date: 07.07.2022.
The 25th International Spiritual Retreat for Priests began in Medjugorje with an evening prayer and liturgical program on July 4, 2022, which gathered more than 170 participants from 27 countries on the first day. The theme of this year's spiritual retreat for priests, as well as all spiritual retreats in Medjugorje this year, is "Learn from me and you will find peace" (Mt 11, 28-30), at Our Lady's School.
Yesterday morning (July 5), the coordinator of the spiritual retreats in Medjugorje, Fr. Marinko Šakota, welcomed the participants.
„Dear brother priests, I greet you all from the bottom of my heart. After two years, we are together again for spiritual retreat for priests. I believe you are all looking forward to this event. There are not too many of us, because some could not come, for example, priests from Ukraine. Let's be connected with them, and I believe that they will be connected with us in some way,'' said Fr. Marinko Šakota.
The participants were also addressed by the Apostolic Visitor with a special role for the parish of Medjugorje, Msgr. Aldo Cavali, who spoke about the life of the holy priest of Ars. He also highlighted three points that Pope Benedict XVI wanted to highlight in the Year of Consecrated Life, which can be applied at all times.
"When I celebrate the Eucharist, I should be aware that at that moment of consecration, Jesus and I are one.
We need to know that Jesus calls us to be mediators. We are always mediators between God and man, and in this we need to grow in wisdom, intelligence, patience.
I have to be with the Lord, and I can be with the Lord in prayer to understand what I should do, how to do it, when to do it...
Thank you for accepting the invitation to participate in this spiritual retreat and I wish you all the best in your priestly life,'' Archbishop Cavalli said.
Fr. Damir Pavić is a lecturer at this spiritual retreat for priests. The desire to become a priest and the path to it is deeply connected with the Our Lady's shrine in Medjugorje, where he often comes as a pilgrim, but also participates in the parish's spiritual programs. Fr. Damir did not hide his joy at the reunion of the priests in Medjugorje for spiritual retreat, and he celebrated the Holy Mass on the first evening. In his homily, he spoke about what kind of priest should be in preaching the word of God.
"No one preached more beautifully without saying a single word than our Mother Mary, and how much opposition she had in her life," said Fr. Damir.
"If anyone should have been restless and angry with God, it should have been the Blessed Virgin Mary. So she could say to her God: 'So you gave me the task of being the mother of Your son. As soon as He was born, the problems arose. Run away to Egypt, hide him, come back and just when He grew up, You took him from me and in the end I had to hold him dead in my lap'. What could be a greater reason for a man to be restless. Therefore, let's look at our life. How we just get upset today, when things don't go the way we imagined. We lose our inner peace. Mary never lost her inner peace,'' said Friar Damir Pavić, who at the end asked himself:
''What attracts us to Medjugorje?'', and then offered an answer.
"Well, we are not attracted by this hard Herzegovinian stone, we are not attracted by the taste of this wonderful wine here in Herzegovina, nor the smell of olives, nor figs... but we are attracted here by the Mother, who for so many years patiently says, as to her children: 'Come back to my Son!' She has been speaking to us priests for 41 years: 'May you be living images and opportunities in this world. Go forth and bring the message of my son with love and joy'.
That is why no one returns from Medjugorje empty-handed. Each of us has a heart filled because the Mother speaks to us with love, and where there is love, there is peace, there is joy, there is the beauty of life,'' said Fr. Damir Pavić in his homily at the beginning of the 25th International Spiritual retreat for priests, which lasts until Saturday, and consists of prayer, lectures, Adoration before the Holy Sacrament and the evening prayer program in the parish of Medjugorje. On Thursday morning at 6 o'clock priests will climb to the Hill of Apparitions, and on Friday they will pray the Way of the Cross prayer on Cross Mountain. (FOTO)
