Eucharistic Revival shapes annual deacons retreat

“Having a Servant Heart Through Eucharistic Revival” was the theme for the Annual Deacons Retreat held at Terra Sancta Retreat Center, August 18-20. Jesuit Fr. Jim Kubicki, who formerly served in the Diocese of Rapid City, was the retreat director. It combined deacons and deacon couples from this diocese with their counterparts from the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. The weekend also featured a breakout session for wives led by four religious sisters serving here, the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

 Director of the Office of the Permanent Diaconate, Dcn. Greg Sass, said, “In 2019, as I was attempting to find a date on the TSRC’s schedule for our retreat, there was very limited availability, and the retreat center Director Reeny Wilson suggested we might contact the Cheyenne Diocese to see if we could do a joint retreat. Which we did and it went very well.”

According to Deacon Sass following the success of the first joint retreat, “The Wyoming deacons asked us if we could have joint retreats going forward. One of the benefits is, by sharing costs for the retreat director, we can afford more expensive directors. In addition, we get opportunities to learn from each other, and subsequently have developed friendships between the two diaconate communities. While this often happens naturally with dioceses in the same region, that simply doesn’t happen for Rapid City in general because we are so far away from the majority of the dioceses in our region.”

Deacon Lloyd Frein, Philip, commented on the success of the weekend, “The retreat was a great time to renew my ministry and faith through Father Kubicki’s presentations and fellowship with the other deacon couples. The sharing of Eucharistic stories by the deacons reinforced my love and faith in the Real Presence. We are a Eucharistic people and the Mass is unending.”