Contemplative Eldering Retreat a transformative week offering new vision of aging

“It’s not how old you are, but how you are old.”  With these opening remarks by Cistercian Father Guerric Heckel, the tone was set for four days of thought-provoking, affirming and challenging moments during Mepkin Abbey’s Contemplative Eldering Retreat April 29-May 2.

Fourteen participants filled the Abbey’s Retreat Center in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Eleven were from the Metuchen Diocese, with one each from the Paterson, Newark and Arlington Dioceses.  The daily schedule was a mix of themed presentations by Father Heckel and his retreat team, along with prayer exercises and rituals.

The retreat started by defining the terms of “contemplative eldering.” Negative stereotypes of aging were confronted.  Rather than a time of failure, decline and diminishment, retreatants were asked to instead consider aging as a time of ripening and growth.  An elder was described as someone who is fully present to what is – especially the work of the divine – in the second half of life.

The contemplative motif was suffused throughout the retreat.   Participants were invited to reflect upon both our naturally contemplative selves that are drawn to deep and soulful places, as well as to conditions especially fruitful for contemplation, such as nature, solitude, prayer, art and human relationships.

The retreat ground rules fostered silence, yet even in moments of group discussion, retreatants were asked to observe “contemplative conversation.”  Key to this format is not engaging in crosstalk (responding to what another person has just shared). The idea is that when people are doing more listening and less reacting to each other, the time together will be deeper and more fruitful.

Participants were given moments to focus on grief, self-forgiveness and letting go.  One evening concluded with a fire ritual.  The group was first asked to write something that each felt they needed to let go of at this point in their life.  Each person was then asked to voice that item, before burning the note paper in a small bonfire, to the accompaniment of a sung refrain calling forth the renewing Holy Spirit.

Two unique features also available to augment the retreatants’ experience were the opportunities to participate in the monastic prayer life of the Abbey, and to explore the vast and beautiful 3,000-acre monastery property along the Cooper River, not far from Charleston, SC.   These aspects folded in nicely with the overriding contemplative aspect of the retreat.

Participants could rise as early as 4 a.m. to chant shoulder-to-shoulder with the Cistercian monks in their choir stalls as they prayed the Psalms for the day’s opening service, Vigils. In doing so, retreatants could appreciate the Psalms at a slower, richer level.  Retreatants could return again for prayer services at 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Likewise, the abbey grounds were open wide for traversing.  With sunny weather and spring in full bloom, retreatants were not disappointed.  The retreat schedule included three outdoor-specific activities: a walking meditation, a group labyrinth exercise, and a prayer practice called “Lectio Terra,” very similar in design to Lectio Divina.  Instead of poring over a specific Scripture text, however, as in Lectio Divina, participants in Lectio Terra were asked to spend an hour in nature, allowing some aspect of creation to draw itself to the retreatant and become the “text” for meditation.

The contemplative elders retreat concluded with a ritual of blessing and anointing, as those who felt called and ready to assume the mantle of contemplative elder came forward to be prayed over and to be welcomed.   A powerful and transformative week thus ended with participants having a new sense of call for this time in their lives, a new way of seeing themselves in relation to others, and a new mode of serving in the community, as contemplative elders.

Msgr. Kerrigan is pastor of St. Joseph Church, Bound Brook, and a founding member of the World Community of Christian Mediation contemplative clergy network.