Tonight ends my Sabbatical - Part 1 Journey, “Breaking Bread with our Ancestors: our connection to faith, food, and family”. I return home tomorrow and will spend a few days processing and beginning to work on details for Part 2, tweaking what I’ve learned from this part.
I had planned a two day silent retreat at the end of this part at Montserrat which was Sunday and today. In essence it was just a full 24 hour retreat that spanned two days and even though it was supposed to be done in silence, there was a lot of noise in the constant crowds at Montserrat and in all the worship and prayer services. I arrived to Montserrat (about 45 minutes north of Barcelona) early Sunday morning in order to look around, get situated, and find out what I was going to be doing. I met with Father Alberto, one of the Benedictine Monks. He checked me into a room and gave me some options regarding my structured time. But there was afternoon prayers at 4:00 pm in the small chapel, then evening vespers at 7:30 in the main sanctuary, followed by a light dinner. In the morning there was morning prayers at 6:30 am again in the small chapel and a worship service at 11:00 am which was also open to the public. Everything was song and spoken in Spanish, which I didn’t understand, so I just did what everyone else did.
I was told to turn off my phone during the retreat, but decided to keep it on for any emergency. I did manage to not look at it very much, although mornings are difficult for me as it is when I get caught up with what is happening in the world at large and what is happening in my own little world. I tried to keep that down to a minimum this morning. During my unstructured time, I went on two long walks, spent time reading/prayer/writing. I thought I’d end up doing a lot of crying, but it seems that I’ve gotten most of my grief dealt with over the passed few weeks. So, I concentrated on others - my family, my church family, my friends, the incredibly kind people I’d met on this trip. Last night and this morning, I spent a good bit of time thinking about this Sabbatical, the topic itself, how it’s been of interest and affirmed in so many conversations I’ve had with others. What have been all the “take-aways”? What will I do with this for myself and for my congregations? Then beginning to ask the last question - What’s the bigger picture? And even, is there a bigger picture?
Here’s photo dump of pictures I’d taken of Montserrat before the retreat began and some from today when I got back.
The church:
The small chapel that was mainly used for prayer services.
The Black Virgin of Montserrat:
Photos I took today:
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