For Love Is Strong as Death

Time of writing:

Spring 2008

Place of the first retreat:

Babice, Diocese of Gliwice

Place of writing:

Archdiocese of Katowice

Target group:

Light-Life Movement communities in the region + invited guests

Retreat description:

Retreat organized in response to feedback from surveys of previous trips to organize a retreat about love. The Diakonia decided to take up this topic despite its very general nature. One of our basic assumptions was not to allow “drifting on the topic” — hence relying entirely on the “Song of Songs” as a guarantee that the retreat would have a clear axis. The possibility of multi-layered interpretation of this book allowed us to naturally adapt the content to the age of participants in a given small group (e.g. in younger groups there was no developed naturalistic interpretation). This retreat is basically working on a process because we were not able to predict how the book would lead us in the life context of our participants.

List of small-group meeting outlines

• Meeting 1 — Why Must Love Be Sought?
  • Introduction for Animators to the Retreat
  • Goals
  • Prayer
  • Introduction to the Book of the Song of Songs and Text Analysis
  • Why Must Love Be Sought?
  • Why Do We Come to Love from a State of Lack, Emptiness?
  • Closing Prayer
• Meeting 2 — Reconciled Loves
  • Goal of the Meeting
  • Introduction for the Animator
  • Opening Prayer
  • Text Analysis
  • Characteristics of Love
  • Reconciled Loves
  • Synthesis
  • Closing Prayer