St. Gertrude's Chapel Comes Alive
Back to Introduction of Report
St. Gertrude's Chapel Comes Alive
The retreat began on Thursday night with Mass and Night Prayer and ended with sharing after the Palm Sunday Mass, which we celebrated with the Monks in the Abbey Church. The three days were comprised of daily Mass and prayer, reconciliation, talks, workshops, great food and ample free time and fellowship. There was much entertainment too - whether musical or otherwise, but the singular element of the Jubilee 2000 Retreat, however, was Perpetual Adoration in St. Gertrude's Chapel, which began at 10.pm Thursday night and ended at 8.45 am Sunday morning.
With people voluntarily rostered throughout each day and night, ensuring that Our Lord remained accompanied for the duration of the retreat, it soon became evident why the Eucharist is described as the Heart of the Church. The presence of God was not only thought about during this retreat - it was experienced in a very powerful way; so much so, that it inspired retreatants to sing songs of praise in the middle of the night, or others, no matter how young, to spend much time before the Blessed Sacrament when they could have been out kicking the footy. It was not uncommon to see people visiting Our Lord outside of their rostered times, and quite willingly miss out on some sleep. Two retreatants were surprised after dragging themeslves out of bed at 1 am to find on entering the chapel that one priest had started the celebrartio of Holy Mass, inspired by the preceeding evening's proceedings. It became so evident that the grace that poured out from the Blessed Sacrament was awesome. It really was the central focus of the whole 3 days and everything else was secondary.