Last week we surrendered to God's forgiving embrace.  We accepted and celebrated the forgiving mercy God offers us so that we might experience ourselves as loved sinners.  This week we take the next step.  Our God offers us more than forgiveness.  God's love for us is so strong that it heals us.

We began with last week's loving embrace.  Now we step back just like in the photo, and listen to the depth of God's love, saying, 

"I not only forgive you, I promise to always be with you, so you will never be alone.  You no longer need your self-serving independence.  I will heal your pride.  I will free you from the destructive patterns that bind you. I promise to fill your heart with my love and with gifts of peace and courage and passion for sharing my love in service to others."

All week, we simply feel it.  We let ourselves experience its power.  Over the past several weeks, I have seen how powerless I am, how vulnerable to acting out of a rebellious spirit, to being for myself in too much of my life.  All week I can imagine the gift of freedom from these patterns.

All week, we let our response keep rising up from deep in our hearts, "What return can I make to the Lord, for all God's goodness to me!" (Psalm 116:12)  This goes beyond a feeling of gratitude, and expression of thanks.  A powerful experience of love always leads to a loving response.  Love always leads to a desire for deeper union.

All week we will express our loving response, and our desires to be with Our Lord in love.  We will let it  just flow from our hearts.

As always, the helps to the right are integral to the week's experience.  Let's pray for each other - all of us making this retreat together - that this week will be a tender experience of the promise of healing love, and a moving liberation of the response and desires from deep within us.

Listen to each week of the Online Retreat
on a CD or on your mp3 player.