The RCIA retreatSunday was our RCIA retreat. I h…
admin January 30th, 2007
The RCIA retreat
Sunday was our RCIA retreat. I have to preface this by saying that I’m not generally a fan of the whole ‘retreat’ concept, at least not as an organized affair. A quiet day or weekend spent in prayer, sure, but the ‘retreats’ I’ve attended have tended to feel awkward at best. My division at the university has mandatory quarterly retreats, plus a two-session, day-and-a-half annual retreat. After I came to work for the division full time and had to start attending them, I began to understand why my former boss had no patience for ‘retreats’.
This one had its pros and cons, like anything else. Since it’s lunch time and I’m not particularly hungry right now, I think I’ll seize this opportunity to talk a little about the whole experience.
My parish is in the Birmingham/Bloomfield/Troy vicariate, so our retreat was held at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills. To keep my comments charitable, I’ll say only that it’s a very spacious building. …well, I guess I could also say that it would work better as an auditorium or an Evangelical church. Gerald at The Cafeteria is Closed could have a field day there with his camera. It’s a very large stone building; the sanctuary is mostly white and stone, with light wood pews; the installed cross is hollow metal and has no corpus, and while I saw a processional crucifix at the start of Mass, I have no idea where they put it. I didn’t see a single statue, which isn’t SO awful, but I also didn’t see Stations of the Cross or anything like that. The baptismal font was nice (there was actually a small pool), but when I went to cross myself with the holy water, I initially thought “Eeuw, gross, it’s WARM,” thinking it was fetid or something. But then I noticed it was moving, so I guess they have a heated baptismal font for your sacramental comfort. (wry smile) Overall the sanctuary felt cold and uninviting to me.
For the record, my parish (St. Anastasia) has a hollow metal cross with no corpus as well. However, the cross is far more prominent at my parish – this one was set on the floor and was off to the side, rather than being front-and-center like ours. Also, while my parish is far from being the most beautiful or traditional building I’ve ever seen (I often privately compare the ceiling of the sanctuary to an Aspen ski lodge), they’ve really done a lot to make it warm and inviting. St. Hugo’s has a very Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it, with a sort of ultra-Scandinavian décor. If that’s your thing, great. It’s not mine, especially not for a church.
It was very well orchestrated, on the whole. We attended noon Mass, and after the homily they dismissed us for Scripture reflection as usual. Despite my best efforts to follow directions and sit with people I didn’t know, five of the eight at our table were from my parish (of course, I think we were the largest group, so can’t really help that). Not a very chatty group, but our Scripture reflection leader was very good – he’s a sponsor from St. A’s, and pretty much always does a good job.
Then was lunch, catered by Fox and Hounds Inn (everyone say “Ooooh!”). It was very good, though not what I would call outstanding. Again, five of the seven people I sat with were St. A’s folks, though in this case the deck was a little stacked because I was sitting with a woman whose sponsor is married to another sponsor (whose candidate wasn’t able to attend), and who also has a personal sponsor from St. A’s who came.
Now comes the actual ‘retreat’ part: we opened with a song (eek); heard some Scripture readings, which were only slightly drowned out by the incredibly loud dish-clattering and conversation from the kitchen, where people were cleaning up from lunch; and then heard a ‘reflection’ on the Scripture readings from a priest who seems to have attended the Most Rev. Thomas Gumbleton School of Politics. (My friend’s personal sponsor, who was sitting to my left, commented after the reflection that “I think Father So-and-So is a pacifist.” So it wasn’t just me.)
The theme of the retreat was “We Are the Clay, You Are the Potter,” and to fit the theme, they gave us some modeling clay as an activity. Our mission: to make an image of how we saw ourselves before God, and no begging off based on lack of artistic talent allowed!
I have somehow managed to have an artistic talent score of negative three. I can’t paint, can’t draw, can’t sculpt, can’t act, and can only sing well enough to not get banned from the sanctuary. I looked at this block of clay and thought, “Heck no!”
And I thought, and thought, and thought.
A brilliant idea came to me: what if I did NOTHING with the clay? After all, He is the potter, right? So if I left it alone…the metaphor works!
I decided to work it a little bit, so no one got suspicious of my cunning plan. 
So there we were, going around the table after the clay exercise, and Patty, our DRE, came and sat down at our table right before my turn. (Don’t you hate it when the teacher is about to hear your answer?) But I sucked it up and told them what it was; my friend ruefully told me that I had ‘won’. I laughed and said, quite truthfully, that all I had done was parlay a complete lack of artistic ability into a clever answer.
Some of the clay work was very nice, and very interesting. One of the sponsors (whose artistic talents probably rivaled mine) did a little head, with ears and eyes and mouth, saying that her ears and eyes were open and her mouth would praise Him. Her husband, who had some talent, made an altar with a monstrance and a figure bowing down before it. My friend made herself bowing down before rays of light. The DRE made open hands.
Then we had a break, with cookies and pretzels and such, and then there were the obligatory skits. I’m not sure why skits are required for retreats, but I don’t think I’ve ever been on a retreat that didn’t involve skits. These weren’t too bad, but I always feel embarrassed for the performers, even though they’re clearly volunteers. These were little vignettes with characters from Scripture – they called them Scripture companions – like Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, Nicodemus, St. Peter, etc, talking about how they felt about Jesus or how they had changed as a result of knowing Jesus, and we were supposed to decide to whom we could best relate. Then we were supposed to go find a quiet place (yes, about a dozen of us, myself included, made a beeline for the sanctuary) and journal about it.
It was OK, except that they decided to truncate the retreat because of the weather (it was snowing pretty hard), so first they were going to give us 35-40 minutes, then gave us 30, then interrupted us about 10 minutes into the 30 and told us to come back. Which annoyed me because I was intensely praying when they interrupted, but I understand why they made the decision.
So we went around the table to talk about who we picked and why (I call foul on this one; I think that should have been strictly private). Then we prayed, and sang a couple more songs (including “All Are Welcome,” which sounded suspiciously Unitarian), and closed.
What stuck out the most for me, out of the whole retreat, was one conversation in which a grown man broke down crying talking about the Eucharist. That experience alone made the whole retreat worth attending, and I don’t mean that in a malicious way at all. I just don’t think I’d ever seen a layman get so emotional talking about God, least of all a layman whom I respect as much as I do this man. It was a profoundly moving experience.
They sent us home with more clay. Ack.
