My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

I ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We have come a long way to meet our Lord here on this retreat.

Our Lord himself used to go to the mountain to pray, to be closer to his Father God.

We have just told our Lord, we have confessed in this opening prayer that Saint-Maria

used to say before starting his time of prayer, I firmly believe that you are here.

And yet he is not here in the Blessed Sacrament, because we have not had Mass yet.

But perhaps all the more interesting for us to desire his presence sacramentally, but also to be aware that our Lord is here in some way,

because Lord, you yourself said, where there are two or three gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.

And we are gathered here in his name.

And therefore somehow our Lord is here already present, ready to give us all sorts of insights of his wisdom.

If you went to Mass today in the Alleluia verse,

I know it's hard to pay attention to the Alleluia verse sometimes,

but I found it very insightful for today, for this retreat,

precisely because it is about this topic, it says,

open our hearts to listen to the words of your son.

Open our hearts to listen to the words of your son.

And this we sing with a great alleluia, with great gusto, with great power.

And we stand up at that point in order to read the gospel or to listen to the gospel

and to listen to the homily, the explanation of the gospel made present and made relevant to my life.

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