Soul Friends

On Saturday, March 3, seven couples participated in a special Lenten retreat day, “The Romance Between our Hearts and Souls with God.” Developed and led by Deacon Terry Garner (with a little help from wife Loraine), the day began with a lively discussion, with each couple telling how they met, and how each person knew that their partner was special. The tag-team of Robert and Susan Wilson told their story in flawless symmetry, completing each other’s thoughts in absolute agreement. Some of the other couples, however, had very different recollections about the circumstances of their meeting, with highly entertaining results.

Morning Prayer

During Morning Prayer, we focused on the famous readings about love from I Corinthians 13 and the Song of Solomon. Afterward, we took a self assessment using a tool from Dr. Gary Chapman’s “Five Love Languages” program. The purpose of the exercise was to identify what makes each person, as well as their partner, feel most loved: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving of Gifts, Physical Touch, or Quality Time.






Scriptural Passages and Quotes

We took time after lunch to examine as a couple several scripture passages and quotes from the Cowley Fathers about how Christ is a part of our couple-hood, a union of three rather than two. The day concluded with Eucharist with Mother Lisa, with sharing about the day’s experiences. Deacon Terry shared this quote from Irish poet John O’Donohue, “In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship, the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. With the anam cara you can share your innermost self, your mind, and your heart. In everyone's life there is great need for an anam cara, a soul friend; in this love you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. Where you are understood, you are at home.” In every Christian home, Christ desires to be the anam cara to each individual, couple, and family.

Loraine Garner