St. Isaac Jogues parishioners attended a parish retreat at Sioux Spiritual Center, May 3-5. The theme of the retreat was “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and was based on the song. “I’ve been pushing that with my homilies. It is necessary to have a personal relationship with Christ,” said retreat leader Father John Hatcher. “There is a richness that occurs just talking with Jesus.”

The idea for the retreat came from Fr. Hatcher, who was looking for a way to revive the parish. “I wanted to bring the people of the parish together. They attend their Mass of choice and don’t see anyone else,” he explained. “I thought of holding a retreat and sure enough people from all three Masses signed up,” he said. 

The 20 participants explored the topics of humility and working together. “I picked Sioux Spiritual Center to host the retreat so I could try to bring non-native and native people together,” he said. “I wanted to be able to talk about the relationship between the people and ask how we can work with one another?”

He hopes to lead a second retreat in the fall.