Meeting 1 - Longing for the Ideal ********************************* .. tags:: content|desires|Desires, content|seeking|Seeking, content|sin|Sin, content|truth|Truth, method|group-work|Group work, method|text-work|Text work, method|sharing-questions|Sharing questions, type|integrative|Integrative Goals ===== 1. Getting to know the group participants, forming a community. 2. Naming things that one wants to work on. 3. Introduction of the concept of evangelical radicalism and dispelling potential bad associations related to it. Tips for the Animator ===================== We are starting a retreat today, the strength of which does not rely on new content but on tenacity, sincerity, and clarity. Whether we succeed in achieving the goal on Sunday depends on whether you introduce an "atmosphere" of desire for change rather than knowledge from the first minutes of the meeting. The retreat takes place in a small group - you lead it and give the participants a testimony of being a Son of Thunder. All points around the so-called "common" are only an aid in your action. Be with the group always, talk to them during free time, do not avoid important topics, provoke individual conversations. You only have a few hours from now to get to know them! As an animator, allow yourself to focus almost entirely on your group and trust the animators from specialized diaconias to handle the rest. In the intention of this retreat, you are the key person after God at this retreat for your group - you are their animator. | To wash thoughts from defeats, disappointments, regrets. | Shake off victories and cleanse them from wrongs. | To be able to give private delights | To someone before whom delight - covered with bitterness. | To be able to share one's anxiety | With someone who is so afraid to admit: I am afraid! | So that what is weakness, pain and disability | Became prayer, light and testimony. -- Motivation, Jacek Kaczmarski Prayer ====== .. note:: ~5 minutes Prayer to the Holy Spirit for the gift of openness and standing in His light. Let us also ask for the courage to look at our lives and faith and see them as they are, and not at our ideas about them. It is also worth expanding the prayer with an element of request for a good experience of the retreat for the whole community (you can choose one of the groups in particular - in this case, before the meeting, animators must figure out who is praying for whom). Introduction to the Meeting =========================== .. note:: ~10 minutes At the beginning of the meeting, we must get to know each other. We will use the "unfinished sentences" method for this. The animator hands each participant a card with 10 sentences (see attachment). Then everyone signs their card and completes the sentences. We inform that what we write will be presented to others. Then everyone presents their answers, and the group asks everyone questions about one thing to expand on. For the animator, this is a chance to catch the first information about their participants. * I value in others... * I smile when... * In personal life I desire... * My character... * In people I am irritated by... * My weak points are... * My strong points are... * In the first place for me is... * For nothing in the world will I give up... After performing the exercise, the animator can ask: * Which sentence was easiest for you to complete? * Which sentence was hardest for you to complete? Beautiful World =============== .. note:: ~10 minutes Do we live in an ideal world? Surely the first answer that comes to mind is "no!". However, what makes our world imperfect? Let everyone create a list of 10 things that would need to be removed in people's lives to make the world better. * What did you write down? * Which two of these matters are most important and why? * What would you need to realize a given point? But let's not look only negatively! Maybe instead of removing, something needs to be added? Let everyone create a list of 10 things that would need to be introduced in people's lives to make the world better. * What did you write down? * Which two of these matters are most important and why? * What would you need to realize a given point? Honestly looking, how many of these things we wrote down concern only "others" and not us? Longing of the Heart ==================== .. note:: ~15 minutes. There are a lot of unpleasant things in the world for arbitrary reasons like weather. They can cause discomfort. But we are separated from the vision of a beautiful world much more by human behavior. Not only the behavior of "that other person, my neighbor", but also myself. On the other hand, there is a desire for good in us! Why then do we fail? Perhaps someone said a moment ago that they would need 200 billion dollars. Well yes - we don't have them, so we fail. Perhaps someone said a moment ago that they would need the day to have 40h. Well yes - the day has only 24h, so we fail. Perhaps someone said a moment ago that they would have to be the president of the USA. Probably none of us is, so we fail. Perhaps someone said a moment ago that... * Is such a situation close to you, that you dream of something, but you can find 100 reasons why there is no point in taking any actions to achieve it? * What do you long for in matters of your faith? (This can be a very difficult question. If it is to be asked at the meeting, the animator answers first.) .. warning:: A very "serious" part of the meeting. Without naming these spaces, the rest of our retreat, no matter how beautifully it went, is defenseless. We wrote about the world. Let's write about ourselves now, this time we will not read it, it is for You. Let everyone write at least one thing they would like to be in their life and one thing they would like to get rid of. If someone does not complete the task within 2 minutes, let it become a task for today's silentium sacrum. Let's read: For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. -- Rom 7:18–25 * Which verse of this fragment is closest to you? Why? * How do you react to such a spiritual law? What does it suggest regarding your path? * Where does this desire to do good come from in us? "I Will Never Be Like..." ========================= .. note:: ~15 minutes If someday some good friend of yours wrote such an entry in their diary/blog: I feel that all this is too difficult for me, that it exceeds my strength and capabilities. I thought recently that evidently it is so, that in the Church there are strong individuals who can touch the stars and those for whom it is inaccessible. Great things are not for me, I should rather think realistically, after all, I will not be a second St. Paul. I admit that sometimes I simply feel like hiding under the quilt and cutting myself off from everything. **I am comfortable with what I have. At least I do not experience disappointments, and I know how painful they are**. When I call it humility, I feel better about it. * How do you evaluate such an attitude? * What would you write to them in a comment? * Do you happen to suppress your dreams so as not to be disappointed? In matters of faith too? .. note:: This is the place for the animator's testimony. Surely the title of this point is not alien to you. Tell the group about it. It is worth showing them that we experienced/experience the same dilemmas as they do. The Holy Scripture knows this style of thinking well. St. Paul distinguishes three types of people. 1. Sensual man (relying solely on his senses - atheist) 2. Carnal man (man on the way, fighting) 3. Spiritual man (fully believing man) Let's read: For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human? -- 1 Cor 3:3-4 * What does St. Paul rebuke the Corinthians for? The Corinthians focused more on who the person transmitting the Good News to them is, rather than on whom this teaching came from. They behaved therefore immaturely. They meant well! After all, they listened to the Good News! Despite this, imperfection crept into their lives. From our perspective, it is obvious and large, but for them at their stage of faith development it was not clear and St. Paul had to react. * How do you behave when despite good and sincere intentions something does not work out for you? * Does an attitude of "I won't succeed, it's not for me" sometimes overwhelm you? How do you behave then? * Does St. Paul speak of the state of "carnality" as something normal and permanent? Why? Overgrowth ========== .. note:: ~10 minutes The challenges of our faith are enormous. When we look at them, we may have the impression that we are standing at the foot of a great peak of the Himalayas and have the task to climb there using a piece of rope and a worn and patched sack. What's more, not only we ourselves feel that we cannot meet the requirements. The entire community of the Church has been constantly searching for centuries for a way to best fulfill the task of our Master! We do not have simple answers. We do not have cheap solutions. There is no "good Church" button that needs to be pressed because during one of the breakdowns it just popped out nobody knows where it is located. One of the theologians of the Polish land wrote such words: After many years of religious education, new generations of pagans, illiterates of religious life, at most infants in Christ, Christians living carnally, for whom the ideal of Christian life is only legends and biographies of saints from the Middle Ages or antiquity, are constantly growing up. -- Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki * Do you think this is true? How could this be verified? * What can You do about it? * What can we do about it? In the Church, the biggest changes start with oneself. The mission overwhelms us, but this does not justify our decision to resign from it. We are fighting for people who will try with all their strength to become mature Christians. That is why we are on a retreat called "Sons of Thunder". .. warning:: Animator's testimony why they came to this retreat, what they are fighting for here, what is their mission, what is the desire of the heart - let's not be afraid to name things directly. Radicalism or Fanaticism? ========================= .. note:: ~15 minutes During the retreat, we will probably often use the words: zealous, radical. Everyone can understand these words differently. * What do you associate the word "radical" and "radicalism" with? * What good can be in radicalism? * When can radicalism be bad? It is worth discussing with the group in this place (if time permits) giving many examples. It is not about looking for a good or bad answer, but about getting to know the group, its sensitivity. In conflict cases, one must remember that the intentions of the act are key. A few hints from the author of the outline: 1. Washing a girlfriend's feet on an anniversary of the relationship - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 2. Refusing to eat meat at a birthday party on Friday - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 3. Going down from a trail in the mountains 20 km in search of a Church on Sunday - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 4. Resigning from the passion of Himalayan mountaineering because the attack on the summit takes more than 7 days and is associated with missing Sunday Eucharist - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 5. Repeating the whole decade of the rosary if one was not sure if fingers were moved correctly on the rosary - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 6. Due to being 2 minutes late for Sunday Mass at 8:00 returning home and coming appropriately earlier for the next Eucharist - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 7. Temperature 38 deg. is not a sufficient reason not to go to church on Sunday - fanaticism or positive radicalism? 8. Waiting for a green light, even though the road is empty. - fanaticism or positive radicalism? If the fruit of this part of the meeting is that in their free time participants will discuss these examples with themselves, then the goal has been achieved. Application =========== .. note:: ~5 minutes Let each participant choose an activity that they have never done in their life, and which they have a chance to perform until tomorrow's group meeting, and which will be radical and good in their eyes at the same time. A handful of ideas: 1. You can not use a mobile phone even once for 16 h. 2. You can learn a few verses of the Holy Scripture by heart. 3. You can approach three people and say that you would like to read them something very important and then read John 3:16 from the Holy Scripture. 4. You can send an SMS to three people with the content: Jesus saved the world. 5. You can, perhaps for the first time in your life, keep silentium sacrum from prayer until "Lord, open my lips". Participants declare their application on the group forum. At the next meeting, they report on it (for this purpose, the animator can write down the applications of their participants after the meeting).