violence breaks out, he stops it, and heals the very one who has come to arrest him. Even as he is crucified he provides for the care of his family and his community; he extends his love to the criminals executed with him, and blesses the people who kill him. It’s all about his undying love.
For your prayer and reflection during this retreat, focus only on the Word of God and the Face of God.
Images from http://www.praise-and-worship.com/
http://cdn.cultofmac.com/
http://stocki.typepad.com/