Lift Your Heart to the Lord!

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

We are thrilled to announce our Fifth Annual Young Adult retreat, taking place once again at Saint Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Marblehead, Ohio from Thursday July 31st to Sunday August 3rd.

This year, we will be focusing in on prayer- its aspects, its essence, and how to cultivate a deeper prayer life. As Christians, we know that it is important to pray, and it makes up a massive portion of our faith. Yet many times we forget, lack depth of understanding, or were never taught what exactly prayer is and what purpose it serves. Many times, prayer is simplified into rehearsed routine prayers that lack conviction or passion. Other times, it may become too abstract or lofty and can be hard to understand. We want to dive into what the Byzantine Catholic Church teaches about prayer and why we should even bother with it in the first place.

During the Divine Liturgy, there is an invitation to the people from the priest at the very beginning of the Anaphora (Eucharistic prayer). It captures the essence of what prayer is and what drives its purpose. He says emphatically yet solemnly: “let us lift up our hearts” to which we respond “we lift them up to the Lord.” So begins the Anaphora, the great prayer of thanksgiving that results in the transformation of bread and wine into Our Lord’s own body and blood. This divine transformation that takes place begins with an invitation and almost prerequisite for our hearts to be involved before the Liturgy goes any further.

This is indeed the central action of prayer, a lifting of the heart to Our Lord in supplication, thanksgiving, confession, or adoration. But this is not always an easy concept to grasp, and an even harder one to put into practice. The Apostles themselves struggled with prayer, imploring Christ in Luke 11:1 “Lord, teach us to pray.” This verse, in combination with the line from the Anaphora, will orient our focus for this retreat.

We must reach into the great treasure that is our Church’s tradition and learn from over two thousand years’ worth of prayer, study, and meditation done on our behalf. The heavy lifting has been done for us; we simply have to rediscover these truths in our present time so they can be lived and passed on to those that come after us. Fortunately, we will not be alone. Leading us in prayer and instruction will be a few of our very own clergy and monastics from around the Eparchy.

Father Thomas Loya, who has served as retreat master the last three years, will begin the retreat talks with a keynote talk on prayer. Following him, we will learn from our monastics from both Holy Resurrection Monastery in Wisconsin and Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in Ohio. Our Church’s daily prayer rules and structures flow out from our monastic tradition, making them the perfect voices for teaching and sharing their experiences of prayer. Hieromonk Seoirse of Holy Resurrection will be joining us, along with Mother Natalia and Mother Cecilia of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. We will post more in-depth bios of these speakers in the coming months.

I sincerely hope that you will join us for this retreat. I know that my prayer life has often lacked vitality and direction and I look forward to growing in my understanding of this great gift of prayer from Our Lord. The weekend will be filled with faith, fun, and freedom to grow and love each other as Christ would want us to.

Best,

Nicholas Loya

Regional Youth and Young Adult Liaison (Cleveland North)

Eparchy of Parma