Lipa City, Batangas — The clergy of the Diocese of Libmanan gathered for their annual retreat on November 7–11, 2025 at the Capuchin Retreat Center in Lipa, immersing themselves in five days of prayer, silence, and reflection centered on the theme “The Wounds of the Clergy, Sustained by Grace.”
This year’s retreat placed particular emphasis on acknowledging the personal and pastoral wounds carried by priests, and on rediscovering the sustaining power of God’s grace in their ministry. The sessions encouraged participants to integrate healing, spiritual renewal, and pastoral resilience into their daily priestly life.
Serving as retreat masters were Fr. Mel Alvendia and Fr. Cris de Guzman, two formators from the Nazareth Formation Center in San Jose, whose experience in spiritual direction and priestly formation enriched the conference talks and spiritual accompaniment offered throughout the week.
The Nazareth Formation Center in San Jose, Batangas is a private, residential, face-to-face rehabilitation facility dedicated to the treatment of substance addiction and various mental health concerns. It employs a comprehensive therapeutic community model that integrates behavior modification, spirituality, psychotherapy, and family therapy to support clients in their journey toward recovery and reintegration as functional members of society. The center serves a diverse clientele, including priests, deacons, seminarians, and members of religious congregations. Drawing from their extensive experience in this setting, Fr. Mel and Fr. Cris brought a wealth of pastoral and psychological insight to the retreat.
With the tone of seasoned companions rather than lecturers, they shared stories from the formation house, reflections on human frailty, and reminders that grace often works most powerfully through the very places that feel most fragile.
Quite expectedly, the priests described the retreat as both grounding and consoling, particularly in light of the growing demands placed on clergy today. Talk after talk, the priests were invited to name the wounds they carry—the disappointments, the frustrations, the quiet hurts accumulated over years of ministry. Indeed, a wound acknowledged is a wound already touched by grace. The serene atmosphere of the Capuchin Retreat Center—nestled amid lush greenery and shaped by the Capuchin tradition of simplicity—offered an ideal environment for deep reflection on this subject, and the conducive place for prayer, and renewal.
The retreat concluded with a shared Eucharistic celebration, presided by the bishop himself, J. Rojas. In his homily, the bishop found a rich source from the gospel reading of the day, Luke 16:1–8, on the dishonest steward, a story about a failed steward — a man exposed, caught in his weakness, and facing judgment. The bishop said that priests are also stewards — entrusted with mysteries not their own. They hold the treasure of the sacraments, the Word of God, the care of souls. But they hold these treasures in earthen vessels — fragile, limited, sometimes wounded. During the retreat, the bishop further said, “we have looked at those wounds — not to dwell on them, but to bring them into the light of grace. And maybe we have realized something: our wounds are not barriers to grace. They are the very places where grace wants to dwell.” He continued, “As if we heard the Lord saying, « Show Me your wounds » . Because those are the parts of us He wants to touch and transform.”
In the the final day, and given the appropriate atmosphere, there was a noticeable lightness among the priests—a softening in the eyes, an ease in the shoulders, a renewed energy in conversation. The prayers felt fuller, as though each priest was bringing to the altar not just his intentions, but his whole self—wounded, yes, but sustained, held, and renewed.
As they packed their bags and prepared to return to the parishes that awaited them, there was the realization that one need not go back feeling perfect, but rather healed enough to hope again. And perhaps that is the grace the retreat offered: not the removal of burdens, but the rediscovery that they need not be carried alone.
