From retreating to witnessing - united as one in Christ

There is two main points I will touch on; going for the retreat before missionary work and the reason for participating in the retreat program of the Divine Retreat Centre, Porta.

The idea of going for a retreat before missionary work is to first retreat or to take a break from one’s own lifestyle and routine to reflect on his own life in God before actually taking up a mission to make a difference for others. For example, Christ retracted himself to the dessert for forty days and forty nights, fasted and resisted the devil’s temptation before he started his public ministry work – in other words, it was a retreat time before missionary. Another example is in the garden of Gethsemani where Christ spent his last hours with his heavenly father, and saying: “take this cup of suffering away from me, but may thy will, not mine be done” – before the period of his passion, his ultimate mission and “the cup of suffering”, which is to die for the sins of the entire human race.

Thus in a retreat, we can be renewed spiritually by resting with the Lord, far from the rat race of our everyday life style, tune ourselves in God’s frequency and thus be empowered by the zeal of the Holy Spirit such as that of Pentecost, where the disciples of Christ - being afraid, like a sheep without his shepherd – were being empowered by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire resting above their heads (and thus leading to the conversion of 3000 people).

Besides that, this could also be the time where we develop our essential communication skill and basic human relationship (similar to our PPD class… ABAH!!) by listening to (and communicating with) our fellow retreat participants (complete strangers but our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ… ABAH!!!) and due to the fact the retreat has many Indian participants ( and many international ones as well) we can familiarize ourselves to a certain extend, the local culture or taste, their worries, anxieties, difficulties, needs… etc before we undertake a missionary work locally.

Then the question may arise… why Porta? Besides the reason mention above (familiarization to local needs), in the Divine Retreat Centre of Porta, retreats are conducted every week (7 days retreat) for the whole year and for many years it has bore abundant fruits in building the spiritual movement in the Church. For more information visit www.drcm.org (or simply google: Divine Retreat Centre). I assure you this program is more towards charismatic, bread of life, or Grace church style than that of the traditional liturgical catholic style (therefore there will be praise and worship, the word of God, gifts of the Holy Spirit…etc) . It is definitely a worthwhile spiritual experience which I am challenging you to go in faith (which I’m doing too).

Another point (of why porta as the idea place for the retreat), which I really desire to stress, is the need for an understanding between protestant and catholic Christians. This is an opportunity to work for unity as we focus not on our difference, but on our similarities, the same mission of being warrior’s of Christ, cross bearers (take up my cross and follow me, says the Lord!) and thus his witnesses, an instrument of His LOVE; “to feed those who are hungry, to cloth those who are naked, visit those who are in prison… etc”. Therefore I urge you to “muhibbah” with us in this program, dispel prejudices and thus we are able to communicate effectively and witness effectively for our beloved one God in three persons. In this, I am frequently reminded of how Jesus Christ our savior, for the sake of reconciling man to God, incarnated from God to become one of us. Likewise to reconcile us together – at least on our level – we must imitate Christ and experience likeness and spirituality of one another, come down to each others level and communicate effectively.

Finally, if we can swallow our differences and be united as one body of Christ; if we can walk hand in hand and affirm one another, then our mission of being witnesses for Christ and our mission trip would be a success. Without this, our approach towards missionary work would be meaningless and thus this would simply become an adventurous holiday….