New Gracanica Monastery Retreat Weekend

 The theme for our 3^rd annual weekend conference at New Gracanica Serbian Monastery in Greyslake, IL, outside Chicago, was "Be Still and Know that I am God." Instead of following our usual Family Conference program, the program for this long weekend has developed into a quieter, more inwardly focused, spiritual retreat, which takes better advantage of the monastery setting. We had an inspiring time with a wonderful group attending this year, with 30 people arriving from all points of the compass. Among them was a large contingent from St. John of Kronstadt Orthodox Church in Lincoln, NE, including Fr. James and Mat. Susan Dank.  Fr. Basil Alden and a few parishioners from Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church in Rockford, IL, came for their first time. It was our pleasure to meet Fr. John Hrycyniak from St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Kenosha, WI, who joined us for the Sunday afternoon sessions. He has been very supportive of our conferences at New Gracanica over the past two years, recommending them to other Orthodox in the area, even though this was our first opportunity to meet him in person.

 Friday evening, Fr. Michael gave a slide presentation of his recent pilgrimage to Greece and Mt. Athos to begin the retreat. Then over the course of Saturday and Sunday, Fr. Milorad, Fr. Michael, and Fr. Philip gave talks on various aspects of our theme. It is our hope to make some of these talks available on our website soon.

Both Saturday and Sunday we celebrated Divine Liturgy in the beautiful Monastery Church dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God.  This year we were able to venerate the new icon of the Mother of God of Three Hands, which sits in the middle of the church. This icon, a copy of the original located at Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos, was recently gifted to the monastery by the monks of Hilandar.  Fr. Milorad Loncar and Heiromonk Serafim Baltic of New Gracanica led us in the Akathist to the Mother of God of Three Hands after Vespers on Saturday, and we were all blessed by the presence of the Theotokos.

The Sisterhood at New Gracanica once again provided incredible meals for the weekend, and all those on retreat gave the ladies a wonderful round of applause for taking care of us so well. Saturday evening was also a time of fellowship, and we were treated to a wonderful concert by bag-piper Gordon Stewart and Old-Time music from Fr. James Dank.

On Sunday evening, everyone gathered for a question and answer session about our presentations, which bridged into a general discussion about the future possibilities for the retreat weekend. There was much enthusiasm for continuing the retreat, and we see it developing and growing to include more people in the years ahead, as this enthusiasm spreads. Since we had to cancel last year's retreat due to poor turn out, we are very encouraged by the spirit with which this year’s group embraced the ideas for the future.

On Monday morning after Matins, Fr. Serafim brought out a piece of the Life-giving Cross, which resides in the altar of New Gracanica. We all venerated the Cross, which made a special blessing for the end our retreat.  After breakfast, all cars and participants were given a travel blessing with holy water for their journey home. As they were departing, everyone expressed thankfulness for the feeling of true pilgrimage we had experienced together.

We would like to thank His Grace, Bishop Longin, for his generous blessing in permitting us to have our retreat at New Gracanica. Also to Fr. Milorad, Heiromonk Serafim and the Sisterhood for making our retreat possible through their support and prayers. We pray that we will be able to draw more next year to this blessed event