This is part of a series that will run through summer 2025, the months in which we Sisters make our 8-day annual retreat. The series will highlight retreat reflections from the Sisters, providing an opportunity, as it were, to glimpse the heart of the Sisters…
Jesus took them with him….
I read this phrase right at the beginning of my annual retreat. It is the opening verse of Mark’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus, and it refers to Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up Mount Tabor. The very next line is, “And he was transfigured before him.” But my heart paused on that first phrase, Jesus took them with him.
That phrase lingered in the back of my mind for several days on retreat. I kept returning to it, as I kept returning to the chapel for prayer, returning to my room after lunch with a cup of tea, returning to the front porch of our retreat house in the morning to sit and watch the sun rise or the rain fall. Jesus took them with him…Jesus wants to take me with him….
I kept returning to it and I kept trying to put meaning on top of it. What did it mean that Jesus wanted to take me with him? To take me apart for this time of retreat, sure, but what else? How did he want to take me with him? How could I be more open to letting him take me with him?
As retreat continued, my moments of prayer were very quiet, very deep, very rich…and very simple. Slowly, the phrase in the back of my mind became a prayer at the bottom of my heart: Jesus, take me with you. Part of me was still wrestling with these words, trying to understand what they meant in light of everything happening in my life. Part of me was trying to surrender to them and just be on the mountain with Jesus…or wherever he wanted me to be….
The answer clicked on the very last day of retreat, as I was praying with gratitude for all the moments I had spent with Jesus, all the lights and love he had given, everything that had happened in my heart. I realized that Jesus had taken me with himself, almost without my noticing. He had taken me with him in moments of quiet prayer, and in moments of stormy tears. He had taken me with him each time I opened the Scriptures and in whispered assurances of his love. He had taken me with him and I hadn’t needed to make any sense of it or do anything at all.
This is the prayer that I wrote in the last hours of my retreat:
Jesus, take me with you.
Take me with you, and lead me apart.
You are beautiful…you are transfigured.
Peter said, Lord, it is good that we are here.
I say, it is good that we are here.
You say, yes, it is good that we—you and I—are here.
Your shadow is more beautiful than light.
Keep me in the shadow of your voice, of your love, of your joy.
Get up and do not be afraid.
Jesus, take me with you.
Amen.
Image credit: Feature Image by Morgan Winston on Unsplash; article image wikimedia commons – public domain.