End of the Year of the Priest

Last Friday, June 11^th, on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the “Year of the Priest” came to a conclusion.  My fellow priests and I spend the end of the year on a retreat at Mt. Angel Seminary in the Willamette Valley.    Our retreat master walked us through the process of Lectio Divina (aka: Divine Reading), a form of Christian prayer centuries old.  Part of the life of a priest is to pray with the scriptures every day.  Lectio Divina keeps us grounded in God’s living Word working in our daily lives. The retreat master extended this form of prayer to what he called a minute Lectio.  Often a priest operates with many surprises throughout the day.   It can become difficult to find time to reflect on how God speaks to us through the various people and circumstances of the day.  Minute Lectio gives us that time to be with Christ in a word of thanks, a question to God, or a quiet moment of contemplation in seeing the Divine Grace of the moment.  Retreats are part of the life of a priest because it gives us a chance to slow down and regroup with the Lord.  I thank God for the gift of last week and for the reflective ending to the “Year of the Priest.”