Dear Friends,
I am writing this as I am preparing for a week’s retreat at the Convent of the Incarnation at Fairacres in Oxford, the home of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God. A contemplative order, the community draws on Carmelite spirituality, and encourages the life of prayer, even for those actively involved in the affairs of the world. Their website says this about the community:
We are an Anglican community living a contemplative monastic life.
The Convent of the Incarnation – known as Fairacres – is home to around fifteen sisters. Drawn by God’s love, we have come together to make the total gift of ourselves for the sake of the world. Our work is prayer and what flows from prayer: hospitality, study, and hearts open to the world in its beauty and goodness as well as in its confusion and suffering.
This lifelong spiritual work is made possible for us by our Rule and our vows, by silence, by prayer together and alone, by attending to our daily tasks, study and play, by the practical and prayerful help of many friends, and by God’s amazing grace at every turn.
We invite you to find out more about us, about our history and our way of life – and how to get to know us better.
“The call of the Community is to surprise the world with the love of God”
Archbishop Rowan Williams – SLG Centenary 2006
‘Going on retreat’ is the phrase that is often used, and reminds me that it involves a journey. First, there is the journey to the physical space of the retreat – a monastery or a retreat house. But, then, there is the journey within oneself, as retreating from the world we normally inhabit allows us to center ourselves on God and his call. A retreat often involves silence and solitude, but there are many retreats that help us discover the interior life through active engagement, such as walking, or art, or even music. I remember a retreat many years ago with the panel of monastic musicians in the UK, and how making music each day helped all of us center ourselves more fully on prayer, integrating that prayer into the liturgy and our everyday lives.
Retreats do not have to be silent and some retreats, especially those based on Ignatian spirituality, include seeing a spiritual director or advisor daily. I remember the first retreat I ever took when I was just 19 years old; it was at Alnmouth Friary in Northumberland, an Anglican monastery of the Society of St. Francis. It was Holy Week, 1979, and it was transformative for me. There was something very powerful about entering into the mystery of Holy Week with a community, and taking that journey together. The Friary is in an old country house on a cliff overlooking the sea, and I spent a lot of time in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel – the old conservatory – where one could sit and reflect, with a lighthouse flashing in the distance.
Retreats are not just for clergy or religious – they are for all people, and I hope that it will not be too long before we are able to offer a parish retreat for those who wish to experience a few days apart from the business of the world. Our Young Adult group used to regularly go to Holy Cross Monastery. We can also discover stillness and solitude here in the city, and there are religious communities who deliberately seek out solitude in the noise of the city. Stillness is not necessarily an absence of noise but, rather, the centering of the soul on God.
After my week’s retreat, I will have the joy of assisting at the marriage of our Assistant Organist, Max Adach, to Sarah McKinnon at Exeter College, Oxford. By happy coincidence, Exeter College is named after the Cathedral where I worked before coming to New York, and founded by Bishop Walter Stapledon in 1314.
After the wedding, Alison and I will take our Annual leave for the month of August to visit our family and have some vacation. We will return for Labor Day weekend. While I am away, please direct all parish inquiries to Fr. Moretz. Lizette Hernandez and Fr. Moretz will be dealing with my emails and he and the Wardens can contact me if something is urgent and cannot await until my return.
See you on Sunday!
Affectionately,
Your priest and pastor,
Carl
