Benedictines offer mother/daughter Lenten retreat

Intermountain Catholic

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OGDEN — A quiet evening that will allow young women and their mothers or other important woman in their lives to open themselves to God’s presence is planned by the Sisters of St. Benedict Monastery.

The evening, a long-standing Lenten tradition at the monastery, "we hope will be spiritually enriching in many ways," said Benedictine Sister Stephanie Mongeon, a monastery spokesperson. "We are given the time of Lent as an opportunity to imitate Christ’s way of giving and open our hearts to his prompting in a more focused way."

During the retreat, the women will share stories about how Christ has prompted them, and participate in small group discussions "to see that even a very simple act can have a tremendous impact," Sr. Stephanie said. "Our Lord always told stories, and ... I believe that when we share a story, we share how good God is and how generous he is in working through our lives."

The retreat "is a nice way to start the Lenten season off, and showing my daughters ‘Here are things we can do for Lent,’" said Frankijo Freston, a Saint Mary parishioner who has helped with the retreat every year since it began. For the past five years she has participated with her oldest daughter, and last year her younger daughter joined them.

"I love the opportunity to spend time with my daughters and other mothers with daughters that age and finding some spiritual guidance," said Freston, who also is a member of the monastery’s lay advisory committee. "We do really fun spiritual activities together."

For example, last year they created a chain, each link of which had a Lenten activity such as saying a prayer for someone or giving up television for a day. The year before, they made blankets to take to the neo-natal intensive care unit at Odgen Regional Hospital, Freston said.

For her, one of the advantages of the evening is the chance to talk with other mothers who have daughters the same age who are facing the same social issues, she said. Everyone is asked to leave their cell phones and other electronic devices at home, so "that’s a really nice thing, in this day and age, to have everybody’s electronic devices put away for a few hours and come out and be prepared to have a really fun, spiritual evening with some really wonderful people."

"There is such power in sharing, and also there is such encouragement in having an evening with many young people who want to allow Christ to be a part of their life," Sr. Stephanie agreed. "After an evening like this we all have such joy in our hearts for the fruitfulness of the evening."