It is often the way that those who prepare a retreat feel like they are in a bit of a spiritual furnace. It can be quite intense. I asked Jane O’Connor, one of the founders of The Makers Table, and the chief ‘beauty maker’ of our recent “Be Still” retreat in Melbourne, to write me a reflection on that time leading up to the retreat and what she personally learned from God in that time.

I like to make sure I get to Wednesday morning mass and adoration afterwards at St Michaels. I’ve managed to build this into my weekly routine. I’ve learned “O Sacrament most holy” and I know the regulars. It’s my special time with Jesus. I have a very busy brain and I’ve found it very hard to ‘Be Still’ lately. After Mass I’m in a more peaceful state and it’s often the time when Jesus and I communicate with each other. I am a creative and he knows how I listen best.

A few weeks ago, I was praying for the retreat and two things came to mind that I wanted to share.
I was telling Jesus about how overwhelmed I was feeling lately and powerless and sick of sick children and how anxious I was. I was unloading, lamenting, winging, blah blah blah, aware also of so many others in the same boat. He’s such a good listener!

I was offering up everyone on the retreat and asking him to prepare their hearts. My stir fry marinating bowl came to mind. I love my bowl, I found it in an antique store. It’s one of those gorgeous vintage cream bowls with the dark green rim. I use it to marinate my meat in. Marinate Jane. That’s what I heard. Marinate. Then I was pondering on the marinades and how the meat is so much tastier when it spends more time in the marinade, it absorbs the flavors. Then I was pondering on all the types of marinades people would be in during the retreat, retreat marinades! Creativity, friendship, beauty, adoration, Mass, confession, spiritual direction, talks, beautiful food and Jesus’s love. It was such a beautiful image to pray with for me. For others it might seem very strange but that’s okay! It was what my soul needed.

Secondly, on the way home I often get my “Hallow App” daily fix in the car. I had started an
imaginative prayer series with Fr Timothy Gallagher. He introduced me to a beautiful quote from St Anselm from his book, The Proslogion.

“O little soul. Escape from your everyday business for a short while. Hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labour. Make a little time for God and rest in Him. Enter into your minds inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him (the marinades!!) And when you have shut the door, look for Him. Speak now to God and say, with your whole heart, I seek your face. Your face I desire.“

As I dissolved into tears of joy and knowing. With foggy glasses and traffic around me I pondered in my heart the beauty of that message and the excitement and anticipation of the up-and-coming retreat. Knowing that Our Lord was going to work so incredibly powerfully in each of our hearts.

I was so blessed to witness this when the retreat day finally arrived. They soaked, they absorbed, they loved, they laughed, they created and they prayed.

Stir fry heaven! And a daily must. Marinate Jane. Marinate.

~ Jane O’Connor

Jane is a wife and mother who lives in the outer east of Melbourne. She is the co-founder of The Makers Table which is a creative women’s ministry which seeks to help women to discover beauty and encounter God’s love through creativity and relationship.