Visiting the well

I'm about to go away for a week's retreat. Last year, when we still naively believed that this pandemic would be over within a few months, I made a short retreat at home, assuming and hoping that it wouldn't be too long before I'd be able to go away... I had a short holiday in September, mostly spent alone and quietly... and then the months and the lockdowns began to stretch before me. 

A year later, here I finally am, looking forward with some disbelief simply to going away in itself, and to my first 'proper' eight-day retreat for two years. My bags are packed, my last-minute to-do list is diminishing... and my heart is ready, for this precious quality time with God...

This prayer-poem by Raymond Friel sums up, for me, what I'm looking forward to... 

Visit the well
with your
empty jar.

Sit awhile
in the shelter
of grace.

Let your soul
catch up
with you.

I am visiting the well; my wellspring and source... And reflecting on this, I recall that, as I wrote a few years ago, St Madeleine Sophie would often use the analogy of drawing water from a deep well when speaking of the Heart of Jesus. Go to the Heart of Jesus, she wrote to Philippine Duchesne in 1807, and draw from it, and when you need more, go back to the Source and draw again. 

My jar is far from empty, though: it's full of cares, concerns and preoccupations, of restlessness and imperfections, and the effects of so much busyness - which is why I so need to visit the well. I need to pour out the jar's contents, to then refill it, with the water that only Christ can give me. So, I hope this retreat will be a time to rest in the shelter of grace, while my soul catches up... and to empty and then to fill my jar, drawing and drawing again from the abundant, overflowing Source of everything I need and desire...

Let us pray for each other in this coming week.