What are you doing right now with your life? At this moment – right here, right now, what is happening?
Someone, somewhere, has shared this message with you – and I don’t believe it’s by coincidence or chance that you are reading these words – but I’d invite you to consider that maybe, just maybe, Jesus has come to speak with you.
You lead a busy life – there is work to be done: bills to pay, mouths to feed, things that need maintenance, loved ones to care for, and so much more. This life seems so full of responsibilities and obligations, and there is so often an unending pressure to add just one thing more.
God knows the challenges that you face in your life. God knows the struggles and sufferings that you experience. And God also knows what it is that you need. In fact, he knows what you need so much – that he has already given it to you!
That gift is Jesus Christ – and if you are reading these words I am sure you have experienced the life-changing power of Jesus’ presence in your life at some point. Maybe it happened when you we a young child, or a student in high school, or in your young adulthood. Perhaps it has happened even more recently – and you are wondering, “what comes next?”
St. John Paul II said, “Discovering Christ is the finest adventure of your life. But it is not enough to discover Him just once. Discovering Him becomes every time an invitation to seek Him always more, to come to know Him still better through prayer, participating in the sacraments, meditating on his Word, through catechesis and listening to the teachings of the Church. This is our most important task, as St Paul had well understood when he wrote: ‘For me, indeed, to live is Christ’ (Phil 1:21).”
For nearly 100 years – the Jesuit Spiritual Center has offered this invitation to seek Christ to tens of thousands of people, and today, I am offering this invitation to you.
Retreats are opportunities to take a step back from our busy lives and enter into the presence of Jesus. It is a time to pray, to reflect, to worship, and to renew our Baptismal call – to be disciples of Christ, to love one another, to bring light into the darkness of our world – a world which desperately needs us.
There has never before been a time in our world like this one – and there has never been a person in our world like you.
Listen closely to your heart.
Jesus is calling.
Perhaps this is the moment for which you were created!’
