We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden. The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him. We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples. Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same power: “Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life”. The question posed by his listeners is the same that we ask today: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”. Jesus’ replies: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”. Belief in Jesus Christ, then, is the way to arrive definitively at salvation. In the light of all this, I have decided to announce a Year of Faith. From the 11th Oct, the fiftieth anniversary of the of the Second Vatican Council, and will end on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on 24 November 2013.

Pope Benedict XVI

 

Lough Derg has been offering One Day Retreats since 1992. These appeal largely to older people, especially those no longer able to make the traditional Three-Day Pilgrimage, and to those who for reasons of health or disability, have never been able to visit Lough Derg.

“Let us go to some lonely place where we can be all by ourselves and rest for a while.”