Return Reflections

 As I mentioned last time, earlier this week I was at a school-sponsored retreat for teachers at Jesuit schools, and it was in Madison, CT, at a retreat center called Mercy by the Sea.  Upon catching an Amtrak on Monday morning and arriving at around 1:30 in the afternoon, the retreat itself lasted until 12:30 PM on Wednesday, and then myself and a fellow colleague I work with here caught the Amtrak back in New Haven, CT.  I won't indulge details about the actual retreat itself, but rather want to focus on the entire experience, including the travel. 

This was my first visit to at least 3 states we traveled through - New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.  It was also my first visit to several cities, including both Philadelphia and New York.   I wanted to say too that upon leaving Penn Station in downtown Baltimore in Monday morning at around 7 AM, the sun was just making its appearance.  As we went over a rail bridge at Havre de Grace, MD, I was able to capture a beautiful view of the sunrise on the upper Chesapeake Bay, and it looked like this:

It was a beautiful and peaceful sunrise, and the reflection over the water was breathtaking.  Often, our lives get so busy that we fail to take the time to just notice stuff like this, and thankfully a train seat helped to focus me on the sights I was seeing.   We have talked over and over at times, based on my reading of Bonaventure's and Aquinas's views on this as noted in Fr. Norris Clarke's The One and the Many, that Nature is the creation of God, and thus, as he said in Genesis, it is good.  And likewise, Nature is the unspoken other "book" of God (the first being Revelation) and thus it affirms his existence.  When seeing things like this, it is a reminder of that.  Now, even at the retreat there were some skewered notions of Nature that many more liberal/progressive-minded Catholics have, and it is more Eastern religion than it is authentic Catholic teaching.  I saw this in particular in the bookstore at the retreat center, where there were many books on "eco-spirituality," and they were not remotely orthodox.  "Eco-spirituality" is in reality New Age and not anything remotely Catholic.  While we can appreciate nature and also we should be wise stewards in taking care of it, at the same time we cannot lose focus of what is true and good, and "eco-spirituality" is a doctrine of demons that should never be promoted as Catholic.  So, what is this weird ideology?  Let's get into that briefly.

"Eco-spirituality" is a belief that the earth itself is sacred, and thus we draw God's "spirit" from the earth itself.  At the mildest, it is panentheistic at best, but outright animistic and pantheistic at worst.  It makes a fatal error in confusing God with his creation, and in doing so it can risk the nullification of core Christian theology.  I heard another manifestation of this when we had morning prayer on the beach at the retreat center, and the facilitator was talking about "thanking Mother Earth" which immediately sent up a red flag.  At a Catholic retreat, there is no place for the adoration of "Mother Earth," as that is outright paganism and pantheism at its worst.  We can thank God for the beauty of nature, but we have to remember that the earth itself is not a god, and should not be addressed as one - the earth is created matter, created by the one true God of the universe, and thus is not deferred to for worship.  I believe that many Catholics do stuff like this in ignorance, in that they try to either politicize their faith or they just haven't been properly catechized.  It sounds beautiful, and the sentiment is nice, but it is still clearly wrong and endangers our very souls when we focus on the creation instead of the Creator.  Therefore, yes, pick up the garbage that pollutes the earth, and try to be a wise steward of our world, but remember also that the world is a creation of an almighty God, and thus has no divinity in itself.  And, it is a fallen world too, which although retaining some beauty is also corrupted by the arrival of sin and death after the events of Genesis 3.  Any rate, that was my sermon/reflection on this. 

As mentioned also, this was my first visit to New York City, and I captured the photo above on the train as we were leaving Penn Station in downtown Manhattan.  It was evening, and as the sun was setting it caught the great towers and buildings of downtown Manhattan (this picture only shows a part of it, as there is much more).  We have all seen pictures of New York, and while we know there are tall skyscrapers there, you don't really appreciate the immensity of this city until you see it yourself, and it is huge!  Visiting there means I have been to the three largest cities in the US - I have been to Chicago twice and Los Angeles twice.  When I visited Chicago, I also saw an immense urban sprawl on Lake Michigan, but after seeing New York this week, Chicago pales in comparison.  On the ride up, for instance, despite some haziness I got a view of the whole city as we were going through the Bronx, and that picture more than this one demonstrates how vast the city really is.  Then, of course, while in Manhattan at Union Station as I was awaiting my New Haven transfer, I got to sample actual New York pizza - it was as good as people say.  And it made for a filling lunch on what was a lot of travel.  Seeing a new part of the country was nice, and no doubt I will be back at some point. 

The retreat center itself was located in a very rural part of Connecticut near the town of Madison.  Called Mercy by the Sea, it is a Catholic retreat center on a very picturesque parcel of beachfront property.   Here are a couple of pictures of it to show you:

The middle picture was our actual lodging, and it was quite peaceful.  Each of us who stayed there had our own private quarters including a private bathroom, and it was lovely - the room I stayed in was bigger than the master bedroom at my house in all honesty.  The grounds were nice to walk and take in, but there were some concerns about the facility overall - it had a lot of New Agey stuff there too, including the laberynth "prayer" mazes and some bizarre items like sage bundles (a co-op from American Indian religion adapted by New Agers that entails lighting a bundle of sage and then "cleansing the aura" with the smoke) and lots of crystals.  The only remotely Catholic books in the gift shop included an array of books authored by Tielhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and Richard McBrien, all of whom have questionable practices in regard to what they identify as "Catholic," so that was concerning.  However, I am reminded of the passage in Mark 16, that if a believer drinks any "deadly thing" it will not harm them.  While some of my serpent-handling friends take that literally in that they quasi-sacramentally ingest strychnine and other toxic substances, the actual meaning of that verse is allegorical - it means that if we are in an environment where weird ideologies and non-Christian influences are around, our faith will protect us if we keep ourselves receptive to the supernatural grace God gives us.  So, thankfully, I emerged from that place unscathed.  It often does amaze me though that this toxic spirituality of New Ageism and its variants shows up in the most beautiful places - but then again, based on the ecological focus of some pantheistic beliefs, it kind of makes sense when you think about it.  This is why we must begin reclaiming some of this back from the pagans, and start teaching the right way to respect and care for the natural world around us.  Only in doing so can we have a vibrant Catholicism that is Christ-centered rather than creation-centered. 

There is honestly not a lot I remember about the retreat sessions themselves - I know one of the activities was to create a personal mission statement, and mine was sort of like this - communicating an unchanging faith to a changing world, and creating an educational experience that is academically excellent and passionately Catholic.  I got that from Steubenville, as that is their motto that I incorporated into my own mission statement.  I also tended to move away from the whole Jesuit focus and adopted a more Dominican one, which includes these four pillars of spirituality:

1. Prayer

2. Study

3. Community

4. Vocation

To add a Templar dimension to that, it means also that we are warriors for truth in a world of error, and as such we remember our own "armor of God" taught to us in Ephesians, but we also look to the Captain of the Heavenly Host, St. Michael the Archangel, to defend us in battle and defeat the forces of wickness - that is the essence of Pope St. Leo XIII's prayer to St. Michael.  The other part of the retreat focused on the "I/We" dynamic, and there was sound wisdom in that - if the "I" is where it needs to be, then it creates a productive impact on the "We."  The "I" in this case is the first person reference to self, while the "we" that is directly impacted by our vocation is our students.  So, that was good, and it falls into the four pillars analogy in that two pillars - prayer and study - focus on ourselves, while the other two - community and vocation - focus on those we are called to serve (our students).  I am practicing this now because nine chances out of ten our campus minister here at the school, Mr. Parr, may call on me to share that so I will be ready.  

The takeaway from the retreat was this - you apply what you can use, and throw away the rest.  It is like eating a Waffle House ribeye at times, in that you may have to spit out a lot of gristle in order to get to some good meat, but it's in there somewhere.  And, that is what I intend to do - the challenge is making it fit to apply it, but it can be done, I am certain of that. 

That concludes just a few brief notes on my experience, so thank you for allowing me to share.  See you next visit!