Bishop: Advent retreat is an opportunity to 'let the Holy Spirit speak to you'

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY — Advent retreats in the diocese Dec. 7-8 will provide Catholics throughout the state a few hours of prayer during the hectic holiday season. (See stories in English and Spanish this page.)

These retreats can provide a quiet oasis in preparation for the celebration of Christmas, said the Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City.

"Advent is a time for us to start afresh, to open our hearts to Christ’s coming at Christmas, and we need to do that by being quiet," Bishop Wester said. "Our lives are so busy, so noisy, and there’s so much going on, so we need to take the opportunity to quiet ourselves, to still ourselves, to just be, to not have all the distractions of the digital world."

As 1 Kings 19 relates, Elijah heard the Lord in "a tiny, whispering sound," but "that sound gets drowned out in our noisy, busy world, and an Advent retreat is an opportunity for us Catholics to come together and spend some quiet time with the Lord," the bishop said. "When I give a retreat or a day of recollection, one of the things I say is ‘Don’t let me get in the way. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you.’ That’s what an Advent retreat is about: It is to let the Lord speak to you, to reflect and to prepare. Christmas is such a beautiful time, but our secular society begins the season extremely early, so it is important to make Advent a time of prayer and preparation, away from all the busy-ness."