Page 133 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

ers in Christ, for one brief moment far away from the busy
bustle of the outer world to celebrate and to honour one of
the greatest of saints, the apostle of the Indies, the patron
saint also of your college, saint Francis Xavier. Year after
year, for much longer than any of you, my dear little boys,
can remember or than I can remember, the boys of this
college have met in this very chapel to make their annual
retreat before the feast day of their patron saint. Time has
gone on and brought with it its changes. Even in the last few
years what changes can most of you not remember? Many
of the boys who sat in those front benches a few years ago
are perhaps now in distant lands, in the burning tropics, or
immersed in professional duties or in seminaries, or voyag-
ing over the vast expanse of the deep or, it may be, already
called by the great God to another life and to the rendering
up of their stewardship. And still as the years roll by, bring-
ing with them changes for good and bad, the memory of the
great saint is honoured by the boys of this college who make
every year their annual retreat on the days preceding the
feast day set apart by our Holy Mother the Church to trans-
mit to all the ages the name and fame of one of the greatest
sons of catholic Spain.
—Now what is the meaning of this word RETREAT and
why is it allowed on all hands to be a most salutary prac-
tice for all who desire to lead before God and in the eyes of
men a truly christian life? A retreat, my dear boys, signifies
a withdrawal for awhile from the cares of our life, the cares
of this workaday world, in order to examine the state of our
conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and

133