I made my annual retreat a few weeks ago during the first week of Advent. I told you I would share a little of my retreat experience with you. So, here are a few thoughts accompanied by some pictures I took of my indoor and outdoor surroundings.
The setting. I made my retreat at “Marydale,” one of the small houses on our Notre Dame property. I was alone the whole time. I texted a friend every morning and evening so someone would know I was still alive! I brought enough food to last a week. A Jesuit friend of mine in Detroit, Fr. Gary, directed my retreat via zoom. I’ve known Gary since 1993 when I began ministering in the Jesuit novitiate with him in Detroit.
The schedule. I was up about 5:00 every morning (what can I say? I’m a morning person even on retreat…) I was in bed about 10:00, usually very tired. Praying can wear you out! The day was filled mostly with times for prayer. For breaks, I journaled, worked crossword puzzles and sudokus, exercised, and listened to my classical music station. During my meetings with Gary, I shared the “fruits” of my prayer as well as my struggles. He’s an excellent listener and reflected back to me what he was hearing me say. We had some good sharing. Then together we would decide how I might proceed.
Names of God. Perhaps the theme of my retreat was “My name for God.” I didn’t come up with a specific name for God–like Tom, Dick, or Harriet. My names were images or metaphors of God. I ended up with about seven images. I’ll say a word about three of them.
God as my playmate. You might think this first image is irreverant. But it’s based in scripture where Jesus says we must become as little children to enter the heavenly kingdom. I recalled that some theologian somewhere said we may not all be six-year-olds in heaven, but we must have the spirit of a six-year-old! I also remembered God’s words to St. Teresa of Avila: “Enjoy me!” I wondered, how might I enjoy God more–especially in my prayer?
God as my shepherd or farmer. I didn’t have to invent all my metaphors of God; the bible is filled with them. So I chose the image of shepherd because I love Ps. 23 so much. But I really don’t have much first-hand experience with shepherds or sheep (although I did spend a morning of prayer once inside a friend’s sheep barn with her ewes and new lambs!) But my father, a tool and dye maker by trade, made farming his hobby when he and Mom bought our small 22-acre farm. And I had a lifetime of personal experience with my dad as farmer. So I drew upon those experiences to connect with God as MY farmer in prayer.
God as my ice-dancing partner. I started ice-skating when I was about 4 years old. I hung up my skates in my late 50’s. That was a hard letting go for me. I have always been interested in figure skating–especially my favorite kind: ice-dancing! In my prayer, I began with the image of God as my wrestling partner–based on Jacob’s experience of wrestling with an angel–or, as some suggest, with God himself. I still like that image because I think some of my prayer times are wrestling matches with God. But I wanted a prettier image–like dancing with God. And I concluded: there’s no dancing more beautiful than ice-dancing! In ice-dancing, the two skaters must know each other intimately… they must trust each other implicitly… and they must work so closely together they almost become one as they produce their magificent dance. There was much to ponder using this image of my relationship with God.
When I looked back over my seven images or metaphors for God, I noticed that all were relational–and between two living beings. I didn’t say, for example, God is my rock or my shield or my heavy winter coat with deep pockets and a hoodie. No, all my metaphors were alive and dynamic–just as I wanted my relationship with God to be.
I’d like to say a few words about the picture below:
Gary and I conversed about many other things as well. Even though I believe God’s providence has put me in this particular time in history, I sometimes get depressed and angry with things and situations I see as wrong, unjust, and hateful that cause unbelievable pain and suffering for so many people. Gary reminded me of what St. Ignatius said: God is laboring in our world, in our times. Do I really believe this? If so, then my prayer becomes less about begging God to fix all the wrongs in our world and more about asking God how I might join with God in directing the course of the world toward ever greater unselfish loving. Starting with myself.
Reflection questions:
Did anything touch you in this reflection? If so, what?
Do you have any favorite “names” for God, that is, images or metaphors for God? Would you like to share one or two with us below?
If you have made a retreat or a day of recollection, what do you remember most from that experience? Would you like to share it below?
How do you pray?
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year,
one filled with love, peace, goodness, joy,
courage, prayerfulness and hope!
I often use music during my prayer–especially during retreat. Although I use many specifically religious songs, I also like to use so-called “secular” songs too–especially good old-fashioned love songs. Here’s one of my favorites, “You Needed Me” sung by Canadian Anne Murray. I use it to remind me that, in a real sense, God does need me. And God’s action in my life is very similar to the actions described in this song: “You held me up… you gave me dignity… I sold my soul, you brought it back for me… You gave me hope… you even called me friend.”
I invite you to share a comment below–about the reflection, the pictures, the questions, the song… My readers and I really enjoy reading the comments each week!
30 Responses
Good morning. Thank you for sharing some thoughts from your retreat. It sounds like it was a very fruitful time for you. It is encouraging to hear, as I am making my first silent guided retreat for 3 days in March.
Nature is so beautiful, watching the birds is something I enjoy. The little black capped chicadee you picture is the Maine state bird.
I wish everyone a happy, healthy, holy new year.
Good morning, Melannie…
Good morning, all…
Your retreat sounds wonderful! Your reflection about the sun, its heat, but the shadow-work it left on the wall, solar art, part of God’s collection that we must have eyes to see, is worthy of a New Year’s resolution: notice the artwork God gives us each day!
Enjoy your blog, thank you for sharing
Good morning! For me, you saved the best for the last line of your reflection: “how I might join with God in directing the course of the world toward ever greater unselfish loving. Starting with myself.” Do I enter into anguish, helplessness, anger? Do I join with others in bemoaning the circumstances of the time? Or, do I join with God, invite others, and truly live out the Gospel values?
And thank you for sharing Anne’s song. Truly my favorite popular artist.
Good morning Sr Melannie,
Your retreat sounds very helpful and a time to refresh. I’ve not been on a retreat in a long time. Might need to do that.
Your first image, God as playmate, really stuck with me. I often write about my grandchildren and how they have changed the focus of my life. I do see God in them, from the oldest who is nearly 7 years old, down to the youngest who is just 7 weeks. Perhaps this will be a good prayer contemplation for this new year.
Very much enjoyed the song also. Haven’t heard that one in several years but it’s a good one.
Happy New Year!
Good Morning -Your Monday morning blog is a great gift and I thank you for all of them. This morning’s blog was truly a new year’s blessing. I loved reading about your retreat and could easily imagine being right there. God as your ice dancing partner and the Anne Murray song did me in. It brought to mind a different Anne Murray song – Could I have this Dance! This was the favorite song of mine and my husband’s. We danced to it at our wedding and for many years in our living room. I shed some tears this morning as I played that song once again – tears of gratefulness for my wonderful husband now deceased. I will remember now to dance with God!!! Thank you for the memories and Happy New Year.
Your retreat sounds wonderful Sr. Melannie! Thanks for sharing your insights. God as ice dancing partner touched me. I just took a walk in the wind and danced around the ice.
Happy 2026!
Thanks for sharing some key aspects of your retreat from you snow desert.
Anne Murray’s “You Needed Me” has much deeper meaning.
Happy New Year, Sr Melannie!
Giddy up & God Bless!
I pray most days with the image of God as the captain of my rowboat who guides me as I do the rowing facing backwards. God will tell me when to use one oar or the other to safely get to the shore. This helps me put God in charge of my day!
Thank you so much for the song “You Needed Me” which I have no heard in years. Lovely.
I am reminded of Richard Rohr’s cosmic dance. Lovely
Good morning to all,
In Rochester, NY, our family took us to a place where we stood still alone off a trail, held out our palm , with bird seed. A chickadee perches on our fingers &
It eats. A moment feeling so close to God!
God my innovator and lover throughout my 87 years.
Blessings and Happy New Year to all.
Marilyn
Sister, We used this song in our wedding in 1980. Not only did it describe our feeling for each other, it highlighted our need for Jesus to remain in our marriage. My wife died in 2006 after a long illness. This song brings back fond memories. Thanks for sharing your retreat message and this song.
Sr. Melannie, thank you again for sharing. There are so many thoughts running through my head, but the one closest to the surface is that I would love to be on retreat with you as the director. Every week as I read your blog I come away with pearls. It’s been years since I’ve been on retreat and I have a real longing for one. Taking care of “my old people” (mama and her siblings) and other family members keeps me from a retreat. Your blog is a mini retreat each week. Thank you so much.
I relate to your image of God as a playmate when I remember an exchange with my son when he was a little five-year-old. I had reminded him that my dear “Pop-Pop”, his great grandfather, had died and was in heaven. With happy exuberance he remarked, ” And it’s FUN to be with God, isn’t it?” That attitude comforts me whenever I have a new grief.
Thank you, Sister your picture
was beautiful of the sun shining
Blessings
Kathy k
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Years ago I did a family week of therapy in a treatment center for alcohol and drug addiction. At the end of the intense week of therapy, during the graduation ceremony, I played this song. It brought many tears of healing and hope for a new future. Terrific memories. Still brings tears of awe at God’s immense grace and healing. Thank you.
A beautiful sharing. Love the switch to be a light of goodness
Thank you for the holy sharings.
Retreat….my favorite time of the year. I too enjoy being alone with God…that way I can’t blame anyone else but myself for the distractions. There’s honesty in being alone with God.
I loved your images…but they are yours. We each have our own images. I love sitting in God’s lap…letting the father/mother hold me in his/her arms…to feel the warmth and oneness. It brings gratitude….one of the crowns of a virtuous life. My favorite form of prayer is just being together with God….sitting in God’s presence…Sometimes words are spoken….sometimes not….just being together. I like to think it’s love…and hopefully it is.
Blessings,
Father John
Good afternoon and thank you once again for sharing. Melannie, your retreat experience sounds peaceful and powerful at the same time. I’ve never been on a “single “ but have had some very good group retreats with private time. Living alone provides me with lots of private time with God in the morning, cherish my prayer & meditation partnership every day.
Anne Murray’s song today is one of
my favorites too. The first time I heard it though, I related it to a very dear supportive friend who expressed his need for me in life at a time when I was desperate to know I counted and was valued. Even then I felt God speaking to me through him.
Wishing all a blessed, healthy and happy new year.
Thank you! Melannie! One song I often use in prayer is from Phantom of the Opera. Love me. That’s all I ask of you.
Goes both ways. I need God to love me and God longs for me to love God.
Happy New Year!
Sr. Melannie and all,
I have had the opportunity to make a silent directed retreat as a retreatant or as a director, numerous times in the last 20 years or so. Each time was so unique and edifying. I have never been completely alone, however.
A few years ago, at breakfast of the first morning we were there, having arrived the night before, I noticed another of the retreatants walk into the dining room and heard God say to me, “I want you to kiss her on the cheek and tell her I love her”. I dismissed it as a silly idea that came from me, but every time I would see her in the dining room, I would get another reminder of that. To tell the truth, I was a bit intimidated by her and thought I would rather die than have to appoach her. Sunday morning came and as I was sitting alone at a table, she chose to sit with me. I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place, but as I had began my breakfast first, I finished first and took my dishes to the place we were asked to bus them to be washed later. I had left my cup on the table intending to return to sit with my coffee for a few more minutes. As I approached her frm behind, I stopped, put my hands on her shoulders, bent over to her ear and said, “God asked me to kiss you and tell you he loves you” and I kissed her cheek.
I sat down across from her and sat with my head down feeling quite embarrassed about the whole thing. Looking out from under my lashes I saw her turn her head one way and nod her head a bit and then turn it the other way and do the same thing.
That afternoon we met together in a large group before our leavetaking, to share our “pearl” that we would take home with us. When it came to her turn, she said that she had had a very difficult time on the weekend finding God….she started doubting herself about her beliefs and everything she thought she knew about God and then she told them about me coming up and telling her what God had prompted me to do…..that changed everything for her about her experience and it has impacted me, as well.
I was rather living your retreat a bit vicariously, S. Melannie and felt a delight for you for the chance to encounter God in a new way. With God our encounters are forever old, but ever knew, at the same time.
And I too, thank you for the song….never had I listened to with the idea of God as the recipient of the words.
When I picture God it is always nose to nose, chest to chest, hand in hand, being enfolded in God’s arms….I don’t really pay a lot of attention to how I address Adonai.
May you all continue to be blessed as you also are a blessing in the New year 2026,
Mary
I love that you were brave enough to follow the prompting. God bless you!
Beautiful song Sister!!!
Often when I pray I sit across from my rocking chair, focus on it and pretend God is sitting there. It helps me focus what I want to say and it helps me talk to God as a friend, who will be honest with me. Sometime I even answer myself. I don’t always like what I hear.
I have even gotten angry with the chair, cried etc.
But as my granddaughter told me “He loves me!”
Thank you Sr. Melanie. I too often feel depressed and angry with this world and pray, I feel incessantly, for God to please tell me how to make any part of it better. God bless you.
Patricia
Melannie thank you for sharing your retreat journey. You are so real. Thank you for being you. We have been blessed by your sharings.
Mo
Save a life in the cold midwinter..throw out a handful of bird seed, peanuts, sunflower seeds, or bread crumbs for our feathered friends. They cannot call for help, they can only wait.
Dear Sr. Melannie,
God must have been singing that song “You Needed Me” with the thought that He also needed you when you made your decision for your vocation. Your shared thoughts, imagination and experiences are very inspiring. You are evangelizing in a most entertaining way and I want to tell you how thankful I am. Your retreat sounds like just what “our Physician ordered”. God bless you for a joyfilled, healthy New Year.
Thank you for sharing so many thoughts and insights from your retreat. One thing especially stood out for me. I loved your reflection about the sun creating patterns on the dining room wall and how you related it to God being the sun and you, a little light switch. And how with God’s help you can shine your little light in the world.
May 2026 be a year when we each try to shine our light a little brighter.
Wishing you and all a Blessed New Year!
Christ is my Friend. This was a “name” that surfaced during a similar retreat in December 2025.
In John 15:13–17, Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants… Instead, I call you friends.” That is not soft language. It is a startling, intimate invitation. We often picture Christ in scenes of suffering—crown of thorns, torture, crucifixion. These are central to Christian faith, but if they are our only images, then Christ becomes distant, formal, unapproachable. We forget the Christ who attended weddings, shared meals with friends, told stories, walked dusty roads, cried at the death of Lazarus, and rested when tired—A friend who lived a human life.
One significant spiritual moment – stumbled across “Laughing Christ” pictures. (Google “it and see wonderful samples.) I can relate to this vision of Christ. Imagine Christ in the present, not only in the past. Conjure an image of Christ having a beer at the neighborhood grill, playing a round of golf, walking beside you on a morning hike. The first time you try it, the image feels unusual, maybe even irreverent. But over time, it becomes natural. And suddenly Christ is not remote or ceremonially posed; He is near, familiar, and attentive, a friend—a stark contrast to the visions of Christ’s suffering and dying on a cross.
Sometimes I “clink” a virtual glass with Him (using the Laughing Christ picture) at home during Happy Hour—a small ritual that reminds me of His presence. I often hear His voice in songs that have traveled with me for decades: Neil Diamond’s Hello Again, Josh Groban’s, You Raise Me Up, Garth Brooks’ Unanswered Prayers, Dionne Warwick’s That’s What Friends are For, just to name a few. They become conversations, not because the lyrics are explicitly religious, but because friendship turns ordinary moments into occasions for connection and intimacy.
Christ already extended the invitation. He said it plainly: “I call you friends.”
The question for each of us is simple:
Will we let Him be one?