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.

Many times Jesus would say to the apostles, come and rest a while to get away from the crowd come apart to a deserted place and our

lord would dismiss the crowd and then they would go to the desert or to the mountain or out on the lake.

Here at Chelbourne, we don't have a mountain.

We have a little lake, but not the same as the lake of Janeseyreth.

But what is the same, in fact, exactly the same,

is that here we are with Jesus Christ.

He hasn't changed.

And he has somehow called us here to come out of our busy lives and schedules to come and be with him.

And somehow you and I have answered that call to put our lives on pause, perhaps, and actually spend an entire weekend talking to him and listening to him.

This weekend is kind of special in Lent.

Every Sunday of Lent, there is a theme, as you may have figured out at mass.

And they're kind of longer gospels that we have read in the church,

especially this year because it is one of those years where we have cycle A of the readings at Mass.

And this year, this weekend, we will read, the church will read, the resurrection of Lazarus.

And therefore, I thought that our retreat could actually revolve around that event, that historical event, because it's not a parable.

It's an event that took place in Jesus' life and ministry that actually got him such notoriety that he began to be persecuted with more intensity to the

point that he was then crucified.

There was a turning point after the resurrection of Lazarus.

And what we will do through the meditations that we will have is follow Jesus as he himself experiences the death of his friend.

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