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MEN OF MALVERN
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VOLUME 1 PHILADELPHIA. PA. NULIBER 3
THE RETREAT MASTER SAYS:
Much as the Retreat Master regrets that the first of these heart to heart talks
with you, with the Bulletin as the means of communication, should have money for
its subject, nevertheless your great retreat opportunity at the present time has to
do with the financial needs of Malvern, and therefore this opportunity of yours
should engage our attention.
Of the necessity of the successful completion of adequate accommodations,
allowing every retreatant a room to himself, there can be no question. In his
inspiring address on Dedication Day, His Eminence, Cardinal Dougherty, stressed
the spiritual value which demands solitude and consequently privacy as an essential
of a good retreat.
With the share fixed at $25.00, and time payments for those who so desire,
the opportunity is well within the reach off the average retreatant. Some, we
know, will not be able to spare anything. From such we expect nothing in money;
but we do ask them to be doubly mindful in their prayers and Holy Masses and
Holy Communions of the work which the Retreat House is trying to do. Many
on the other hand are in a position to take a number of these shares. Every share-
holder will receive a certificate that his children may some day highly prize. Those
taking at least five shares will be commemorated as furnishing one room. Any-
one contributing $1,000.00 or more will be held as a founder of the new building,
and the donor of one room. A suitable tablet will hold the memory of these dona-
tions.
From the viewpoint of the Retreat Master the following reasons are im-
portant, not because of mere added comfort, but as matters of real spiritual
significance:
. First of all,‘ many men no longer young feel so decided a repugnance to the
intrusion on their wonted privacy caused by sharing their sleeping quarters with
a stranger, that they do not even entertain an invitation to come to the Retreat
‘House. "Secondly many men are very objectionable and noisy sleepers, and the
nervous result of a sleepless night under such trying circumstances quite unfits
the noisy sleeper’s companion or companions for the work of the retreat next day,
and after two or three such nights sends them back to everyday life quite un-
refreshed, physically or spiritually. Finally there are the young men who do not
object at all to having two, three or even four companions in the sleeping room.
'1:hey come to Malvern with the very best intentions, enter into the opening medita-
tion with zeal, but prove easy victims to the frivolity that will surely prompt some
act of nonsense as they prepare to retire; and this one act causes general hilarity,
and destroys (perhaps for the entire retreat) the atmosphere of prayer and medita-
tion in which that group should move. Until St. ]oseph’s-in-the-Hills offers to
every retreatant a room, no matter how plain or small, where he may maintain the
solitude essential to the work of the retreat, your splendid offering, to this and
fpture generations, of a permanent Retreat House for men remains an unfinished
tiing.
VV‘iIl you have a share in bringing this noble work to completion? Talk it
over with the Captain who will call on you for your contribution, and see what by
zeal and sacrifice you can achieve in the great enterprise.