This is a series of texts for the spiritual retreats of priests published by the Clergy and Seminaries area of the Spanish Episcopal Conference within its collection “Retreats”, in the volume dedicated to the 2024-2025 academic year.
The Augustinian Recollect Eusebio Hernández (Cárcar, Navarra, Spain, 1944), bishop emeritus, has just published with Edice, the publishing house of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, a book with texts that help with spiritual retreats for priests, although they can also be used without difficulty by religious communities or lay people.
The book, 216 pages long, is subtitled with a phrase from the Rule of St. Augustine: “When you pray, live in your heart what you say with your voice.” It has a prologue, an introduction and nine chapters which, after a meditation based on biblical or spiritual texts, end with a series of questions and a prayer.
The chapters that guide the retreats focus, at first, on specific aspects of the life of Jesus, as shown by their titles: “Lord, teach us to pray”; “To pray is to discover the face of God the Father”; “The prayer of Jesus to the Father”, “Prayer to the Holy Spirit”, “The Lord’s Prayer”…
It also uses the prayerful experience of the Psalms, to which it dedicates the chapter “The prayer of praise in the psalms” and emphasizes prayer as a way of strengthening hope in the chapter “To pray is to always keep the flame of hope alive”. Finally, it closes the book with a retreat dedicated to “The prayer of the Virgin Mary”.
The book’s prologue is written by Jesús Pulido (Toledo, Spain, 1965), a graduate in Sacred Scripture (1990) and a doctor in Spiritual Theology (2015), current bishop of Coria-Cáceres and president of the Episcopal Commission for the Clergy and Seminaries.
After thanking Eusebio for his contribution to the spiritual life of priests with this book, he presents in broad outline the biography of the Recollect bishop, pointing out his “spiritual and well-versed depth” and his “testimony of a convinced faith and a dedicated life.”
“Eusebio does not speak from hearsay but from the knowledge and personal experience of the priestly and religious vocation, felt and lived with enthusiasm; and from the pastoral practice of caring for priests and building the presbytery in his years of episcopal ministry.”
Pulido recalls that “today we tend to privilege the apostolate of action over the apostolate of prayer. We find it difficult to see prayer as part of the mission, which often becomes a human effort rather than the work of God.” And in the face of this idea, he emphasizes Eusebio’s proposal: “Experience teaches us that it is impossible to make life a prayer if there is no prayer in life.”
Pulido recommends the use of the book “as a basis for retreats for priests, consecrated persons or lay people who wish to delve deeper into the prayer of Jesus.” And he concludes: “Many thanks for this very successful book and many congratulations to the readers for following in the footsteps of Jesus in the prayer of the Father.”
Eusebio Hernández titles the section that serves as an introduction in itself, “A Jubilee Memory,” conceived in turn as an introduction to the Jubilee of the Pilgrims of Hope 2025. This is because Pope Francis himself invited the year 2024 to be dedicated to “a great symphony of prayer” in preparation for the Jubilee, with a special highlight in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father”, as a “program of life.”
Hence, there are two chapters or retreats that Eusebio dedicates to the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples. Eusebio also invites that the questions that end each chapter be used in a personal and/or community way and be directed towards the mission.
The author draws on his own experience of the Jubilee 2000, which he lived in Rome while working in the Congregation of Consecrated Life as part of the team that prepared the Jubilee of Consecrated Life under the motto “Consecrated life in the Church, witness of Christ yesterday, today and always”, as he himself recalls in the introduction and describes in detail with all the events that were planned.
Eusebio hopes that the new Jubilee 2025 “will serve to awaken in the Church new evangelizing impulses in the challenging social, ecclesial and spiritual context in which we live.” “God speaks through the events of life and history,” he says, so we have an enormous and beautiful opportunity to “wake up from our lethargy” and “open the arms of the mother Church.”
Prayer, therefore, is a path of personal renewal and of assuming the action of the Church, which Eusebio summarizes as “welcoming people who suffer, victims of violence, the impoverished, those mistreated by life or by injustice, those who do not find a place in society or in the hearts of people.”
In addition to the publication of the book, the Recollect bishop usually has on his agenda the direction of spiritual exercises for various dioceses, religious communities and spirituality centers that request it.
Prayer attunes us to God. Spiritual retreats for priests 2024-2025. Author: Eusebio I. HERNÁNDEZ SOLA. Pages: 216. ISBN: 978-84-19797-23-0. Subject: Spirituality. EDICE Publishing House. Episcopal Commission for the Clergy and Seminaries of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. Retreats Collection, number 36.
