I returned to McLennan on Saturday April 28th, having given a retreat to the Grey Nuns and the Redemptorists in Edmonton.  This retreat was held at Villa Marguerite, where most of these sisters and priests live.  Villa Marguerite used to be the Grey Nuns' Regional Centre, the headquarters for the Grey Nuns in western Canada.  A number of years ago, this Centre, which also served as a retreat house, was sold to the Innovative Housing Society (IHS).  The IHS converted the building to housing for residents of Edmonton who are in need of housing, but who otherwise have difficulties in renting their own place.  This includes the elderly, the handicapped, the poor.  The Grey Nuns and Redemptorists who were living there at the time of the sale and conversion of the building, most of them also in their senior years, have continued to live in their respective floors of the Villa.  The name Villa Marguerite was chosen in honour of the foundress of the Grey Nuns, St. Marguerite Youville. 

There were about 25 who attended the retreat.  It was a delight to be able to lead them thorough my reflections on the scriptural accounts of the Resurrection of Christ and of the Early Church.  On Friday afternoon, having closed the retreat at Villa Marguerite, I went to the Youville Home In St. Albert and gave a mini-reflection to the Sisters there. 

Though dwindling in numbers and ageing in years, these men and women are spiritual dynamos, lifting the world and the Church up by their prayers.