Meeting 1. - “What Are You Looking For?”¶
Introduction for the animator and goals¶
The Friday meeting plays an important role: it forms the small-group community, introduces key content, and sets the tone for evening prayer. It rests on three main themes – participation, openness, and courage. Aim to touch on each. You will not have time for every question; choose those that best name the heart of each theme for your group. The key insight is that what we most often seek can be found in what we give of ourselves.
Time of the meeting: 55 min
Goals of the meeting:
getting to know one another and integrating the participants
showing the value of changing from a passive observer into an active participant
introducing the evening prayer
Prayer and introduction¶
Whether your group is full of small-group veterans or complete newcomers, begin by naming the rules for these meetings during the retreat. Above all, make clear that what is shared in the small group stays there. Beyond that, listen actively, avoid interrupting, and refrain from judging others or yourself. You may add a rule that matters to you and invite the group to suggest their own. From the outset, help people sense that they are co-creating this space. When the rules are set and agreed, turn to practical questions about the stay: needs, concerns, or questions. Then move into the integration exercise.
To help participants break the ice, we can suggest one concrete sharing pattern. Referring to the conference content about discovering spirituality in culture, let everyone finish the following sentences:
My name is / Call me / I like it when people address me as…
I am from…
A work of culture that has especially inspired me recently is…
The last film I watched was…
The last book I read was…
The last song I listened to was…
If I had to describe who I am by means of some work of culture, it would be…
Note
Choose as you see fit.
Participation¶
In the conference we heard that culture is a search, a discovering of God’s spark in everything that exists. Let us listen to a passage from Psalm 36, which became one of the inspirations for this retreat:
For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.
God is the source – we cannot know the taste of a spring without tasting it. Tasting is activity, action, the decision to experience something and to take part in something, to see something in a different light than before.
In what do I participate on a daily basis?
What does it mean for me to be a participant in something? What does it mean for me that I am a participant in this retreat?
Can one participate in something passively? How do I recognize that I am really taking part in something?
What do I most willingly take part in, and what do I prefer not to join?
Sometimes, instead of experiencing something and getting involved in something, we prefer to stand aside and watch, often commenting and criticizing as we do so. It is easier to look at the world through glass, which gives a sense of safety and an illusion of closeness, but in reality does not allow us to live something authentically, to know it, or to enter into relationship.
Let us read:
The next day John was standing there again with two of his disciples. As he looked at Jesus walking by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” – which means Teacher – “where are you staying?” He answered them, “Come and see.” So they went and saw where he was staying. And they remained with him that day.
—Jn 1:35-39
After hearing John’s testimony about Jesus, the disciples could have kept a certain distance, merely watched him from the side as he passed by, and judged whether he really was the Messiah. But they preferred to find out for themselves. They took the initiative and followed Jesus to see where he was staying. They made the decision that they wanted to participate in his everyday life. Every relationship begins precisely there.
How often do I take the initiative in everyday situations?
How do I live out my participation in relationships with others?
If Jesus asked me what I am looking for, what would I answer?
When did I experience the moment when I wanted to see for myself what God is really like? When did I decide that I wanted to know him more closely?
The disciples began their path through participation in a relationship with Jesus. In this way they became participants in salvation history, part of something much greater than themselves. We do not know whether this was what they expected to find, but it certainly would not have happened if at that moment they had not had the openness to do something a little strange (after all, they started following a stranger) and the openness to who that man might turn out to be.
Openness¶
Let us clarify the idea of openness, and then look at what Jesus says about true openness. According to the dictionary:
the quality of something open, directed toward everyone;
the quality of a person who is open: ready to accept new ideas or not hiding feelings or thoughts;
sincerity, straightforwardness.
Let us read:
The disciples came up to him and asked, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered them, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. That is why I speak to them in parables: because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.’ For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.”
—Mt 13:13-17
In the light of this passage, what does true openness mean? What is it made up of?
Why is it that I fail to notice certain things?
Openness is not only a way of seeing, but also an attempt at understanding. It is an approach marked by courage toward things that may be foreign to me.
What does openness of heart mean? How is it lived out in my life?
Where do we draw openness from? What is the role of the Holy Spirit in this?
Openness is not a fixed quality, given once and for all. It does not come automatically. We need to nurture openness and ask for it. God is the source of our openness. We may see things, assess attitudes, encounter another culture, and still fail to understand. We may go to the Eucharist, the rosary, or community gatherings and still wonder what it is all about. Openness is a change of stance, an effort to understand. “Opening the heart brings us closer to God and makes us like him. Openness is a trait of God. He is open whether or not a human being cares to notice” (Mieczysław Łusiak SJ).
What experiences (your own or someone else’s) have affected your reality or changed something in the way you see the world?
Is openness the same thing as a constant search for “unknown lands”?
A little yes and a little no. New experiences build the path of new possibilities and broaden our horizons (for example: the history of space travel; the history of elements discovered by scientists and later used in chemo- and radiotherapy – polonium and radium; or my own life experiences that led me to where I am today). But openness is not only the art of discovering new things; it is also the ability to notice and explore details in spaces and phenomena we already know. It is about finding the hidden flavors and drawing joy from them. To decide to participate in something, openness is needed, and to gain openness, we must have courage within us.
Courage¶
To go toward what is new, one must have courage.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
—Chris Bradford, Young Samurai. The Way of the Warrior
What is courage for me? What faces does it have?
What is the difference between courage and recklessness?
What things in my life require courage from me?
What am I afraid of in my relationship with God?
Note
In this context, recklessness is an attitude that disregards danger – courage for show.
Courage has many faces (overcoming fear, admitting a mistake, expressing one’s own opinion). It motivates us, pushes us to action, and lets us experience. In the pages of Scripture, Jesus very often calls people and encourages them to break through fear (different forms of God’s calls to courage appear in Scripture 366 times). Does that mean I can never feel fear again? No. Fear is a natural element of life, but here we need to distinguish between fear and anxiety.
In psychological terminology, fear and anxiety are different emotional states. Fear appears in the face of a real threat, whereas anxiety results from imagined danger or anticipated threat.
Sometimes we can carry within us an image of God that awakens anxiety. Or the conviction that if we give him our life, he will take something away from us. We fear that things will not go our way. And yet God never desires our harm and never wants to impose on us something to which we do not inwardly consent.
Note
A typical example: “I am afraid that God will call me to religious life, and yet I want to start a family.” This may be a good place for the animator to share testimony about a change in the way they think.
(…) courage is not physical strength; sometimes it is simply the ability to ask yourself questions and untangle tangled answers.
—Roma Ligocka (born Roma Liebling, 13 November 1938 in Krakow, Polish painter and writer), Tenderness and Indifference
In what situations does a person ask questions?
Do all questions help me grow?
What were the most important questions in your life? What were their consequences?
With what questions did I come to this retreat?
Different things move us to ask questions – curiosity, wonder, the desire to know another person. Asking questions also involves openness to the fact that the answer will not always be what we expected. The disciples asked Jesus where he was staying. They did not yet sense where the answer to that question would lead them. Ahead of us is the time of evening prayer. It is a chance for us not only to observe, but truly to participate in the meeting with God with openness and courage. Let us not be afraid to come closer to God.
Note
This may be an opportunity to give a short school of prayer. Let us explain what spontaneous prayer is, show that it is worth getting involved and speaking intentions out loud because in this way we can enrich others, but at the same time stress that active participation in prayer is not the same as speaking out loud. It is above all about an interior attitude and disposition.
Summary and application¶
At the beginning of the meeting we said that God is the source. Let us now look at what Jesus said to a certain Samaritan woman:
Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
—Jn 4:14
We are called to become a source ourselves! Being close to God bears fruit in the fact that we no longer merely seek, but give of ourselves – this is how our participation is expressed, thanks to openness and through courage. The prayer of St. Francis speaks beautifully about this – let us pray it together at the end.