I got back from Tagaytay at around 2:20 PM this afternoon. The retreat ended with a ceremony where we friars renewed our vows within a eucharistic celebration. Fr. Camacho reminded us that the retreat has been dealing all along with discipleship according to the state of life we have chosen. We have reflected on our baptism which set us on the way to discipleship; the religious life merely intensifies it for us.
The itinerary of this spiritual journey was intentionally divided into two parts: in the first part, we were asked to own our baptismal consecration; in the second part, we were asked to renew our vows. Much of what we did on Monday and Tuesday has been summarized in the first blog about this retreat. On Wednesday, our sessions were capped with a penitential rite where we acknowledged our lack of love,commitment and fidelity to our baptismal consecration. The rite was preceded by reflections on the religious life as a more closer following of Christ.
Yesterday, Thursday, we looked at the Augustinian context of the religious life to which we have been committed by our profession. We even had the chance to see how our different communities have been living out the charism of community life we profess. Finally, this morning's session was a reflection on Mary, the first and model disciple. It was also fitting to end up our reflections with a glance at Mary whom we invoke during our profession to intercede for us that we may truly become disciples of her Son. She, after all, is the one who says "Do whatever he tells you."
There is still much to say about the retreat, but I will reserve this for later blogs. I have uploaded some of the pictures I took at Tagaytay and I include some of them here (the thumbnails are clickable 
)...
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
