Priests’ Retreat- 2014

Each year the priests of the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew speaking Catholics spend four days together on retreat: a time for prayer, spiritual formation and fellowship. This year a record number of priests participated – 13 in total. Father Gioele, responsible for the Beer Sheba kehilla participated for the last time before his return to Italy. Father Giacomo from Tiberias participated for the first time since his priestly ordination last June. The retreat took place on the top of Mount Tabor, in the Franciscan hostel, where the priests were welcomed by the members of the Mondo-X community, which runs the hostel.

This year the retreat was animated by Fathers Rafic and Michel who chose to focus on the exhortation given by Pope Francis titled “The Joy of the Gospel”. The five sessions were introduced by one of the two priests, each one focusing on a particular theme in the exhortation: joy, mission of the Church (focusing on chapter 1), the homily (focusing on numbers 135 to 159), the temptations facing the pastoral workers today (numbers 76 to 109) and evangelization. After a brief introduction each time, the priests broke into two smaller groups to discuss the particular theme in the light of the exhortation and their own experience and pastoral work.

The priests prayed morning prayer each morning together and celebrated the Eucharist and evening prayer each evening together. On the first day, the Feast of Saint Jerome, Father Giacomo celebrated his first mass for the priests, after which he gave them his blessing. On the third day, the Feast of the Guardian Angels, Father Gioele celebrated his last mass for the priests. The final mass was celebrated by Father David, responsible for the Hebrew speaking and Russian speaking communities, who picked up the theme of joy and exhorted the priests to carry this message of joy to all the faithful.

The time on Mount Tabor ended with a meeting of the priests to discuss various matters: the upcoming meeting of the faithful during the Feast of Tabernacles, the initiation of the Great Advent in all the communities and other upcoming activities in the Vicariate.