Mercy Center Hosts Retreats Throughout the Year

By: Mary Grace Donaldson
Posted In: Opinion

The Mercy Center for Spiritual Life hosted its annual Fall Retreat, “Dive In!” over the weekend of Nov.6-8, 2009 at Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, Mass.

As a participant and a member of the leadership team that planned the retreat, I am here to give a first-hand account of an incredible weekend.

Our group consisted of Salve students, along with Anna Mae Mayer, director of the Mercy Center and Fr. Kris von Maluski, Salve’s university chaplain. This was Fr. von Maluski’s first retreat and he took an active leadership role in the planning of the retreat.

The theme of the retreat was based on a song titled “Dive” by Steven Curtis Chapman. Many sections of the song had corresponding activities and presentations. Some of these important lyrics included “thirsty,” “I have been carried here,” “as I walk to the edge,” “it’s time to take the leap of faith” and “caught in the rush, lost in the flow.” Those of us on the leadership team took some of these lyrics and made them into presentations of our faith.

We were, however, in for some wonderful surprises once we arrived in Wareham. After a few welcoming activities, Fr. von Maluski “dove in” to facilitating student presentations, and corresponding small group discussions. We created paper divers that represented ourselves, to place on a large mural of an ocean. These divers would represent to what degree each of us was “diving in” to the retreat, to each other, and to our faith. In that same evening, we listened to two presentations by Cait Pugliese, a junior, and Olivia Marquart, a freshman. We concluded with a slightly unusual activity for a college retreat. Father von Maluski supplied each of us with play-doh with which we would create a sculpture that resembled ‘being thirsty for God.’ While we were surprised by the nature of this activity, we were very enthused about flexing our creative muscles. Once we got deeper into the meaning behind it, we had some truly awesome results.

Saturday morning we were eager to begin day two. The highlight of the second day on our journey of faith was Fr. von Maluski’s labyrinth prayer. We entered into an outdoor labyrinth with an individually guided meditation. At each turn of the labyrinth, we were to meditate on one person who influenced our lives and who we are today. On the way back out of the labyrinth, we were to meditate on a turning point in our life at each corner. We had to come up with eight people and eight turning points, but the effect that this exercise had on our group for the rest of the day was overwhelming. We all came out of it having learned something about ourselves, or having dealt with an experience in a new light. However, the only negative to it was that it used up a great portion of our emotional energy, and the meditations were not over yet.

Saturday afternoon and evening we were treated to more presentations. Nicole Voci, a sophomore, gave a talk on being “caught in the rush, lost in the flow.” I spoke about life experiences which tested my faith, as did Joel Beaulieu, a friend of Fr. von Maluski’s outside of Salve who participated in the retreat with our group. The evening closed with the sacrament of Reconciliation, and an evening Mass.

Some of the best memories made on retreats came late at night, after the day’s activities. A large portion of our group participated in a game of “Apples to Apples” that went on late into the night. After the game, my roommate, Claire Kilcommons, a freshman, and I were off to bed-or so we thought. We stayed up during the night telling life stories. The bonding friendships made on retreats are my favorite part of the retreat experience. There is potential to bond with someone who never knew before, or, in some cases, find out that you are in class with someone in the group.

Sunday morning, Mayer treated us to a talk of one of her life experiences. We were then led by Fr. von Maluski to a large zen garden, where each of us took a turn repairing the garden. For me, it represented the carrying of burdens and having a friend come to take our burdens off our hands. We closed the retreat by reading affirmations, “warm fuzzies” that we each wrote for each member of the group. Hence their name, the kind words that I received truly were affirmations that I made new friends and grew closer to old ones.

The retreat opened our group up to new challenges and allowed our faith to grow. “The retreat taught me how to listen again as sometimes we get caught up in the race that we forget to be sensitive to other people,” said Beaulieu, 28, who resides in Tiverton, R.I.

The Mercy Center for Spiritual Life will be hosting another retreat at the end of February, which will also be held at Sacred Hearts Retreat Center. If it’s anything like this retreat, it will be a wonderful experience.