By Centro Alternativo de Cultura – CAC Team and Province of Brazil Communication Team
[From “Jesuits 2024 - The Society of Jesus in the world”]

Inspired by the eco-theology and teachings of the Encyclical letter Laudato si’, the retreat held in northern Brazil provides people of all faiths with contact with the earth and with the Divine.

Catholics, evangelicals, Afro-religious, spiritualists and agnostics gathered to live and share moments not only of prayer, silence, and reflection, but also of experiences such as circular dance, which allows each one to feel the ground that sustains us. The Inter-religious Ecological Ignatian Retreat is a spiritual experience of deep contact with mother-earth, in which everyone is invited to know and feel the sacred, regardless of his or her belief.

Held since 2017 by the Centro Alternativo de Cultura (CAC – Alternative Culture Center), which promotes, among other aims, the rescue and appreciation of Afro-indigenous knowledge and ancestry, the retreat awakens the interest of people from several backgrounds, including members of social movements for the defense of human rights and nature. The proposal is to bring together people willing to live in harmony, love, and enchantment, in the midst of nature, touching the ground, feeling the wind, listening to birds and recognizing themselves as brothers and sisters.

“The interest is very often from people from other religious traditions, who feel welcomed, integrated and respected, in an experience they consider similar to their own”, says Juscelio Pantoja, CAC Coordinator. In its first edition, there were 22 participants and nowadays the retreat gathers up to 50 people. Many of those who have been through the experience choose to come back for the retreat two or three times.

One of them is Suelem Velasco, from Belém (State of Pará), who was once a participant and collaborator. She was interested in the novelty and in the integration with the communities and movements that are part of the CAC. “Each Retreat is unique because it depends on its participants and what they bring in their ‘baggage’: their stories, their gods, their prayers and their silences. The retreat reveals the beauty of the diverse, the multiple, the respect for the Sacred and the Superior Being of each one. It is a hand in hand meeting and an opportunity to reconnect with our roots”, she says.

Alice Lopes Pereira, from Ananindeua (State of Pará), says that when seeking a deeper experience with God, she awakened to the fact that all creatures, peoples and environments are sacred. “To feel God from the earth, in the bush, in the flowers, in the trees, in the water, in the clay, and in the neighbour was the most beautiful prayer the retreat delivered. It was a wake-up call for the protection of our Amazon”, she said.

These experiences are possible thanks to the four-day schedule, with much prayer, sharing, silence and experiences, which permeate all the religions and spiritualties of the participants. The activities of each day are developed in order to focus on one element of nature (earth, air, fire and water) that is linked to Ignatian spirituality, as well as its biological and theological aspects.

Everything is connected

A scholar of eco-theology, Fr David Hubald Romero, SJ, Delegate of the Provincial to the Amazonian Apostolic Preference of the Province of Brazil, is one of the facilitators of the Inter-religious Ecological Ignatian Retreat. He began to study this ecological dimension in the Spiritual Exercises in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was in response to the invitation of the then Provincial of the Central and Southern Province of the United States, Fr Ron Mercier, to lead, online, the Province’s biannual retreat with Fr Brian Christopher.

During this virtual experience, because of the pandemic, Fr David found ecological connections in Jesus’ parables about crops, seeds, and water. From then on, all his retreats have been based on an ecological approach.

“In the Encyclical letter Laudato si’, one phrase is repeated: ‘everything is connected’. It is one thing to think about this, but it is another to feel that we are part of God’s creation, as well as trees, rivers, fish, animals, insects, the sun, the moon, and the stars. In this recognition of our interdependence, an appeal for co-responsibility and commitment to the care of the common home emerges”, he explains. He underlines that the retreat cultivates an eco-centric perspective, in which the Creator loves all creation, not just human beings. Father David believes that God’s unconditional love is universal and all-encompassing. So, we can realize that all creation, without words or speeches, is expressing the beauty and love of the Creator.