Deep personal and communal renewal of faith is needed more today than ever before, says David Torkington
I well remember the dramatic opening to the first mission that I attended way back in the nineteen-forties. The Redemptorist missionary walked slowly up the central aisle, mounted the pulpit, took off his cross and then flung it to the ground so that it skidded down the aisle from which he had just come. Then after a dramatic pause, he shouted, “That is what your sins have done to Jesus Christ”. And if that was not enough to shock their listeners into the confessional, the horrors of Hell and the pains of purgatory were detailed in technicolor.
These missions would seem a little over the top, far too melodramatic to modern Catholics brought up on far less theatrical ways of communicating the truth, thanks to what was once called the wireless and television. But they did work, for they achieved the purpose for which they were designed, to make people aware of how far they had strayed from God and to make a new beginning.
In the past then, Missions, as they were more generally called, tended to be aimed more at the heart rather than the head. Or to be more precise at the emotions that move the heart. Missions tended to deal therefore with what were called the four last things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Sin was paramount because it was how we related to God that determined how, after death, we would be judged by him and how therefore our ultimate destiny would be determined.
Firstly and above all else, Missions were aimed at trying to bring home the enormity of sin, in such a way that the congregations would be galvanised into going to confession without delay. The missioners, for their part, would judge the success of their sermons on how many, ‘big fish,’ as they were called, were caught in the box. By the box, of course, they meant the confessional box.
These Missions could be summed up by the teaching of the Old Testament that insisted that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”.
After the Second Vatican Council they faded out but nothing was put in their place. Yet, the need for deep personal, and communal renewal is needed more today than ever before, and at ground level. It was this realisation that inspired the need for a new Type of Mission that has come to be called Metanoia Retreats.
Over sixth months ago a priest, who once gave both missions and retreats when they were in their heyday, was joined by a deacon, a Franciscan Sister and a generous sponsor from the USA who came together under the patronage of a Bishop to devise this new form of Parish Mission. It would not depend on recruiting missioners from religious orders, who are nowhere to be found anyway. Under the Patronage of His Lordship Bishop Athanasius Schneider they devised a new form of Mission called a Parish Retreat. They gave the name for it as ‘Metanoia’ from the Greek word to denote turning back to God.
It is dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and subtitled “Back to Prayer Forward with Christ the King”. Further to this these retreats have been so designed that if your parish priest is, for whatever reason unable to run one, you can do it yourself, even while at work, or in your own home. These new style retreats are not so much inspired by the Old Testament emphasis on a God who should be feared, as on the New Testament emphasis on a God, who should be loved.
The fear of God is indeed needed once again in the present in order to shake people out of their apathy and indifference to help then rise from the mud and mire of the sin and selfishness that enthrals them. But remember, the fear of the Lord is only the beginning of Wisdom. Once people have emptied themselves of sin they will want to fill themselves with love: Not any love, but the love of God that Christ came to release for all on the first Pentecost day.
It is this love of God that is both the beginning and end of all true wisdom. For the Love of God contains within it, not just Old Testament wisdom, but New Testament wisdom too that shows how to receive all the other infused virtues too, which St Thomas Aquinas (pictured) calls ‘the fruits of contemplation’. The fear of the Lord may well be sufficient to frighten people into a fresh start, but fear fades and, without the love of God that Christ came to give, moral turpitude will inevitably return. Only the love of Christ can sustain a person with the strength to plough on, to persist, and to persevere with the requisite resilience in the prayer that leads to contemplation, where all the infused virtues, gifts, and fruits of contemplation are received.
The great Benedictine Abbot and friend of St Bernard, William of St Thierry, said, “You cannot love someone unless you know them, but you will never really know them unless you love them”. That is why these new style Missions are called Retreats, more precisely Catechetical Retreats, because you choose to retreat from the world for a time to learn how you can come to know God more deeply in order to love him, like so many saints and mystics in the past. The main focus of the retreat is that together, or alone, everyone watches my free 15 part video series on prayer that is free both during and after the retreat and can be reached instantly on https://essentialistpress.com/free-content/ whilst reading my little book Passport to Perfection .
In short, we provide the timeless teaching, you provide the time for praying , God provides His Holy Spirit, and Christ provides the home for them to dwell in us forever. You can read more about these new retreats by simply clicking on, https://metanoia.org.uk While browsing this site may I draw your attention to my reading of the book the hermit, that is free to all. It is a book that Cardinal Gray recommended from the pulpit at midnight Mass in the early 1980s.
Although you can do this retreat alone in your own home or with your own family, if your Parish Priest is not running one there is another way that you take part in this retreat. This Ash Wednesday an online version of this retreat has been run by LifeSite News. www.lifesitenews.com/news/join-lifesitenews-theologian-david-torkington-for-an-8-week-lenten-retreat/ It was inaugurated by His Lordship Bishop Athanasius Schneider and will continue each week throughout Lent. Although it may be too late to begin it now, at the very beginning, all weekly episodes of the retreat have been recorded for you to use whenever you wish to make use of them. You can also access all the talks on your smart phone, so you can continue doing this retreat wherever you are. If you want to do one of these retreats you can begin immediately by joining a Metanoia Retreat now by starting at the beginning, with an inaugural lecture given by its patron His Lordship Bishop Athanasius Schneider on LifeSite News: www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/the-lost-art-of-prayer-lifesites-8-week-lenten-retreat-day-1/
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David Torkington is a Spiritual Theologian, Author and Speaker who specializes in Prayer, Christian Spirituality and Mystical Theology.
For the past fifty years, he has been communicating to his audience his profound love of the traditional and authentic Mystical and Biblical Theology that has inspired all his writings on prayer.
He has done this through his ability to express profound truths simply and truthfully in his inspiring lectures and retreats to religious and laity, in England, Ireland, Europe and Africa.
He was asked to lecture on Mystical Theology at the Angelicum in Rome as the only speaker who had practical knowledge and experience in Mystical Theology.
More recently he has concentrated on writing, blogging, podcasting and broadcasting.
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Pic: unsplash/Aaron Burden