Photos of Hermitage

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you very much for your prayers for me these past two weeks. The retreat was very blessed. Being alone with God in solitude, silence, and prayer is excellent medicine for my soul!

I'll say a few words but first some photos:

The valley below the monastery and hermitage. I walked to this point on many days to pray.

Looking the other direction down the valley.

My hermitage was the first door on the right.

Inside the main door is an image our Our Lady with holy water. Meant to be a place to greet Her whenever entering or leaving.

Just inside the main door (my Mass vestments laid out on the left. The hermitage has three levels. This photo taken from middle level.

Chapel door (just inside hermitage)

Chapel in hermitage. I offered Mass here each day (travel crucifix is hidden behind chalice)

Wood burning stove that heats the hermitage on right. In center is what you see below when open...

Small bath.

Sitting area in same room as wood burning stove.

enclosed garden attached to hermitage.

Top floor which has bed and reading desk.

I spent hours each day the reading desk, which had a nice view.

Tray where food was placed for breakfast and dinner. I would walk to kitchen to pick it up each time and then bring it back to eat in hermitage.

Top level of hermitage was a sort of choir loft looking down into chapel. I'm not sure exactly how this space was meant to be used...

Wood in shelter in enclosed garden.

Icicles in garden.

Hermitage entrances viewed from outside (three hermitages in a row).

Looking out window from reading desk.

From same window.

From same window in the morning.

A sunset. I watched these a number of days.

Sunrise.

It was a very blessed retreat. Though I could contact the sisters when necessary I was essentially alone with God for 10 days. While I think that most of the work that God does in a soul is hidden. Here are a few small examples of some of what took place during the retreat (I wrote this and gave it to people at Mass this morning):

This retreat, as it took place in a hermitage, was especially intense in terms of silence and solitude. But those elements are keys of any traditional retreat, even where preaching is given each day. What is the purpose of silence and solitude? To help a soul to “die to itself” and to “die to the world.” By living alone each day with God, where He is the only one you can talk to, the only one you can ask for help (normally—unless you need to ask for help in making the word stove in your hermitage work!), the only one to whom you can listen, etc. etc. a soul tries to open itself more intensely to God’s action. This can take place in many different ways. To give you just two examples:

On the first Thursday evening of the retreat I felt the Lord was asking me to spend much of the next day meditating on His Passion with the help of the Gospels. So that Friday I made four “mini Holy Hours.” Each one was spent trying to read slowly through one of the Gospel accounts of the Passion, or rather trying to “pray through” one of the accounts of the Passion, pausing at different moments to adore Him, thank Him, listen, meditate, etc.

Second example: one evening, Sunday evening in fact, I felt particularly helpless before the Lord. I felt intensely (though no doubt not nearly as intensely as the reality would demand), how incapable of anything I am, how weak, how sinful. I felt the temptation of hopelessness. It was quite painful. Nothing seemed to help. I tried spiritual reading, praying the Divine Office, etc. Finally I simply repeated, over and over again, simple prayers asking for God’s mercy upon me as a sinner, invoking the name of Jesus, and making simple acts of faith, hope, and love in Him. After some time, I felt peace and strength returning. After some further prayer I was able to finish the evening peacefully.

To give one additional example: I felt more keenly on the retreat how much we need prayer, how much we need times alone with God. Of course it is rare, even for priests, to be able to get away to a hermitage. And most laypersons never have that chance. But our souls can be alone with Him, even while in the midst of others at Mass, or while a rosary is prayed in common, or perhaps during a Holy Hour, or 20 minutes that a soul finds by getting up early while the house is still quiet, or in the evening, or by going out for a walk, etc. The devil hates prayer and will do anything he can to stop or diminish it. One such temptation—used frequently I think—is to convince Catholics, to convince priests, that what they need above all are good activities, or good teachings, or any sort of activity. And we do need those things to an extent. But what we need much more is prayer and silence. If the Church only prayed more, if souls had more regular time alone with Him, so many problems would be solved! So many good things would be able to happen.

I've returned with a wonderful peace and joy in my soul. And am ready to now dive into the intense work that will take place between now and Easter!

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,

Fr. Tony Pillari