Discipline for the Soul
February 17, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 399 DISCIPLINE FOR THE SOUL /^\LD-WORLD countries treasure certain forms of ^^ spiritual culture which have almost become institutions. The Lenten sermons...
...Retreat from the world for a brief space during which one lives with first and last things is an ideal which many men of different creeds venerate...
...Today these retreats are given under the auspices of a kindly, peaceful ideal which is both so new and so promising that one cannot praise it too highly...
...It renders a service to metropolitan New York which is inestimably valuable for spiritual, moral, and cultural reasons...
...Murphy's communication is its own best plea for what might be done elsewhere...
...He had never heard about them...
...And everyone can see readily what significance there lies in the fact that the Laymen's League for Retreats is also the Laymen's League for Social Service...
...So earnestly, ardently, and insistently did he urge upon them the mastery of grace through a retreat that a few of his friends agreed to make the trip to Mount Manresa...
...Several years ago," writes Mr...
...The successful work chronicled in Mr...
...the urge to carry on the abiding Christian tasks will be strengthened...
...The two things—the discovery of duty and its performance—go hand in hand...
...The Jesuit fathers have opened, at Los Altos, California, a retreat house charmingly named El Retiro San Inigo, where as many men as can be accommodated gather during weekends...
...When this gentleman returned to his friends in Philadelphia, he wished them to know and experience the influence which had come into his life...
...and momentum will be lent the effort to oppose to the prevailing forces of viciousness and debauchery the sterling strength which —to use an old word which is never quite platitudinous —is manhood...
...Everyone has heard of Mount Manresa, the Staten Island foundation where thousands of busy men gather constantly for a few days' respite from material affairs...
...Perhaps we have not instituted any single event which arrests the attention given in Germany to the liturgical addresses of Romano Guardini, or any movement so expressive of modern fervor as the English Evidence guild...
...But Mount Manresa is no longer the only institution of its kind...
...and never before had he listened to so vivid a portrayal, irresistibly logical and eloquent, of eternal scenes...
...It is a kind of advertisement to which many signatures might be appended...
...Catholics can obtain the blessing of its consolation and discipline so much more readily than others that increasingly large numbers will take advantage of the opportunity as soon as they understand it fully...
...Upon their return, an enthusiastic campaign was inaugurated with the result that the late Father Terence Shealy, the first great director of retreats in America, was induced to come to Overbrook, Pennsylvania...
...As he walked down Barclay street, his attention was arrested by people going into old Saint Peter's Church...
...Francis P. Murphy, secretary of the Laymen's League for Retreats and Social Service...
...He followed them, and when leaving, noticed a placard in the vestibule announcing retreats for laymen at Mount Manresa...
...But we are beginning to realize that there is developing here a form of spiritual activity which gives promise of eclipsing even these in value...
...He made inquiries and learned that a retreat would begin that Friday evening and end Monday morning...
...Never before had he obtained so clear a perspective of the greatest business of life—his soul's salvation ; never before had he attempted so complete a spiritual inventory...
...and, like all who make their first retreat, the experience proved a revelation to him...
...It answers a fundamental need of the human spirit...
...We quote at length from this communication both because it is intrinsically valuable, and because it can be considered typical of what a great number of men, in all walks of life, would say of their experience with retreats...
...Small wonder, then, that the voice of the reigning Pontiff has expressed an earnest approval of the endeavor: "We wish earnestly that the making of these spiritual exercises should daily spread wider and wider abroad...
...Retreats for laymen, as fostered during recent years, have satisfied the widespread desire for a deeper life of the spirit—the instinct for interior discipline which is alive in many whom the constant pressure of business or professional activity deprives of the leisure to consider more abiding realities...
...His idea was so thoroughly "sold" to* the Catholic men of Philadelphia that they formed an organization, since grown to great size, which is called the Men of Malvern...
...He made a reservation...
...The Lenten sermons at Notre Dame of Paris, the pilgrimages to Lourdes, or the annual German Catholic congresses, are of national importance...
...and that those houses of devotion, into which men withdraw for a whole month, or for several days, there to put themselves into training for the perfect Christian life, may come into being everywhere more and more numerously, and may flourish...
...Is there anything similar in the United States...
...A still more impressive work has been carried on by the Men of Malvern, a Philadelphia organization which is described in an interesting communication from Mr...
...Murphy, ua salesman who was representing his firm in Philadelphia found that his appointments in New York would compel him to remain there over the week-end...
...They are respected summonses to consider the soul's fortunes...
...They have acquired ioo acres of beautiful land just outside of Philadelphia and have erected there a magnificent chapel and retreat house which provide amply for the spiritual rejuvenation and comfort of large crowds of laymen every week-end of the year...
...In this way the privileges of faith will be safeguarded...
Vol. 3 • February 1926 • No. 15
