I’m blessed to be writing this column as the bishops of our province (made up of the dioceses of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota) begin our annual retreat.
We are led this year by Father James Kubicki, a well-respected Jesuit spiritual director, familiar to many of you, I suspect, from his daily reflections on Relevant Radio. He knows our province well: He has served three stints in Native American ministry in South Dakota and also lived and served in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for a number of years, first as a Jesuit novice, then as a vocations director and member of the staff at the Jesuit novitiate on Summit Avenue, and finally as staff at Demontreville, the Jesuit retreat house in Lake Elmo, where he continues to offer occasional retreats.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda
Experience suggests that a good retreat master has to be not only a person of deep faith who knows Jesus intimately, but also an excellent storyteller, and Father Kubicki satisfies both of those criteria. I am particularly enjoying the stories that he has told about his experience of life in our archdiocese, and impressed by the way he uses those stories and sacred Scripture to draw us closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I’ve preached quite a few retreats to priests, but never a retreat to bishops. I have heard from retreat masters in past years that bishops are perceived as a tough audience. Allow me, however, to let you in on a secret — we bishops feel so privileged to have a week to spend together with the Lord, away from the busyness associated with our day-to-day obligations, that we are probably the easiest audience that any retreat master could hope to find.
While a regional retreat is not a requirement of canon law, I am grateful that there is such a strong tradition in the United States of bishops making their annual retreats together. Even though we spend most of the day in silence (other than in the dining room each evening), I have always experienced a strong sense of fraternity on these retreats. As I look to my left and my right in the chapel, I’m prompted to pray not only for my brothers in the episcopate, but also for the local Churches that they so generously lead.
I feel honored to serve alongside these leaders. Although we each have very different gifts and face challenges that vary from diocese to diocese, there’s a unity that is almost tangible when the bishops of our province come together for prayer. Unity is one of the marks of the Church. Every time we profess our faith at Mass, we speak about the Church being “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic.” That “oneness” is something for which we have to work, but also something for which we pray. I am always moved by the Eucharistic Prayer option in our Roman Missal that begs God to “strengthen the bond of unity between the faithful and the pastors of your people” so that “in a world torn by strife, your people may shine forth as a prophetic sign of unity and concord.”
I love that ideal of being a “prophetic sign of unity and concord.” In an apostolic letter released at the beginning of this millennium, St. John Paul II recognized that our Church needs to be a “school of communion” if she is going to “be faithful to God’s plan and respond to the world’s deepest yearnings.” (“Novo Millennio ineunte,” 43). He noted that a “spirituality of communion” means being able to see our brothers and sisters in faith as being “part of me,” so that we are able “to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desire and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship.”
We are blessed as Catholics to be part of a Church that was structured by Christ to foster that type of unity and communion. St. John Paul would go on in that same paragraph of “Novo Millennio ineunte” to point to the Petrine ministry (i.e, the ministry of Peter, the first pope, and his successors) and episcopal collegiality (the fraternal relationship and collaboration among bishops) as two key structures to “ensure and safeguard communion.”
With that in mind, know that as I pray for all of you on my annual retreat that I am also praying for a deepening of my communion with my brother bishops and with the Holy Father. I am grateful that Father Kubicki reminded us of Pope Francis’ statement earlier this year that “our first pastoral priority is to bear witness to communion, for God is communion and he is present wherever there is fraternal charity.” No matter the challenges we face, let’s work together to be instruments of fraternal charity and witnesses to communion.