There were many places I now know to have had for me the quality we call sacred. Those places were no more and no less than places where for some reason one longed to be, where one had certain feelings that varied from fearfulness to strange and undefined joy. The adult I now am has learned to speak and to write of something called "sacred space," but, as with so many sacred things, one possessed them as a child long before one could name them. Come to think of it, the same may be true of all elements of God's grace.
We received a beautiful letter from Jean Vanier sharing his reflections on retreat as he celebrated his sixtieth birthday and the 25th anniversary of the L'Arche communities. He writes in part:
Sixty years is a turning point in life, and I am trying to prepare for it. I know that after sixty we begin to lose strength. I ask Jesus to help me grow old as He wants. If to disappear, how to trust others more, how to live with less power, but more from the grace of Jesus and the poor and to be more centered in prayer. In my prayer here I have a deeper desire to do the will of God, to be a friend and a servant of Jesus, and to let Jesus penetrate more and more into my whole being. Often my prayer has been just that: inviting Jesus to come with Light and Love into all the darkest, most hidden corners of my being.