"That got me thinking…"

I had the opportunity to spend a one day retreat recently at the gorgeous Sisters of Notre Dame, in a lovely nearby town.

I offer a few images from the day, and a thought on the importance of solitude from Henri Nowen.

“True Christian discipline is the human effort to create the space in which the Spirit of Christ can transform us into his image. For most of us, it is very hard to spend a useless hour with God. It is hard precisely because by facing God alone we also face our own inner chaos. We come in direct confrontation with our own restlessness, anxieties, resentments, unresolved tensions, hidden animosities, and longstanding frustrations. Our spontaneous reaction to all this is to run away, and get busy again so that we at least can make ourselves believe that things are not as bas as they seem in our solitude.” (from The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Lifep. 70).

I’ve never quite seen stained glass so spectacular (this is about a quarter of the whole scene).