February 28 – March 1. Here are the songs our Music Ministry will be playing. You may need a Spotify account to listen.
There is still time to register.
Women’s Retreat – Sisters in Christ!
We recently held our 3rd Come, Follow Me Women’s Retreat. The retreat was a moving, heart-felt weekend for the team and the participants – with 47 people in attendance – the Holy Spirit was with us!
Some feedback from the retreat participants:
“Thank you for all your hard work and bringing me face-to-face with Jesus”
“I needed this time to move away from the chaos and stress of life. To strengthen my relationship with God and heal the brokenness inside me.”
“Having time to reflect and meditate on Jesus and also to reflect on myself and my life”
“Everything was more beneficial then I would have ever imagined”
“The companionship of ladies. The love of Jesus through all the women. The new beginnings! The resources how to do better in life.“
“It ran seamlessly, on time and with much care and enthusiasm from the team”
Look for our upcoming retreat in March 2020!
Spirit-filled Men’s Retreat completed, Women’s retreat coming up!
The men recently completed our 4th Come, Follow Me Retreat. It was an amazing experience, with 48 men in attendance. The retreat was a moving, heart-felt weekend for the team and the participants – the Holy Spirit was with us!
Some feedback from the retreat participants:
“Format was bold, invasive, challenging, powerful, and deeply rooted in Christ”
“Simply and dramatically changed my life from this point forward”
“Inspiring and motivating”
“There were talks that could touch virtually everyone and every experience”
“Restarted my spiritual conversion with Jesus”
“Great venue”
“It provides time for more knowledge of [each] other’s struggles and [the] path they are traveling”
“Personal, raw, testimonies – authentic”
“[Learned] ways to be a better father”
The Women’s Retreat will be held the weekend of February 23 at the same location, Father Bernard Youth Center in Mt. Angel, Oregon. It follows the same format and is always a moving experience. Come, rekindle your relationship with Jesus Christ. You can learn more and register here.
A note from Fr. Peter – Come to the retreat!
Greetings!
A principle element in invitation and attendance at the retreat is a personal relationship with Jesus. As Catholics, we find ourselves living out our faith within an institutional framework. So referring to a personal relationship with Jesus may seem a little odd because we don’t always hear that phrase. But if we look more closely at what the Scripture stories reveal and what the lives of all the Saints reveal: it is all about a personal relationship with God.
The Incarnation–God enters human nature through a particular family, place and time in history. He lived within a particular culture with its own mores and music, customs and beliefs about creation, life, poetry, philosophy, medicine, agriculture and science. Jesus had the same things that we all do. Jesus came to teach and reveal the truth about God and the human person, yes! But he also came to EMBRACE what it is to be human in each one of us–in a personal particular way!
For most people to be in the presence of the Lord can be a little intimidating. We are very aware of our shortcomings, failures, faults and sins. When we come on a retreat, this awareness may feel heightened. We may feel unworthy or unlovable. But here is the point of the personal relationship: Jesus already chooses us personally. He knows us intimately and loves us with our faults, weaknesses, imperfections and sins. Jesus embraces our humanity with all it has in it. He doesn’t want an institutionalized relationship–as if he is the corporate head and we are of no personal interest to him. No, He wants a very personal relationship with us.
Think about it: If you meet a person you really enjoy and really connect with, you choose to open up and become friends. You make plans to spend time together, you go places and do things together. Your friendship and trust grow into love and appreciation for each other even while being aware of “human characteristics” that you are willing to tolerate because you love them and enjoy them so much. You WANT that person to be in your life and they want you in their life! There is no fear or embarrassment about yourself because they accept you and you accept them. This is a good beginning for understanding the relationship Jesus wants with us.
Strengthen your relationship with Jesus. Come again, and share with others.
Blessings to you!+++
Fr. Peter O’Brien
Next Retreats – Men: January 25-27, 2019 Women: February 22-24, 2019
The Advent of Humility
This Advent season we are reminded once again how Jesus chose to humble himself for our sake.
..he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
– Philippeans 2:8
The Son of God assumed a human nature for our salvation – Jesus calls us to a relationship with Him. As Pope Saint John Paul II said,
“It is necessary to awaken again in believers a full relationship with Christ, mankind’s only Savior.”
The Come, Follow Me Retreat provides an environment for each of us to have that fuller relationship with Jesus.
Come to the retreat and share with others.
See our website at www.followmeretreat.org for registration, flyer and bulletin downloads, and additional information. You can also follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/followmeretreat.
May God bless you,
The Come, Follow Me Retreat Team
Next Retreats – Men: January 25-27, 2019 Women: February 22-24, 2019
A testimonial on the power of Come, Follow Me Retreats
Abraham Mudrick of Silverton attended the Men’s Come, Follow Me Retreat in 2016. He had confession for the first time in years.
Abe learned that sin was “driving a wedge” between him and other people. He decided to try confession for the first time in decades. What did he have to lose?
“What I had to lose was a million ropes anchored down that were holding me back,” Mudrick says. “The Holy Spirit hit me like a hurricane. I came to know Jesus personally for the first time in my life.”
He realized God had a plan for him.
Read more in this Catholic Sentinal article.
Come, Follow Me Retreat
541.525.9310
Next Retreats – Men: January 25-27, 2019 Women: February 22-24, 2019
An American Soldier – the outstanding courage of the remarkable Captain Rose.
I was reading this inspirational story of a true American hero, a man who displays tremendous virtue including self sacrifice. Out of curiosity I googled to find his background. Turns out he is Catholic and a Knight of Columbus! An inspiration for us all.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-american-soldier-1510354516
MEDITATION OF THE DAY – The Grace of Being Unprofitable Servants
To be human means that we are a dependent being by our very essence. Not only are we absolutely dependent on other persons and things for our bodily survival but we have to look beyond ourselves for our meaning. We have no fulfillment within ourselves and, what is more, we know that we are answerable not merely to ourselves but to another outside ourselves.
In countless ways we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Our existence is given without our previous consent; our heredity and all that goes with it of temperament, mental outlook, opportunities, and so forth are none of our choosing. We are conditioned from the start and can be burdened with immense handicaps and suffering. Even in those areas where theoretically we are free to choose, how many impediments come between, through tricks of fortune or the actions of others. We are frighteningly, pitifully dependent.
Nevertheless, we are answerable. We are free. In all this unfreedom and conditioning we are responsible for what we do. No one can remove this responsibility from us. We are answerable not for our temperament, not for the shape of our body, not for our natural capacity, but for what we do with these things. Our task is fundamentally the same as Jesus’. We have to live out our own individual life with its own particular amalgam, in love of God and our neighbor, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. With all our heart we have to embrace this painful condition of dependency even when it presses most sorely, never trying to pretend that it is other than it is, never railing against it but accepting it in humble, trustful obedience to the Father, and through this loving obedience filtering out all that is evil, transforming it into gold.
Sister Ruth Burrows, o.c.d.
Sister Ruth is a Carmelite nun at Quidenham in Norfolk, England. She is the author of a number of bestselling books.
2017 Men’s Retreat – Fellowship in Christ
The 2017 retreat was held this last weekend. What a great event! About 40 team members and participants were on hand, making fellowship with other men and building their personal relationship with Christ. It was an honor to serve and participate with these men of faith.
Mark your calendar for the next men’s retreat – January 25-27, 2019 and the next women’s retreat – February 22-24, 2019. Note that we are not holding a retreat in calendar year 2018; we are moving the retreats to early in the year. We believe this will be a more convenient time for most men and women, and we can hold the two retreats within a few weeks of each other.
Retreat Team interview with Dina Marie on Mater Dei Radio
Learn more about the Come, Follow Me Retreat!
Jamie and Ed Diehl, along with Charlie Vandehey, were interviewed for ‘In Person’ with Dina Marie on Mater Dei Radio. The interview aired this morning, October 20th at 8AM. It will air again at 8PM tonight.
Here’s how you can listen:
Over the airwaves on 88.3 KVBM Radio
Online live on the Mater Dei Radio website.
Or listen anytime by streaming right from here: