What is the benefit of meeting with a group?
The Lenten Retreat can be a wonderful experience when shared with a group.   The commitment of daily prayer offers us the opportunity to reflect on some very important parts of our lives and will invite us to practice finding God in the midst of our everyday lives.   Staying faithful to daily prayer will help us grow in freedom and intimacy with Jesus.   But there is a special support to knowing we will not be doing this retreat alone.   A weekly meeting with a group will hold us accountable to our prayer commitment and will help us to name what we have been experiencing.   When we summarize what we are grateful for, we really come to know it and appreciate it at a deep level.

What will I do each week?
We will all have the "Praying Lent" web site as our guide for the six weeks of Lent. Each retreatant will necessarily decide how much time he/she can spend each day using the resources of this site, but we suggest that it will be very helpful to read the resources that are there, and trying to pray through the Daily Prayer for each day of Lent. The most important part of the Lenten journey will be that we say reflective in the background of our everyday experirnce of these 6 weeks. Whether showering, dressing, cooking, shopping, driving to/from work, walking here or there or getting ready for bed, we have many moments in our day that we can use to be more reflective about the graces we are desiring and the way that those desires are intersecting with what is going on in my day, my interactions with people, the patterns of my unfreedoms, the gifts that I experience in my day.

The Praying Lent Web Site: Make this site a Favorite/Bookmark
http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/

What happens in these groups? 
They are very natural and simple.   There will be 5 or 6 persons in the group, led by a Group Companion. Throughout the week, each person on retreat will reflect upon two questions: What graces have I been asking the Lord for this week? And what graces have I been receiving this week? When meeting with the group, each person will share the answers to those questions, especially trying to name an "pattern" that is noticed, for example, "I've been asking for the grace to be freer (to know his love, to feel sorrow for my sins, to be more grateful) and it really helped me this week when I would find myself staying reflective about that in the background of my day (when I would get tense, and just slow down and be grateful, when I would would pause during the day to do a "check-in" with myself and the Lord). In preparation for the group gathering, each person in the group will spend some time preparing what he/she will share with the group. When the group meets, they will begin with a brief prayer and the Group Companion will invite each person to share their reflection upon the graces they have received and the patterns they have noticed.

Are there guidelines for a group like this?
There are and the Group Companion will help maintain them in the group.  The meeting will last for no more than one hour and will start and stop on time.  This ensures the greatest respect for everyone's time.  The people in the group will want to share in such a way that everyone has an opportunity to share.  If someone begins to dominate or take too much time, so that others don't have time to share, then the Group Companion will remind the individual to give time for everyone to share.   Also, it is unacceptable to disagree, challenge or negate someone else's experience and sharing.   The group might want to end with a very brief prayer of gratitude.

E-mail or call us with any questions:
Maureen McCann Waldron:   mwaldron@creighton.edu    or  280-2880.
Andy Alexander, S.J.:  alexa@creighton.edu   or  280-2071.