According to Father Manyanet, the Spiritual Exercises are the experience of feeling a taste for the things of God and finding in the depth and simplicity of Nazareth everything that our heart desires. For us in Nazareth, doing Spiritual Exercises means entering “the secret of Nazareth” to listen to what God wants to tell us from the mystery of his humanity, to contemplate the Lord, and begin to love according to the style that He proposes to us in the Gospel".
In the midst of all the circumstances that we are experiencing, we carry out the experience of the spiritual exercises, this year in a particular way, we stay at home and join the closest communities with the desire to accompany each other and make together this path of returning to the deep heart and there we meet again with the inexhaustible source of life that is the Risen Lord.
The global situation caused by COVID-19 was part of this experience and somehow determines the way of living at this very moment. And against this background we begin our exercises and ask ourselves once again: How do I discover God in these circumstances? What facts express to me your hidden presence in the drama of so many people who lack everything to face a reality that is too much for us all? And me, how am I living it, what deep connections have I made?
The Lord does not stop inviting us to “feel and taste” his presence, to make the journey with us. We have emerged from these exercises: With renewed enthusiasm and encouragement, full, grateful and committed to our life of following the Lord in Nazareth, with the certainty of being inhabited by God, revitalized, with joy and in peace, confirmed in the sending and the mission, ordained, and confirmed in the call to follow Jesus in Nazareth.
At the end of this experience we confirm with joy that: God is the only absolute and that
Everything else is relative, we are women open and available to the Spirit, God communicates and leads us if we dispose ourselves, going to our source renews our life, our following of the Lord always passes through Nazareth, God loves us personally and accepts us without conditions , in community we meet the risen Lord. He summons us and gathers us in his presence.
It has been a few days of true grace. The Lord has gone out in our search and found us available. The details, the service, the good disposition, the material, the organization, preparation, the joy in the encounter in the midst of the circumstances that surround us, the desire for God, the simplicity, the fraternity, the commitment and the testimony of a consecrated life that feels renewed in its following, have been eloquent signs of the risen presence of the Lord in our midst, for that we give thanks to each of the sisters with whom we have shared these days, to all those who have accompanied us since sincere prayer. We have kept them all in mind.
