November 2, 2006

Recently I had the opportunity to give a talk to the “Damas Salesianas” (Salesian Ladies) group here in Comayagua. I asked them to imagine two spouses. The one spouse has a burning desire to share her love for the other, to talk together, to share what happened during the day and what’s happening in her heart. The other spouse comes home, says “Honey, I’m home,” and proceeds to sit on the couch watching TV, ignoring his wife, until he falls asleep. As I looked around the room, I saw a wave of nodding heads. One woman even shouted out, “…or the newspaper!”

Saint Paul tells husbands that they must love their wives as Christ loves the Church. We often think of this as a model for married love, but it can also give us perspective into the love of Christ and His church. As Catholics, faithful Christians, we can go to church on Sunday, and maybe even daily Mass, and let it become routine: “I’m here…I’ve done my duty!” Jesus is there in the Eucharist desiring to share His love with us, wanting to communicate. If all we do is “show-up,” we are missing out on the intimate relationship our Lord wishes to have with us.

As friars we have the blessing of daily Mass, Holy Hour, meditation hour, and other prayer times. Hopefully we are always striving to really pray, and not just say, “I’m here.” The same way in which that married couple could find it helpful to get out of their regular routine with its distractions, in our relationship with Jesus we have retreats. The friars are blessed to have one to two days per month set aside for “hermitage.” It is a time to get away from the normal distractions of life (even holy ones) which seem to always find us. It is an opportunity to focus ourselves again on responding to Christ’s love—conversing with Him, revealing to Him the most profound corners of our hearts.

Here in Honduras we were recently blessed with the completion of a place to serve this need for the eight of us friars here. Thanks to the generous donation of land by a local benefactor and other benefactors from the United States, we were able to construct a quiet, simple, and naturally beautiful hermitage to make this important part of our life a reality. We hope that it will be a place for generations of friars to encounter Christ in the silence so that we might encounter Him in the poor.

Br. Honorat Maria Grifka, CFR
Convento San Serafin, Comayagua, Honduras