Retreat
2025 Retreat
October 19, 2025
OUR LADY OF FATIMA SHRINE HOLLISTON, MA
BREAKING BREAD
On a beautiful New England Fall day, members of the CSINE congregation gathered for a retreat from 9:00 to 4:00 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima Retreat Center in Holliston, MA.
It was a day of worship, meditations, shared reflections and insights, meal and walks together.
We shared in a time of recollection and renewal: giving thanks for God’s care for our community over several decades, for the companions with whom we break bread and share our lives and ways we seek to share God’s compassion and justice with others. Attending to stories of our faith, our appreciation of this community and in encountering Christ in one another, we renewed our desire to serve others. We reflected upon both our gratitude as well as shared possibilities for growth and deepening of our ministry.
Following each meditation, we had an opportunity to reflect individually as well as to share insights in small groups as we explored these questions:
Following the 1st Mediation:
From the end of the meditation: The bread that Jesus breaks is not something so set apart and precious. It is bread from grains gathered and made with human hands. It is the bread from the oven floor that he blesses and breaks and says, “Take eat, this is my body, given for you.” It is out of that storehouse of grain and memory, re-membering that we taste and are fed the bread he gives.
I want to invite us to take a few moments in silence to remember, recollect, places of the heart, mind or body, that are part of your identity, being known by God. Places of your ancestors, places that remind you of a sense of belonging and connection rooted in place yet beyond time.
What are the landscapes your soul carries?
Is there a bread you remember that you can sense, smell and taste?
Questions following the 2nd Meditation:
What are the stories you might tell one another of where you have been this week, just as the disciples did when they returned (Luke 9)…the small things, the phone call, visit of meal, listening to another, or of your children or grandchildren?
What fears or anxieties are close as well as possibilities and experiences of hope and resilience?
What do you see about who you are as the CSI congregation (your identity and vocation in God) that is yours to be and give?
What is unique about your congregation that gives you eyes to see in ways that other Christian communities and congregations may not?
Questions following 3rd Meditation:
What do you want for this congregation? What is your prayer for this community and for yourself in it?
What do you value in your experience here that is not present for you in any other place?
What can you imagine this gifted and beautiful community offering, if anything more?
What might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to explore or nourish?
2024 Retreat
October 20, 2024
2023 Retreat
October 1, 2023
Camp Canonicus, RI
