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BRECKSVILLE, Ohio — About 250 people gathered for the second annual Bridegroom’s Banquet at St. Joseph church Nov. 11, raising a total $157,000 to benefit Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. Donors pledged $82,000 and generous benefactors pledged $75,000 in matching funds.
The funds will go toward the daily operations of the monastery, which currently houses six women, and the renovation of empty buildings on their property in Burton, Ohio, in order to meet the growing need for retreat space. The nuns said requests to reserve their poustinia for silent retreats continue to increase.
A Vespers service, cantored by the nuns and celebrated by Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, apostolic administrator of Parma, began the evening. The guests then moved to the banquet hall, where the bishop gave a blessing and encouraged those present to appreciate the presence of the monastery in the eparchy.
Dinner was followed by a 17-minute video, called “Silence, Prayer, Poustinia,” in which the nuns spoke about the spiritual battle against evil that all Christians face and the interior struggle with sin and temptation. Through prayer, Christians come to know God and his love, and they become Christ-like in order to bring God’s love to others.
The world’s distractions make it difficult to open one’s heart to God, the nuns said in the video, also available on the monastery website. One solution is to follow Jesus, who went alone to pray in the desert and who asks his disciples today to follow him into the silence and solitude.
People today, they said, need this silence more than the hermits of old. Silence in one’s environment helps to silence one’s heart, where one can encounter Jesus and dwell with him. Christ the Bridegroom Monastery offers poustinia rooms — simple, quiet, private spaces — for people seeking this silence.
Two young priests of the Diocese of Cleveland offered the evening’s entertainment with comedy improv.
The monastery continues to accept donations. All donations made to Christ the Bridegroom Monastery are exclusively for the monastery, its works, programming and upkeep. While it shares space at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch, the monastery and the shrine are two separate entities and each maintains its own finances.
Caption: Mother Cecilia Hritz of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery (front row, right) sits with some guests at the Bridegroom’s Banquet benefit dinner Nov. 11. (Photo: Darlene Hritz)
As published in Horizons, Dec. 3, 2017.
