Sisters from different communities across the Region came together for their annual retreat – a time of renewal, prayer, and profound spiritual reflection - held at the 62 Newton St. Community in Waltham, USA.

Bishop John Persaud (Bishop of Mandeville, Jamaica) directed this retreat.

“John is his name,” is how we were introduced to our retreat director, the Bishop of Mandeville Diocese in Jamaica and Episcopal Administrator of Montego Bay Diocese, a down-to-earth person without dependence on title, or pretense.

We were blessed with a week of enthusiastic, dynamic, even radical, Gospel preaching. This was not your run of the mill “nunny” retreat. No soft voice with encouraging words on loss and grief and aging. No soft anything! It seems that as John sat and looked at the 23 of us Sisters, most over 80 with walkers and canes, a FIRE was lit within him and his message to us oldies boldly challenged us to be Disciples to the end, to be that missionary we vowed to be a half century or so ago.

The Beatitudes, as paradox and God’s vision for His world, was proclaimed within the context of scripture presenting us with (as 1 Sister commented, “meat to chew on”). New perspective, deeper meanings and deeper calls, resonated in our hearts.

John’s homilies focused on God’s great love in the Eucharist; reminding us that it is the center of our lives. Will we show up each day and plunge into life and love knowing that Jesus is our energy and our all. Will we be that Disciple filled with the Holy Spirit that leaves love in its wake? This is our desire at retreat’s end.

(Sr. Judith Sheridan, smsm)