Retreat Begins

We Benedictine nuns here at St. Placid Priory began our annual retreat yesterday, Friday, June 5. This year we are spending all eight days in silence. Yes, SILENCE. Except for chanting the Liturgy of the Hours and responding at Mass, we are not speaking. The days go by much more slowly than usual. If you want to slow the pace of your life, keep silence for a while.

I wanted to focus on a particular task today, but a bird called out to me, and I had to go outside instead of completing what I had been doing at my desk. The robins were all upset... so I followed their cries of distress and caught a glimpse of an owl silently passing through our woods. It was a breath-taking sight. As if that were not enough, I was led up to the top of our parking lot (by the beckoning of the little birds) and there on the edge of the pavement was a merlin. Beautiful blue/gray, banded tail feathers, quite self-possessed. Wow. No sooner did I try to raise my field glasses than it was away.

Owls and hawks are symbols of transformation. And this is only the beginning of the retreat...