During these last few days of June 2012, members of the Australian Region of the Polish Province met at "St John of God" retreat centre in Safety Bay, Western Australia (Archdiocese of Perth) for the annual Salvatorians’ retreat led by Fr. Roman Slupek SDS, Lecturer of Catholic Apologetics in the Salvatorian Seminary in Bagno, Poland. The topic of our spiritual exercises is the theme of the XVIII General Chapter of the Salvatorians to be held this October in Krakow: "To know, to love and to proclaim".
The retreat master challenged us with our personal image of God and encouraged us to make the best effort in the process of getting to know, to love and to proclaim true Jesus in our daily ministry with our lives. We are called to the radical imitation of the Lord, that means we need to take Him seriously - his life, attitudes, words, gestures, promises, mission and message of the Cross.
Fr Roman based his talks on a relationship between Christ and Peter the Apostle which defines what real Christianity is about: being a Christian means having love amidst of human weaknesses, wounds and sins. Christian love is that which Christ has for us; it is our love for him, our love for one another as Christians. That is unbelievably difficult and, at the same time, incredibly simple. Yet however difficult it may be in many respects, discovering this is still a profoundly liberating experience. In Christ we understand that only love is credible and only Love-Jesus himself sets us free from any detachments, fears, pride and self-sufficiency. Fr Slupek reminded us that the foundation of any Christian service and ministry within the Church is ability and willingness to respond to God's love with an obedient, practical and trustful love.
On the last day of our retreat Fr Roman called us to renew our Salvatorian identity through faithful imitation of the charism of our founder Fr Francis Jordan who dedicated his entire life to know, to love and to proclaim Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of the world.