Man becomes so active and reflective when he recalls his past and present events, which can be the cause for the failures or successes. Everything, he experiences in his life on earth becomes the history of the world one day. God is always giving opportunity to grow and become mature spiritually, physically, psychologically, intellectually, pastorally and socially. But many a times we tend to forget to realize these as gifts of God. That is why we fail in our spiritual and religious journey. We forget the real presence and the powerful guidance of God with us always. To amend our past life, the opportunity was given to us to reflect and set focused in our life.
In the same way, we were given a golden opportunity to do one month retreat to evaluate and reflect our past and present life and set our goal firmly in the person of Jesus Christ and to make the solid resolution to commit ourselves in the hand of God for his glory and for His mission through our Perpetual oblation and to become the true minister of the Eucharistic table of the Lord as deacons. Rev. Fr. Emil Moraes, OMI was our retreat preacher who guided and accompanied us throughout the retreat. His tireless commitment made us to set our goal. The life experiences of Fr. Emil, OMI as a missionary for 45 years strengthen our religious life and our commitment.
The participants of the retreat were Bro. Vincent, OMI and Bro. V. Anucious, OMI from the Province of Jaffna and Bro. Assisi, OMI and Bro. Sharukka, OMI from the Province of Colombo and Bro. Joseph, OMI from the Vietnam Mission – Province of France. We started our retreat on 10 August 2018 at Gnanodhayam, Kerri, Mannar, and finished our retreat on 9 September 2018. The theme of the retreat was “Waking in the Footsteps of Jesus: A Reliving Experience of One’s Life, In Jesus.” Having the theme as the foundation for our retreat we divided the one month into four weeks and had a special theme in connection with the main theme.
- 1st week we reflected on Gift of Human Life: Full Human Growth, Physical and Psychological Maturity.
- 2nd Week we reflected on Gift of Divine Life: Spiritual Growth in the Sacramental Life of the Church.
- 3rd week we reflected on Gift of religious Life: Vowed Life, Community Life And Prayer Life And Apostolic Life.
- 4th week we reflected on Gift of Priestly Life: Understanding of Consecrated Life As Holy Eucharist.
According to themes Fr. Emil Moraes, OMI directed us to go deeper into our life and made us to open ourselves fully to God and to commit ourselves totally to Him. So we thank God for giving this wonderful opportunity to experience him and to love him more and more throughout our religious lives. We, in a special way thank our retreat preacher Fr. Emil Moraes, OMI who directed us guided us and accompanied us in our spiritual journey. And also we in a special way thank the Provincial of Jaffna Province, Sri Lanka who organized this great retreat. We also thank the Major Superiors of the other Units and all our Formators who encouraged us to make this retreat as the preparation for the perpetual vows and for the ordination to the diaconate. And we thank the Community at Gnanodhayam, Mannar, Sri Lanka and the domestic staff who helped us in many ways during this retreat.
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