RETREAT TO ADVANCE
Most Rev. Earl Boyea
June 2008

“Retreat again! Don’t you ever advance?” So asked my father of me many years ago when I told him I was going on yet another retreat. The bishops of Michigan and Ohio every year go on retreat together at the Capuchin Retreat House in Washington, Michigan. I look forward to it as an occasion to fall in love with Jesus yet once more. Well, we were on retreat during the middle of May this year. Our retreat was given us by Father Dominic Faure, a Brother of St. John, a French congregation. It was quite charming to listen to his French accent. He has spent the past 10-plus years in southeast India helping to care for AIDS patients.
I have never been so challenged on a retreat as I was by Father Dominic. This is where my dad’s question comes in. At the end of the retreat I told the Lord, “I cannot do this. I cannot be the person that Father Dominic says I am to be. I do not have the strength.” And of course, I cannot. Only God can do in us what we cannot do. Only God can make us saints. So that was the advance. I moved one step closer to handing it all over to the Lord and letting his will be done in me.
Father’s first talk reminded us that Jesus wants us to be his friends, not his servants. There is a grave temptation for us to want to be servants, to be more attentive to doing things for the Lord rather than being with Jesus as a friend would. Being a friend of Jesus means we focus on him. Especially we bishops are to hold up his banner in the front of the battleground proclaiming his friendship and thus being a sign of hope to all around us. Pardon the pun, but this bishop should never flag, because he wants to be with his friend, Jesus. The great temptation for us is that we will get caught up in work and become as efficient as we can be, doing as much as we can for the Kingdom of God, rather than being bound to our friend, Jesus, and focusing on him.
Father reminded us that the Apostles left all to follow Jesus and then during the course of the next three years tried to take it all back. We all do the same; we have trouble persevering in following Christ and loving him above all.
One way Father Dominic offered us to maintain our focus is to keep up our thirst for Christ, just as he always thirsts for us. To maintain desire is difficult, since it involves waiting. But that is what friends do – they wait. Mary, of course, is the great model for this. The great danger, Father Dominic reminded us, is that we will become lukewarm. Then we will be no good but to be vomited out, as Jesus warned the Church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelation. We cannot cease to thirst for Jesus with all the passion at our command.
Father Dominic also reminded us bishops that Jesus did not chose John to be the first pope, in other words, he did not choose the one who had demonstrated friendship. Rather, Jesus chose Peter so that it would be clear to all that it was Christ’s grace and not Peter’s abilities which were the force behind his leadership. This is so true of all of us bishops. It all depends on Christ. Father Dominic said that is why Jesus makes such great demands on us, so that we will see that we will fail without him and this will cause us to abandon ourselves into his mercy.
Our retreat director also called us bishops to be better fathers and brothers to our priests, especially encouraging our priests not to be afraid in the face of suffering and conflict brought on by preaching the Gospel. He did remind us, however, that Jesus succeeded in this regard only with one of the twelve (St. John) who did not run away.
Finally, Father Dominic urged us not to waste our time but to do all in the name of Jesus and for Jesus and with Jesus.
So my prayer is that all of you will storm heaven with prayers that I will be a friend of Jesus and that God will provide the grace to do in and through me what is to be done for the good of our Diocese of Lansing. I know I cannot do this on my own – that is a great advance from a retreat.