Three Retreat Days at Sea

I'm not sure if anyone is still with me on this blog. I apologize for the delay. We disembarked the cruise ship on Saturday, but have been busy with post-cruise travels, so I haven't had time to do any posting. I'll try to do some catching up as time allows. So here goes. 

The schedule for the second week on the cruise consisted of three days at sea, where we followed the usual Magnificat schedule of retreat times in the mornings, and two excursions. For this blog post, I will combine the three days at sea retreat recaps and do two separate blogs for the two excursions.

Our first of the three retreat days at sea was on Monday, as the ship traversed the Caribbean Sea from Trinidad to Aruba. As usual, we began with prayer (the Rosary), Praise and Worship led by Susan Potvin from Ohio, Mary Wilson from Louisiana, and Cathy Behrens from Minnesota, a talk by Dr. Carol Razza from Florida, and Mass celebrated by Fr. Tom.

The topic of Dr. Carol’s talk was “Getting out of the Boat”. It was about having the courage to trust in God and take the step of faith. Dr. Carol is a psychotherapist and shared that mankind’s deepest desire is to encounter the God who created us and to know that He loves us.

Carol shared an interesting, miraculous, true story. She speaks all over the world. Once when she was speaking in South America, she had a translator, because she does not speak Spanish. She noticed as she was speaking that the translator was not saying anything. After her talk, she asked her translator why she did not translate anything she said. The translator responded that she didn’t have to, because Carol had spoken perfect Spanish. Carol responded by saying that she can’t even speak perfect English, much less perfect Spanish. But the translator insisted that Carol had given her talk in Spanish. Indeed, as people who heard her began to come up and speak to her, she realized that they had all indeed heard her in their native Spanish language.

After our morning retreat, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon on the ship. I also made another trip to the Fitness Center to use the treadmill. Our stateroom is way in the front of the ship and the Fitness Center is way at the back of the ship, so I have to walk the entire length of the ship to get there. So I'm even getting exercise on the way to exercise. However, I'm sure it still doesn't make up for all the calories being consumed!

As I walk around on the ship, I’ve noticed that people like to put magnetic signs on their doors. A few that I enjoyed reading:

I need Vitamin Sea

On Cruise Control

Eat, Sleep, Cruise, Repeat - which for our group, I would revise to say Eat, Sleep, Pray, Cruise, Repeat

Our Wednesday retreat day's talk was by Susan Potvin from Ohio. Susan is our worship leader in addition to being a gifted speaker. The topic of Susan's talk was "Walking Through the Storm". Susan shared how we all go through difficult times in life, and we need God's help to get through them. If we learn to trust in God, we can get through the storms peacefully instead of with much fear and anxiety.

On Friday, our last retreat day at sea, the leadership of Magnificat known as the Central Service Team (CST) did a presentation called "What Floats Your Boat?" (Notice there is a water theme for all the talks.) They each shared their answers to that question and then opened it up to the rest of the group, for those that wanted to share. Some of the answers were conversion, community, God's love, prayer, relationship, trust in God, peace, forgiveness, perseverance. The leader of the CST, Donna Ross, shared how she used to work for Disney. After her retirement, she became involved with Magnificat. She jokes that she went from working for the Magic Kingdom to working for the Eternal Kingdom.

Our Retreat Days at Sea were filled with much love and fellowship. It made for the perfect mix of the spiritual atmosphere with the vacation atmosphere.