A Palm Sunday retreat

In China Palm Sunday is over-- (they cut the palms from the church yard!) and today I gave a short retreat for about 2 dozen members of my Xiamen parish..Christ the King Catholic community. As I have mentioned before, we have an English Mass, in addition to the Chinese one, so our parish is very international -- with members from China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Africa, Europe and North America. There is definitely an intensity to the experience of being Catholic and Christian here..the shadows of persecution in the recent past are there, and the intense devotion of the local Chinese Catholics, the emerging fascination that faith has for the younger generation, all have given our experiences here a lot of meaning.

So I was really pleased (and surprised)a few weeks ago when they approached Michael and I about leading a seminar or retreat time, which they are trying to have on a monthly basis. Michael is gone this weekend to Jinan, Shangdong giving lectures at Shangdong University, so I agreed to do something on my own.

It was a diverse group who showed up this afternoon, including our much beloved deacon and a mix of (English-speaking) Chinese and foreigners..
Preparing for the retreat was a very good time for me -- we are so far from the daily reminders of Christian life and the approach of Easter that at times I have had trouble focusing on it, which has never been a problem for me before, with a lifetime of choir practices during Lent under my belt. The big theme of life for me this year has been the notion of being "Available to God" ever since learning that song with St. Joe's contemporary music ensemble last year. ( you should really listen to it -- the Thompson Community singers recorded it among others...)
I had been thinking about it in terms of leaving everything behind to "follow the call" to come here this year..but I realized that I have needed to do this throughout my life -- stop clinging to the safe, familiar and conventional way -- whether about career, parenthood, whatever, and be open to whatever the good Lord had in store -- and that has been some pretty amazing stuff!!!

The sharing of the participants at the retreat was very powerful for me. I shared some information on Jesuit "imaginative contemplation" of scripture, and we used the "call of Peter" reading to try it out, then shared our insights. Despite the language barrier and a wide variety of different experiences of prayer that we brought to the room, people were really willing to talk about their faith, and that kind of conversation is something I have missed deeply since we left Buffalo.

So against the odds I actually feel ready for Easter, after all -- even though there is no Paas egg dye...