On the weekend of September 17-19, the Confraternity held its first ever retreat at the Passionist Monastery in Whitesville, Kentucky. Ten ladies made the retreat, and eight of them were veterans of Rachel’s Vineyard retreats for healing after abortion.
The theme of the retreat was “Holiness: The Answer to Abortion.” Fr. Ben Cameron gave five talks relating to the call that we have for holiness of life — we are not only called to be forgiven for past abortions, or to be healed of the wounds of abortion, but we are called to be holy — to become Saints! We were blessed to pray the Liturgy of the Hours with the Passionist Nuns, and to have lots of quiet time for personal prayer and reflection. In addition to our quiet prayer time, Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and the talks, we also had some good time for fellowship! One of the ladies shared an insight with the rest of us that is definitely worth sharing with everybody: Healing of our wounds does not mean that there will be no trace of the wounds, rather, our wounds are to be glorified, like the glorified wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus still bears the wounds of His Passion, but He does not suffer from them anymore; we also will always have the wounds from our past abortions — but glorified and perfected and healed in Him! Let us each join our wounds with those of our Blessed Lord, and know that He will bring them to glory in heaven!
On another note: Confraternity retreats have now been scheduled for this coming May (2011) in Kelowna, British Columbia and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Pray for the growth of our little Confraternity of Our Lady of Mercy!
Mike Stack MEV says
I’m sorry I was unable to attend. Did you happen to record your talks?
Fr. Ben Cameron says
We did not record the retreat this time. We had planned to, but something came up that prevented it. I hope to be able to record them when I give the retreat again sometime next year.