Led by Dr Andrew Kaethler – Fantastic Shadows: Wandering and Wondering Toward the Truth with G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.
‘If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing for the first time’ (Chesterton). The Logos—Jesus Christ—surrounds us, bedazzles us, upholds us. Christ is present; the world reflects him. ‘This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore’ (Lewis). Yet, all too often our senses are dulled, and our vision becomes myopic. Pondering various texts by Chesterton and Lewis, this retreat aims to defamiliarize the ordinary so that you can see its mysterious, sacramental, extraordinariness and be led to its source: Glory Himself.
Andrew TJ Kaethler is Dean of Studies at the Buckfast Institute and is a Visiting Professor of Theology at Catholic Pacific College. He has published in various journals, including Modern Theology, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, New Blackfriars, Pemptousia Journal for Theological Studies, Religions, Pontificia Academia Theologica, Adoremus, and Humanum Review. Andrew has co-edited two edited volumes. His most recent monograph is The Eschatological Person: Alexander Schmemann and Joseph Ratzinger in Dialogue. He lives with his wife and six kids in Buckfast.
