On 2 March 2024 Knights and Dames from the Tucson EOHSJ gathered at Saint Andrew the Apostle Church in Sierra Vista Arizona for a Lenten Retreat. Father Greg Adolf served as the Retreat Master. The Spiritual Journey would take three paths. It began with a review of the Science of the Cross, then on a virtual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and finished with The Stations of the Cross.
The Cross consists of two planes – the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical represents a person’s eternal faith and spirit. The horizontal represents the quantitative world of matter. The design of the Cross is so simple, it is just two lines, but the entire Gospel can be found in them. One vertical stroke from God, descending and intersecting the horizontal of time and space. Where the vertical intersects the horizontal, where the eternal intersects time, where the spirit intersects the matter, where heaven intersects earth, here everything is transformed. “Our love for God stretches upward, vertically, reaching the heights from the depths of our souls, imploring His help here below. Our love for our neighbor pulls us outward, horizontally, opening arms, hands, and hearts to those in need. Jesus asks that our very life takes the form of His Cross, and to always see Him there, at the intersection, where he continues to pour out the mercy…that redeems the world “(Melinda Knight)
Father Greg posed a reflection question – “what is the easy and what is the difficult part of living the power of the cross”?
The next path of the journey was a Pilgrimage. Those that have been on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land have experienced the Cross in a different more personal way. Travelling to the Holy Land is sometimes referred to as the fifth gospel. Father Greg was able to lead a virtual Pilgrimage to the Holy Land via pictures and commentary. For those that have traveled to the Holy Land it brought back memories. For those who have not travelled to the Holy Land, they look forward to a time when they may go.
The final path of the journey was the praying of the stations of the cross. The Stations of the Cross refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imitations of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is a traditional processional route symbolizing the path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The objective of the stations is to help the Christian faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the Passion of Christ.
Thank you to the Dames and Knights of Sierra Vista for coordinating and hosting a very spiritual day.
