Getting started

The theme for this week's retreat is Discipleship, Mission and Religious Life. The retreat director has already shown us that he's a smart fellow. One of his first clarifications had to do with this theme, and how he intends to tackle it.

Jesus calls us all to walk as disciples, and learning how to do this well is the first step in improving our relationship with Him. Discipleship is itself a great blessing, a gift that is offered to us, but it comes hand in hand with a privilege to accept the task of taking up the mission of sharing the Good News that we have heard with others.

Discipleship is a gift that was, and is offered by God, not to angels or to any other order of created being except to humans. Being a disciple therefore entails a responsibility on our part to strive always to live our lives as people who are fully (or as fully as possible) in touch with our own humanity.

Discipleship begins with the task of hearing. In the mentality of the Jewish people of biblical times, the sense of hearing was integral to one's ability to become all that he-she was meant to be. If a person could learn how to hear the words of another, then those words could transform us. Evidence of this belief can be found in the Hebrew shema and in Matthew's account of the parable of the sower.

Another source of understanding the importance of hearing was evidenced in the medieval paintings of the Annunciation. If these renditions are properly restored, they often show the Virgin Mary kneeling and the Angel hovering somewhere in the distance. Also present in the picture is a dove, the sign of the Holy Spirit. The question which has plagued many throughout the centuries is how exactly Mary came to be with child.

According to Fr. Gittins, this is explained artisticly in the paintings of the medieval times which portray the rays of light eminating from the Holy Spirit, and specifically the centre ray which enters Mary's ear. She therefore heard the word of God, and accepted it, putting it into practice and therefore became the disciple par excellence. Through her acceptance of God's invitation to discipleship, the Word took flesh within her and became Man.

If our hearts are to be transformed during this week, we must begin now, today, this minute to listen with the ear of our hearts in order to hear the Word that is addressed to us, and to incarnate it by allowing it to mold our actions and words.