The California Province of the Society of Jesus sponsored a 5-Day Jesuit and Lay Partners Retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, CA, from Sunday night, June 10 through Friday morning, June 15. Below is a reflection offered by Kelly Barnes of Jesuit High School in Sacramento.

Reflection:

I went on the Partners Silent Retreat seeking to bring balance to my life; balance between the demands of ministry in an all-boys high school and the demands of parenting my own teenage boys; between meeting the needs of others and taking care of myself; between the busy-ness of life and the desire for peace and depth in my relationships with others and with my God.

It’s called a silent retreat, but not everything or everyone is silent the whole time. I was the one who needed to be silent in order to receive the encouragement, nurturing, and guidance I sought.

It took awhile to turn down the volume of the voice in my head - the one that makes “to-do lists,” that evaluates everything, worries about many things, and sometimes obsesses over things that are not even under my control.

In time, that voice quieted and my spirit could hear the voice of God - in the music of the prayer service, in the gentle guidance of my Spiritual Director, in the presentations by my peers, in the Eucharist, and in the Scriptures I contemplated throughout the week. Each day brought new insight and depth. Each evening I slept more peacefully than the night before. The final evening I had two different dreams that confirmed what I had been hearing from the Lord. “Simplify.”

Though my responsibilities have not changed since the retreat, my approach to them has. I’m working on the whole “balance-thing.” On a number of occasions when things have been getting crazy-busy, I have chosen to carve out time for quiet, turn down the volume of the voice in my head, and spend a few minutes breathing in Christ’s peace and encouragement - a mini-retreat. It makes a noticeable difference in my attitude, which in turn, affects the task at hand and more importantly, the relationships involved along the way.

Kelly Barnes
Jesuit High School, Sacramento, CA