Parish retreat: Nurturing the soul

Many of you have attended spiritual formation programmes, motivational talks, meditations and personal or group retreats either in our own parish, in our country or overseas. All these are aimed at raising your self-awareness, personal growth, conversion and to help you remove the blocks that have been keeping you stuck in negative patterns.

Sep 20, 2017

By Fr. George Packiasamy
Many of you have attended spiritual formation programmes, motivational talks, meditations and personal or group retreats either in our own parish, in our country or overseas. All these are aimed at raising your self-awareness, personal growth, conversion and to help you remove the blocks that have been keeping you stuck in negative patterns.

We are just a few days away from our Parish Retreat for the year 2017. 400 participants (300 for English session and 100 for the Tamil session) have signed up for this weekend retreat. We are not going to accept anymore registrations except for the Tamil session alone. Registrations officially closed last Sunday itself.

We are in the third-quarter of the year and I am proud that many of you have invested your time in this Parish Retreat. It is a great way to recharge our spiritual battery and to refresh our relationship with God. In our spiritual journey there are many things that block us from experiencing the Lord’s presence, personal enlightenment and self-awareness.

Six reasons to attend the Parish Retreat:

1. Self-Discovery: At times we become stagnant and lose sight of who we are in our lives. Many of us have been ignorant of our true selves for too long. This retreat is a time for self-discovery and to find our purpose in life.

2. Self Acceptance: The path to spiritual growth must start with loving and nurturing oneself. This retreat may help you to move from self-improvement to self-acceptance of yourself as you are right now and you may be able to see a new life with new possibilities and embrace yourself as to who you really are!

3. Self Awareness: When you are able to capture the dynamics in your thoughts and emotions before you act, you can let go of old patterns and re-align yourself to stay spiritually connected. The Holy Spirit will guide you towards self-awareness.

4. Spiritual Practice: The world seems to be in a rush! Do you have a spiritual practice to keep you calm amidst the stress of life? What do you do daily to nurture your spiritual self? It is important to take 15-30 minutes of your time every day for quiet contemplation and to integrate your body, mind and spirit. This retreat will give you an opportunity to take a break from the noise of this fast-paced world and to reflect on what is important to us and to reset our priorities.

5. Transformation: This weekend retreat is designed to help you begin your journey towards attaining life-transforming habits and deeper intimacy with God. As you make time and space for this retreat, I strongly believe it will offer you the heart of transformation in your life.

6. Release Your Anger: There are many reasons why we get angry. We keep this anger, hatred, hurt and revenge bottled up within.  If we are full of hatred, fear and anger we cannot grow in our faith and these toxic negative forces will surely harm our relationship with others!  This retreat will be an opening path to forgiveness and your relationship will grow better as you learn to appreciate and love others.

Please note that we shall end the Retreat with the Eucharistic Adoration from 2.00 – 3.30 pm on 24th September. During this time we shall include a healing service and so we invite parishioners to bring the home-bound, elderly and sick people to come to Church for this particular healing session.

To everyone who will be attending the Parish Retreat, have a wonderful and fruitful time with the Lord. Blessings to you!

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