Father Séamus O'Connell - 6 Day Scripture Retreat

Step by Step after the With-Us-God: a journey with the Gospel of Matthew towards an encounter with the One who meets us in the ‘hidden place.’ (Matthew 6:6)

This week-long retreat is an in-depth reading, reflection, and prayer of the Gospel of Matthew with a view to permitting the evangelist speak with his own voice. Taking a lectio divina approach, participants will read and explore one key passage during each of the retreat’s six days. This attentive reading and listening, is not primarily a course on Matthew; rather we read the Gospel and listen in the hope of an encounter with the Word of God, and a first-hand engagement with the life-mysteries that shape the Evangelist’s concerns: God’s closeness and otherness, the newness and surprise of Jesus, the hope of the Kingdom, the life that is revealed in forgiveness, the dynamics of a community that would try to follow Jesus, and the softening of hardened and weary hearts.

Participants are asked to be consider entering silence for much of the day, and to be actively engaged in reading and journaling during the retreat. These days would be particularly suited to anyone who wishes to engage in a more transformative reading of the Scriptures, or to those who seek renew how—in the words of Saint Bernard—they “drink from their own well.”

Father Séamus O’Connell is a priest of the Diocese of Kerry, and currently teaches Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical University in Maynooth. Ordained in 1982, and a former Director of Biblical Formation in his native diocese, he has a particular interest in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), in exploring how the Word of God might speak to people of faith and none, and in the renewal of the Church’s life.