Memory is a tricky thing.
In college and young adult life, people socially lust after that ever enticing “great story” with such debauchery and drinking that they can’t even remember what they’ve done. In school, when we approach tough tests, we cram tons of terms and concepts into our brains to earn the best grade we can get and then lose much of the crammed content soon after spitting it back out. In motherhood, there are even social myths out there that women’s bodies help them forget the pain of childbirth to facilitate their desire to have that next kid.1
Memory, too, is crucial to our Catholic faith and worship. The Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, centrally involves anamnesis, the memorialization of Christ’s Last Supper and Passion in the Liturgy of the Eucharist at Mass. Through the words of institution and our gathering as Christ’s Church, this memory helps us become who we receive, as we become one with Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Last week, I directed a four-day retreat for 33 teenagers with four adult partners and six student leaders as well as a cavalcade of visiting adults and priests. The preparations that go into the retreat capture some of the Swiss-army-knife nature of ministry: these considerations include but are not limited to transportation, lodging and room assignments, shopping and packing retreat supplies, creating small-groups, setting up a retreat center, managing permission slips and dietary needs, tracking personal disclosures for referral to counseling, compiling and printing retreat booklets… oh, and, preparing a team of teenagers to facilitate small-group discussions, be prayer leaders, prepare and give witness talks, and emcee a retreat.2
I’ll certainly welcome whatever pity you have for me, but I acknowledge that I chose a career and vocation that is time- and labor-intensive, especially for endeavors like this retreat, and one in which I am destined to always be my own secretary and assistant. And I think the way God made me to be pretty good at a lot of things while not necessarily being profoundly excellent at any one of them becomes a huge asset when I have to undertake this kind of preparation.
Among the many bumps in the road in coordinating such logistics and preparing a team of student leaders (a whole blog post could unfold relating to them alone!), this particular retreat requires the help of parents and families with one particular surprise. And this is a surprise that we like to have organized by the Friday before the retreat, as this gives us a few days of lag time - which we always need! - before the departure.
So first, I speak to the parents face-to-face in September at “Back to School Night,” to introduce the retreat and give them a letter with instructions. Then, I send a snail mail copy of that same letter home one month before the retreat. Then, three weeks before our deadline, the letter is sent home again via email. And then, with one week to go before the deadline, I block off 30-to-60-minute chunks of time at my desk with the student directory open on our information system app, and I call each family one-by-one to ask if they’d received the instructions and check on their progress.
Some families are aware and just haven’t started; some claim to have never received anything; some are apologetic and promise to get moving quickly. No matter the response, it’s tempting but unhelpful for me to get short or snippy with them. Instead, I just hold the same line, repeat the same instructions, and make the same pleas to get their submissions by the week’s end. No matter how frustrating or beleaguering it is, I know I simply need their help, and I’m more likely to get it by being patient and kind than pompous or rude. It’s the same with the sons and daughters of these families as they prepare to participate in the retreat, reticent to invest themselves in something for four days, to surrender their phones, to maybe have to be emotionally vulnerable, to not be in control.
So the Friday before the retreat comes - the Friday when we like to have this task completed - and we’re still missing about one-third of the families’ submissions. The weekend passes, and the last few begin to come in. By the morning of our departure, we are now just one short of having all students covered. And sure enough, after multiple calls and our principal confronting a parent at the curb during drop-off, we finally get the last submission at noon, just after I’ve left campus with my leaders and just before the full group is set to depart.
The funny thing is that as we complete preparations and get closer to the start of a retreat, co-workers and colleagues are asking, “So, are you ready? How are things going?” And as I give them an honest appraisal, I always add as my concluding caveat, “We just need to get there and get started.” My experience with retreat direction3 has shown me that once the content begins, once the kids are at the center, once the leaders are leading, once the Spirit can utilize the time, space, and context of a retreat, that things will almost surely go quite well.
This retreat last week was no exception. The student leaders delivered their talks with conviction and love. The student participants offered their perspective with honesty and relevance. The Spirit grounded our prayer and liturgy in reverence and brought it moving gravity. The preparations and framework we worked so hard to create gave the retreat its shape just as we expected, and everyone present animated it with their presence.
Memory is a tricky thing. As a retreat director, I am surely looking to my previous experience to strengthen my direction. What went well? What went poorly? What we can we tweak? What should we sustain? Yet, such perspective has to be based on the framework and logistics that create the internal space for people to animate through their participation. I can adjust the prompts, the timing, the setting, the input, the aesthetics, etc., but I cannot, and mostly should not, adjust the people. I can form and prepare my leaders, but I cannot, and mostly should not, fully script their leadership. I tell my leaders that no retreats are ever the same because the people on each retreat are different. Even if we took the exact same group on the exact same retreat twice, the elements of it would unfold differently as a reflection of the ways those people grew between each iteration. We must remember the grace of our retreats past while moving forward with open hearts to the new and yet unknown grace that awaits in another encounter with others and God.
So as I think back to my stress levels two weeks ago, as I think of the massive pile of grading and lesson planning I left behind, as I think of the maximum tank-emptying energy focused instead on retreat prep, it would be tempting to say that all that stress and anxiety isn’t worth it. Why should we kill ourselves getting that last permission slip, that last medication turned in, that last family to submit their stuff? When we experience joy, it can be tempting to also simply consider the ends, and judge an experience based solely on those ends. However, I know that overlooking the process can be short-sighted, too.
This retreat preparation process reminds me that some ends are worth the means, even though we know that is not always true. We know that drinking to excess and blacking ourselves out is not worth the fun and stories it can create, yet we can learn that social drinking and responsible habits can be the companions to good, social fun. We know that cramming right before a test can accomplish a good grade, but we learn that course-long, college-long, and lifelong learning create more lasting knowledge, wisdom, and critical thinking. Women who have experienced childbirth know of the physical, emotional, mental, and other strains that the process puts on them, so they may not forget it but may decide that it is a strain worth embracing for the gift of life that it gives.
I think the truth comes in reflecting upon the ends but also remembering the means. We have to be honest to the way by which we accomplished something. I was pretty pissed at parents who were playing dumb, giving excuses, or dragging their feet. But I knew the power of getting them to participate, and I got to see the impact that their actions had for their kids. I knew that if I could humble myself to be generous and inviting that I could help nudge them along to do something special for their children. And I knew that once we got started, the crazy means it takes to assemble this wild puzzle could and likely would result in something profound and beautiful for all involved. In short, I knew the crazy lead-up would be worth it - I knew these were the any means necessary to reach the end of a faithful retreat.
I think this is the memory we need to bring to the Eucharist. We live in the era of the Church, striving to build the Kingdom as we look to fullness of all things reconciled to God. However, this Kingdom is already-but-not-yet, a Kingdom we only glimpse when we do the will of God and see all too rarely as we fall to temptation and contribute to social sin.
So, we have to actively choose to remember the sacrifice of Christ, the self-emptying of God-become-man who walked where we walked, lived as we lived, and died so that we might know eternal life. We have to commit to the centrality of prayer and Sacrament and to living Eucharistically. By remembering those glorious means by which salvation is won by Christ for us - Jesus’ Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection - our memory deepens our Eucharistic living so that we can more deeply embrace and love our end in Christ.
1 I have been cautioned by many women to not make any claims about any realities of childbirth. Thus, this ends my claims about any realities of childbirth.↩
2 I imagine that someday, I’ll run into other former Campus Ministers when I moonlight as a cruise director for a vacation company at sea.↩
3 I just tried to sit here and figure out if I could quantify that experience. As best as I can remember, this was the 25th retreat (of varying lengths from one day to four days) that I’ve directed or co-directed. I think the 17-year-old me that proclaimed himself a “retreat junkie” would be proud of what I’ve become. Retreat direction is easily my favorite part of my job.↩
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