The Desert and The Hours (Lenten Season 2009)

I caught a glimpse of yesterdays’ Academy Awards, though shamefully I must admit, have only watched one of the nominated (the exquisite and riveting film called Doubt). It brought me back to a year wherein one of the nominated films was a depressing flick called “The Hours” and the trendsetting ugli-fication of celluloid beauties such as Nicole Kidman (she supposedly won her Oscar by a nose).

In the lovely tragic film that explores the circumstances of suicidal writer Virginia Woolf and two other women from different time periods: a 60’s Julianne Moore and a pre-“Miranda Priestly” Meryll Streep. The lives of the three women woven within the tragic narrative where love, death and acceptance play strange bedfellows.

One of the more poignant episodes is the time wherein Virginia Woolf converses with her husband Leonard in an empty railway station uttering: “…You cannot find peace while avoiding life…”

I believe that the Lent is that time would always try and ask the more difficult questions and that I believe might be one as such.

Ironically, some Lenten practices center around avoidances of pork, chocolates, sodas, texting and perhaps, wildly to say, facebook?

But I do believe that there is something truly connected between Lent season and the words of our tragic yet creative heroine.

In the movie, before Virginia Woolf takes her own life… her reflections spoke out as she took to the waters:

… To look life in the face. Always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is…

Many moons ago, a man began to look life in the face, despite isolation and sadness, fatigue, loneliness & fear. The man saw beyond the illusion of hunger, anguish and the easy-way out and saw life for what it is:which he could have avoided and lived a quiet existence making tables and chairs never entering the desert much less a city that would turn on him completely.

That man never avoided life, despite numerous limitations, obstacles and eventually climaxing into the horrendous, the painful death: to look life in the face and to know it for what it is… to love it for what it is and not how we wish it were or how we demand it would be. That man looked life in the face and saw much more, beyond the illusion of the finitude and loves for what it is.

Such a man, dares to enter into our own brokeness and pain and assures us with peace.

As we go through our own deserts this lenten season, lets us look to the one who never avoided life, not because we constantly need a quick fix for our brokeness, our neediness and pains, but to move on a journey of acceptance and true peace.

In order for us to embrace our own lives: to look life in the face and to know it

for what it is…to love it for what it is.

Have a meaningful lenten season

Sacred Days (Holy Week Retreat 2009)

The Holy Week Silent Retreat

The Karis Retreat House Tagaytay

The Karis Retreat House Tagaytay invites you to take a step back and immerse in the great Mystery whose love moves the heavens & whose acceptance is without measure, through the experience of an individually guided Holy Week retreat.

The Sacred Days Holy Week Retreat is a unique opportunity for men & women, of all ages, to pray, reflect, assess and rest, in the spirit of the retreats of Ignatius of Loyola. Year after year, a number have come with various reasons, to taking a step back, all bounded by a deep desire to search, immerse, clarify, engage and encounter the Other in loving silence.

In the Ignatian silent retreat tradition, retreatants are invited to plan their day, with a suggested three to four prayer periods a day (whose duration may range between 30 minutes to an hour accordingly) over prayer material suggested by their retreat companion. During the course of the day, the retreatants schedule to meet their retreat companion to share the fruits and impressions from their suggested prayer material as well as interior movements within and outside the “formal” prayer periods. The retreat will provide many opportunities for prayer & reflection, time for individual consultation, meals, participation in the liturgical celebration throughout and much needed rest.

For our fourth Lenten season, retreatants will be accompanied by the religious members from

the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) who will also be presiding over all the liturgical celebrations of the Pascal Triduum.

The silent retreat starts EVENING of HOLY WEDNESDAY and ends LUNCH of EASTER SUNDAY.

Registration starts 4:00pm Holy Wednesday

Retreat Cost:

Php 4,500.00 inclusive of twin sharing accommodations (2-in a room), meals, materials & stipends

(not including transportation)

Php 5,500.00 inclusive of single room accommodations, meals, materials & stipend

(not including transportation)

A non-refundable deposit of Php 1,500.00 along with accomplished registration form is required as confirmation for the retreat. A confirmation letter will be sent upon receipt of Registration form & deposit. Single Room availability and retreatant slots are limited on a first come-first served basis.

Please make any check payable to The Karis Retreat House Foundation, Inc.

You may deposit through

Account Number 48-02-00532-1

Account Name: The Karis Retreat House Tagaytay Foundation, Inc. (EAST WEST BANK SALCEDO)

-or-

leave your deposits at the lobby of THE ASIA TOWER CONDOMINIUM (c/o Chris Juan)

The Asia Tower Condominium fronts Mcdonald’s Greenbelt (Paseo de Roxas), entrance is at Benavidez beside ACCEED Conference Center.

For Registrations Forms and more details, please send request DIRECTLY through karis.tagaytay@gmail.com or through 817-7993. You may also call 813-2554

Lentern Season 2009

Karis Retreat House Tagaytay

(for more information, please contact the sponsoring organizations directly)

BEYOND I DO (Feb 20-22, 2009)

organized by Educhild Philippines

For we believe that couples who strengthen their marriage bonds raise better children and become living examples of the kind of partners those children will pick in the future.

A venue for husband and wife to take a closer look at their marriage – their conjugal life…!
How it has been, how it can be better.

Through short talks and workshop activities, participants can expect to gain deeper understanding of their spouse's needs and learn practical and effective communication skills.

The program will surely enhance the marital bond and help keep married love alive.

Program hopes to:

discover the best way your spouse would like to be loved;

and nurture day to day conjugal living

gain practical skills that will help you communicate your love to your spouse;

experience activities that help bond and strengthen your marital relationship;

To have another opportunity to please, affirm and show affection to your spouse.

continue with the Magic of Marriage

In the last two years, the Educhild Foundation has not only helped couples through the "B.I.D. weekend" in Manila, but has also brought the seminar to couples in Cebu, Bacolod, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro.

FOR INFORMATION & REGISTRATION,
PLEASE DIRECTLY CONTACT

MARIEVIC (02) 632-0103
0916-448-2178

ONFIRE---INTEGRATING OUR SEXUALITY & SPIRITUALITY RETREAT

(FEB. 27- MAR.1, 2009)
Organized by the Onfire Retreat Community

Center for Family Ministries' Rev. Fr. Ted Gonzales, SJ facilitates a thematic weekend (open to all:single, married,etc..) which centers around our individual journeys in knowing and befriending the fires of our desires and those desires that go much deeper pointing to a far greater love.

Themes of the Retreat:
HEAT / HEARTH : Dance my body!
Befriend … be at ease … and celebrate his beautiful creation!

KINDLED / KINDRED : Drive to connect and separate.
To be linked yet stand apart … to be intimate and remain whole

PASSIONATE / COMPASSIONATE :
Dare to share. Care to listen.
To be stirred and touched and moved … to redeem, repair, restore

RAZED / ABLAZE :
Do not blame. Do reclaim.
To confront the painful past … to move forward in faith and hope.

FIERY / FERVENT :
Decide to commit day by day.
To trust, transcend, transform

FOR INQUIRIES AND DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT
Chic 0917-431-2795

INTRODUCTION TO CENTERING PRAYER & LECTIO DIVINA

(March 6-8, 2009)

Organized by the Contemplative Outreach Philippines

The participants ought to arrive at KARIS at around 11:00am or so. There will be lunch served at 12:00. The Retreat proper will begin at 2:00pm

This is a QUIET retreat. Make this time of Quiet a time to just BE with the Lord.

The participant will be taught the Method of Centering Prayer with some practices of it,as well as the Method of Lectio Divina and a practice of it.

LECTIO DIVINA (LD) is loosely translated as Sacred Reading.

It is reading the word of God in the daily gospels and learning how to develop a more personal relationship with God on a daily basis.

The participant will also be given talks on the HUMAN CONDITION. There is a bit of psychology in these talks. One will find out why he behaves the way he does now, and that it is due to how he grew up from ages 0-15 years old. Also how CP and LD practices can help heal these wounds of a lifetime if he will be faithful to the prayer.

The retreat will formally end on Sunday March 8 before noon. There is no lunch to be served on Sunday.

Retreatants are asked to bring their toiletries, a notebook and a pen, and perhaps, a small Bible if they can. The are asked to come comfortably attired, but not in shorts.

We shall have mass on Friday evening at 6pm as well as Saturday evening at 6pm anticipated for the Sunday Mass.

For further inquiries and reservations please call
ANNA MARIE LLANOS 842-4030, or 842-0201, or
0916-315-3980 or 0920-842-9833
anamariellanos@yahoo.com

LIFE'S DIRECTIONS (March 13-15, 2009)

organized by Life's Directions Retreat Group

Rev. Fr. Ted Gonzales,SJ facilitates a weekend centering around our individual search and journeys. Open to the public, the Life's Directions weekend is a mixture of conferences, testimonies, small group discussion, reflection and liturgy which gives each participant the opportunity to take a step back to find and re-acquaint with the voice within.

Module One:
Locating the Driver Along the Way--where we are, the "state of our lives", the confusions we may have found ourselves in.

Module Two:
Journeys Back--looking and contemplating our individual stories, histories and relationships.

Module Three
Attractions & Distractions--Acknowledging our individual confusions and histories, being called & invited individually & uniquely to a life of simplicity, service and surrender.

Module Four
Discovering the Center--Beneath our individual invitations to simplicity, service and surrender is a mysterious yet loving presence of the Creator.

Module Five
Finding Companions Along the Way--Discovering others who accompany us and are called uniquely by Christ who always accompanies all of us.

FOR INFORMATION & REGISTRATION,
PLEASE CONTACT DIRECTLY

cellphone: 0918-991-1237
email: ld76.orgcom@gmail.com

KARIS HOLY WEEK SILENT RETREAT (TBA)