After years of not attending the Spiritual Exercises, this spring I made the decision to go. It was the first year that my husband and I both decided to attend separately so that one of us could be home with the kids while the other went. And so he gathered with the Upper Midwest region in New Ulm, MN, and I headed to Chicago the following weekend. These last few years, following the Movement has not felt as simple as it was at the beginning and I found myself raising objections to each of the gestures that required something extra of me – that asked me to travel a couple of hours or more, for example. Of course, since we have six young children there were also years when attending retreats or the exercises was simply not possible. Regardless, what has quietly surfaced over time is a new poverty in front of things that allows me to say “yes” to the essential gestures proposed to us. It is an experience akin to the disciples after Jesus asks them if they, too, will leave and Peter answers, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.”

Although I had read the title for this year’s exercises, “We Came to Know Love,” I didn’t really register that we’d be reflecting on charity. Charity: something I’ve been asking God to give me in front of some painful circumstances lately. “Please, help me grow in charity,” I’d pray. But Fr. Paccosi is right. Charity is something we think we understand, but really do not.

As the days unfolded, I received so many gifts. Mundelein Seminary is a beautiful place and the weather was gorgeous. The faces of friends were a welcome refreshment, as was the music prepared for us, sacraments we shared, and moments of silence.

By the time Saturday afternoon came around, something clearly stood out. Paccosi pointed to the story shared by Fr. Giussani of Mother Teresa’s sisters and how, when asked by a reporter why they took care of people, they answered, “We love Jesus and so we help them.” They did what they did for the love of Jesus. This shook me. I thought about all the things I do, and especially about the times that I go out of my way or “above and beyond” to do things for people. It was painful, shameful even, to realize that I have so many ulterior motives. I could not say that I did anything for the love of Jesus, like the Little Sisters. And at the same time, I realized that there is nothing I want more than to be able to say that.

Upon my return, I picked up Is It Possible to Live this Way?: Charity. I was moved to read this passage which illuminated my experience:

“The application of the law of love, this supreme imitation of God, sooner or later determines a different kind of life. This different kind of life doesn’t mean faultlessness: one can make a thousand mistakes, but his life is different. Above all, a person bears the sorrow for his mistakes, for what he forgets. In everything he does, he brings the sign of a change, of which sorrow for a love not well-realized is the sharpest example” (p. 33).

This was exactly the sorrow that pierced me that Saturday afternoon and of all the gifts that I received from Jesus in those days, this was the most important one. It moves me to see that He loves me so much that He wanted to show me these things about myself and to give me a broader horizon. Only this horizon – of His love, of the other’s destiny, of my destiny – keeps things from shriveling up in pettiness.

At the end of chapter 13 of The Religious Sense, we read that “The community is the dimension and condition necessary for the human seed to bear fruit” (p.136). I marvel today at how true this has been in my life, the most recent evidence being my experience at the exercises.

Stephanie, Crosby, MN