The Perfectest Herald of Joy
Mar 15, 2026 | By William Barbee SM ‘26
It sounds like the start of a bad joke: an Episcopalian walks into a Jesuit mansion for a three-day silent retreat. Fortunately, this Protestant’s recent experience with Ignatian contemplation offered the perfect opportunity for discerning God at the cusp of major life changes—and, perhaps, for writing a piece for the Logos + UT Austin Lent blog.
At the start of my spring break, I spent three nights tucked away in a mansion by the frigid Atlantic Ocean with my pastor, several fellow members of the Episcopal Church at Yale, a few dozen other retreat participants, and a handful of Jesuit priests. Framed as an opportunity for seniors to feel at ease before graduating in May, the weekend consisted of eating, walking, reading, writing, and sleeping, all in complete silence. Only daily mass, presentations on Saint Ignatius’ life and teachings, and meetings with spiritual advisors broke the quiet that began Thursday night and ended Sunday morning.
Upon entering the retreat, my mind was completely focused on the future. With my time as an undergraduate coming swiftly to a close, I naturally had been obsessing over the prospects set to consume my post-grad world. Employment, location, higher education—all important choices, all still undecided. The retreat, I hoped, would offer clarity about where, how, and toward what God wants me to pursue my life going forward.
And yet, as God often does, he turned my eyes in the opposite direction I had anticipated.
From the first night in my room, I spent my retreat reflecting on the past instead of praying for the future. I lay upon my bed and prepared to write a journal entry for the day… only to find that the journal I had brought was the same one I used during my freshman year. Flooded with memories and, shortly thereafter, with tears, I realized how much had transpired since my arrival at my residential college nearly four years ago. The trips taken, the roles assumed, the relationships started (and ended)—all have indelibly shaped me into the person I am today.
So much gratitude… yet so much regret! How could I have maximized my time on that research trip? What could I have done to improve my performance as a leader of that club? What could I have said that would have kept that friend from growing distant? Past mistakes became insurmountable obstacles in my mind’s eye, and I began my retreat experience consumed by guilt.
There is a certain character embedded in the season of Lent that makes this tendency to be preoccupied with the past so common. We journey through these forty days with knowledge of what is to come, with Easter serving as the finish line to motivate us through our fasting and repentance. Hence, our anxieties turn not towards the uncertainties of the future, but towards the certainties of the past, particularly those sins we know we have committed, the unriddable spectres that perpetually haunt us.
My own past sins preoccupied my thoughts at the outset of the retreat—that is, until I recognized what God was showing me.
The providential purpose of my retreat was not to live in the future, nor was it to live in the past. It was incumbent upon me to converge both past and future at their natural meeting point: the present. Living in an extended period of silence offered me the opportunity to do what we so often cannot: graciously accept all the richness the moment has to offer. The profusion of brisk, coastal air in my expanded lungs; the savory sustenance of food after a day of fasting; the crisp click of my pen scratching across my notebook to form sonnets. These brief vignettes offered me a way to be more intentional about my observations, even while recognizing the divine will that guides all things.
In this way, God delivered the initial prayers I had going into the retreat. To gain clarity about my future, I first had to return to my past and understand, as my spiritual advisor labelled it, “the long arc of my love story with God.” Only once I acknowledged and accepted all my virtues and vices could I realize where my future lay: in whichever endeavor would allow me to embrace the present most. Thus, the past, present, and future all became entwined in a singular, divine weekend experience.
In the Episcopal Church, we celebrate the eucharist by proclaiming the mystery of faith: that Christ has died; that Christ is risen; and that Christ will come again. The season of Lent reminds us that the death, resurrection, and fulfillment of God’s great sacrifice are perpetually occurring, and that every day offers us the chance to conjoin the past with the future in an eternally fulfilling present.
Shakespeare once wrote that silence is the perfectest herald of joy. Following my experience on the retreat, I am inclined to agree.