Sacred Heart Retreat Centre

Jesus at the entrence

On Sunday afternoon Fr Hill, a Philippine Oblate, and I moved across Manila to arrive at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Quezon City to check in for our course. Sacred Heart will be our school and home for the rest of the month. It is run by Jesuits, the same congregation which gave us Pope Francis. The first impression I had was an amazement at how many chapels and prayer rooms you can find in the complex. One cannot complain at the shortage of places to pray or reflect. Although we are no on a spiritual retreat but the very fact that it is a retreat house makes a big impact on the dynamic of our session. We have our classes and discussions sessions that sometimes can be noisy but as soon as we step out of our classroom we are immediately immersed into a very prayerful atmosphere of the place. We don’t feel like taking as we go, for example to our dining room, when we see so many nuns, priests and lay people undergoing their spiritual exercises and observing silence all the time. Their silence has spread into our outside class time. I think that the last time I felt like that was two years ago when I went to Lourdes where Our Blessed Mother appeared to St Bernadette. Even when I go for my daily walk, by the way it is a very early walk at 5.30am as later it gets very hot, there are people in all parts of this huge property occupying every possible bench to pray or to meditate. To be honest I don’t expected to have such a spiritual time. I prepared myself just for another training but Our Dear Lord has given me such a holy time to enjoy. In a sense I shouldn’t be surprised as I have already discovered that fervent prayer of another human being lends wings to my own prayer experience. Sometimes we may feel that prayer it is our privet, personal thing, that it is my business with God. However if we think what prayer is all about, that it is an encounter with the Risen Lord can we be surprised that Jesus on the way to see us touches others. I’ve always encouraged people to be generous with their prayer, in their families, in their social life and of course in their church in order to make impact on others.
The Sacred Heart House is also the Novitiate of the Jesuits in the Philippines. It means that here, the young men who want to be Jesuits, spend their initial two years in order to embrace this way of life and prepare themselves for taking religious vows. I’ve just learnt that at the moment there are 6 people in the Novitiate here. Apparently it is a small group. I would be over the moon to have such a group in Australia. If you read this, I ask you to pray for new candidates to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, particularly in  Australia.
Weather keeps spoiling us. It is still very hot and humid though it is not as hot as I anticipated. I hardly use air-conditioning in my room. The only downside of this most enriching experience is that I am going to end up with a dysfunctional behavior by the end of April. I was aware that rise is popular in Asia but to have it for your breakfast, lunch and dinner is a bit overdoing to me. I am predicting that I will end up being addicted to rice or I  will hate it for the rest of my life.

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