This weekend I was treated to a “spiritual spa,” a women’s CRHP retreat at my church. Pronounced “Chirp,” the acronym stands for “Christ Renews His Parish,” a ministry described as “a spiritual renewal weekend designed to help individuals grow in their personal relationships with Jesus Christ and with others in a faith community.” Saturday morning I joined 15 other women in my parish to share, sing, pray, eat, play, sleep, laugh, and cry together in a safe and loving space. Sunday afternoon I emerged both exhausted and exhillarated, having witnessed a cycle of renewal that spirals around multiple levels.

I won’t reveal what occurs at a CHRP retreat; not because it is a secret ceremony conducted by a mysterious cabal, but because it simply has to be experienced to be understood. Without the context of the experience, any description would sound over-inflated, yet still be inadequate.

So why write about it?

Because there are two very simple truths about CHRP that I can share with anyone and within any context. The first is that acts of loving service are not finite acts, but infinite ripples that spiral outward to an unseen end. The second is that prayer has power beyond our understanding.

Those who have gone through past CRHP retreats prepare and coordinate the retreats for new participants. As the weekend went on I saw over and over that this hard work was not done out of obligation, but out of joy. These spirit-filled women (and men) wanted for us the same fulfillment they had known, and were also happily anticipating for us the discoveries we did not yet know lay ahead. I have paid people for many services over the years: physical training, counseling, room and board… It is one thing to be served because you have paid. It is quite another to be served simply because you are loved as a fellow child of God. These past CRHPers renewed themselves through Christian service, showing us how much we are loved by our parish. As a recipient of that service of love I became grateful, humbled, and eager to serve others with the same joy. The cycle spins on and on.

Our retreat was held in the parish school adjoining the church, and the CRHP organizers set up classrooms as our sleeping quarters. Desks and chairs were cleared away to make space for air mattresses, six or so to a room, with partitions set up for some privacy and quiet. When we arrived Saturday morning we each claimed a mattress and parked our sleeping bags.

Saturday evening I was the first to bed down in my shared room, and, as the others chatted in the hall, I snuggled into my sleeping bag, anticipating drifting off alone in the quiet dark. I had just adjusted my sleep mask and scrunched up my pillow, when I had a sense of people standing around me, even leaning over me, forming a circle around my sleeping bag. I couldn’t see anyone, hadn’t heard anyone come in, but I knew I was being watched. Thinking I was being summoned back to a group activity, I pulled off the sleep mask, sat up, and looked around the dim room. I was alone. A little unnerved but not frightened, I shrugged off the sensation and lay down to sleep.

The next morning our retreat leaders reminded us that people of the parish had been praying for us that weekend. We were offered up by the prayer chain, with the mass intentions, and in our families’ prayers. I believe that the previous night I actually felt the presence of those prayers as a protective circle in a sacred space. How else to explain the mysterious sensation of being watched over? And how else to explain that after six miserable years of chronic migraines, Saturday was my first headache-free night in many months?

Call it coincidence or chalk it up to rational causes if you will. But I know I was touched by an energizing love and carried by a strength of spirit as Christ renewed His parish. Just think of the joy and healing that can be accomplished if we keep the ripples spreading ever outward.

Wishing you a space for grace in your life today,

Kate