On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius

Excerpted from
Thirty Days
By Paul Mariani

1:00 P.M. Up at six in almost total darkness. Slipped on some pants-brand-new ones, in fact-to go down to the bathroom and noticed ink stains on my right pocket. The cover of one of my new pens had come loose and now my goddamn pants are ruined. So much for thoughtful, efficient packing. When you go, do not bring an extra cloak or sandals or money. Thus Jesus, speaking to his disciples as he sent them out on their first mission. What's done is done. Let it go. But, damn it, it is a big deal. Everything feels like a big deal. And peace to you, too, friend. What a way to begin a retreat!

Went back to bed and woke again at nine, bright January sunlight streaming into the room. How quiet the place is, even now, ten hours before the official silence begins. I dressed and walked about the grounds, November-brown and lovely and without a trace of snow, looking for the room where the washers and dryers are located so I could wash my pants. Then a breakfast of English muffin, juice, and coffee. Five novices from Chicago were sitting in front of the picture windows looking out at the ocean. Several might be longshoremen's sons. It makes me think of my own son in Berkeley, facing another ocean. Young men just setting out, and here I am, with thirty years on them, my life as a husband, father, and teacher in the gap between.

And yet is not my own life at a crossroads, one largely of my own making, my thirty-two years at the University of Massachusetts/ Amherst probably coming to an end, my time at Boston College about to begin? A major turnaround, and all because of an Eight-Day retreat at Campion nine months ago. "Can you turn everything over to Him?" Fr. Corcoran asked me then, catching me completely off guard.

"How can I?" I asked myself, climbing the dark stairs as I returned to my room down the massive dark hall, the only retreatant around. And then, like that, I found the grace somehow to say yes. "Why the hell not," I remember saying to myself. "Can I do any better than Him?" And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the gentle command, Go to BC. Oddly, I've been following that directive ever since. The command was not, of course, what I'd been expecting, knowing no one at BC except a priest friend from the old days. In fact I'd never even seen the campus.

But there it was, the voice. Go to BC. After all these years at UMass, only to begin all over again at a Jesuit school. Why, I don't fully understand, but every time I have tried to shake the order off, something has steadied me. This is what I want of you, Paul, the voice seems to say, as it spoke to the prophets and to Christ. It is enough for you to go. The rest will be made clear in due time. Do not be anxious or worried. Well, isn't that what the Lord does, continually surprising us if we will but leave listening room? And what if BC should turn out to have stood not for Boston College but Bard or-worse - British Columbia? I don't understand the full import here and keep thinking of the long trip from Montague to Chestnut Hill. Eighty-seven miles each way. And the long New England winters. I wonder if the prophets had a sense of humor. I know God must.

At ten this morning I went for a walk along the rocks and tide pools of the North Atlantic to pray and meditate. Cold, blustery, and clear, in the twenties, the waves rolling in and crashing against the boulders. Gulls drifted in the wind, searching. Then Mass at 11:15. First the Liturgy of the Word in the Fireplace Room: a reading from the Old Testament, a Responsorial Psalm, then a passage from St. Mark. Then into the Main Hall for Eucharist: the bread and wine. Body and Blood. Then back again to the Fireplace Room for reflection. This will be the shape of the movements of the Mass each day, except that normally we will celebrate liturgy at five in the evening.

Today Fr. Bill Devine said Mass. He spoke of an older generation of Jesuits who used to give mission retreats in parish churches, a practice that died out in the '6os, with Vatican II. He recalled one old Jesuit telling his nephew, a young Jesuit just going out to give the Exercises for the first time, to give them straight. "None of this love stuff," he told him. "Give 'em hell."

"Well," Bill added, "it is love stuff God offers His children, as the old priest-for all his exterior gruff-knew well enough." Bill was my age when the call came to leave teaching and come to Eastern Point and direct retreats. He knew well enough that, having made his decision, there could be no turning back.