Fr. Antoine 's Mountain Retreats


I just finished watching Fr. Antoine on EWTN's Life on the Rock. Fr. Antoine is a priest and "Spiritual Father" (spiritual director) with my community -- the Community of St. John. At the Community's last New Year's Eve party, which includes the Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration followed by fellowship -- a party with food and drinks, entertainment, games, and conversation -- we viewed the mountain climbing and mountain retreat videos for the first time. They were beautiful!

If you watched the program, you learned that Fr. Antoine, along with his friend, David Marchinda, who is a youth minister from Grand Rapids, MI provide mountain climbing retreats for (both Catholic and non-Catholic) youth in the Colorado Rockies. There, they participate in Holy Mass daily and Eucharistic Adoration and learn to live the simple life in fraternal charity, enjoying the beauty and solititude of their surroundings. Devoid of the materialism and noises that daily invade all our lives, they are free to experience the luxury of silence and to hear the small voice of God and its echo in their hearts.

Fr. Antoine and his guests explained that so many young people today, especially those on college campuses, have their eyes focused downard, on their computers, cell phones, etc., but mountain climbing forces them out of the horizontal world and into the vertical, where they can look up and keep their focus on the Lord, rather than on the things of this world. The environment of the mountains encourages them to focus on what awaits for them above. The real ascent, however, is the spiritual ascent -- learning to love God in the Mass and in the Holy Eucharist and drawing close to Him.

To learn more about these retreats, please go to David's website or the Community of St. John website. I wish I were a few years younger and could go. Fr. Antoine has been climbing mountains for over 30 years and David is a full-time youth minister and full-time fire fighter who is also an experienced mountain climber.
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