In his September 7th general audience, Pope Francis offered the following. “There is a history that precedes one who discerns, a history that is indispensable to know, because discernment is not a sort of oracle or fatalism, or something from a laboratory, like casting one’s lot on two possibilities. The great questions arise when we have already travelled a stretch of the road in life, and it is to that journey that we must return in order to understand what we are looking for.”

With this statement, Pope Francis wrote the introduction to the Powerful Question retreat in Petoskey on October 14-16th . We will be doing just what he suggests and in doing so find the purpose we were born to serve.

There are a few openings left. But act soon before the retreat is filled.

As I drove the five hours “downstate” from my home in the Upper Peninsula I thought about the apostles and how they were sent to distant lands to preach the Gospel. They did not have modern cars or class A highways. What they did have was the fire of the Holy Spirit to keep them going. I pray that this same spirit will keep me going.