From 15 to 20 of March a training course for conducting the Augustinian Recollect Spiritual Exercises and Prayer Workshops with St. Augustine was held at the Convent of El Desierto de la Candelaria (Boyacá). Forty persons attended the course, among the male and female religious and the laity, coming from Argentina, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia. They will be responsible in their respective areas for directing both devout practices – exercises and workshops – which the Order is invigorating during these past years.
This was the last of the four courses that have been given in the different Recollect territories (Mexico, Brazil, Philippines and Colombia) in order to train male religious, female religious, laity and nuns on the topic corresponding to the year 2015: “Revitalization and Interiority”.
Spiritual Exercises
The course was enlivened by the President of the Team of Revitalization of the Order, Enrique Eguiarte Bendimez, who spent the first day in explaining the content of the exercises according to the theme of the year. The second day was spent in experiencing firsthand the spiritual exercises, with particular emphasis on the encounter with Christ with the Gospel narratives of the woman with hemorrhage and the blind man Bartimaeus, with the commentaries by St. Augustine, as starting points.
Spiritual Accompaniment
The third day, after having done the evaluation of the day of the retreat in practice, was spent in explaining the Augustinian manner of spiritual accompaniment that is intended for implementation within the spiritual exercises. Eguiarte explained first what is accompaniment, and later on made a detailed exposition of each of its parts, conditions, time elements, adressees and scopes.
Prayer Workshops
The fourth day of the encounter was dedicated to the second part of the Workshops of Prayer with St. Augustine. Eguiarte made a short exposition of what they are, and afterwards presented the principal themes of this second volume, which is entitled “To Touch Christ with the Heart”. Likewise, in this case there was a practice; the whole afternoon of this fourth working day was spent for it, which was closed with a fraternal gathering made cheerful by the songs of each of the delegations.
Finally, the last day was spent in reviewing all that had been treated during the entire course, and evaluate the encounter. The different teams also had the opportunity of meeting together in order to coordinate their activities, both the exercises and the workshops.