FARGO – The path for Ken Cottrell’s life seemed set, sensible and secure. After college, he landed a lucrative job in corporate America and was traveling internationally from his base in New York.
But one day, it all vanished. “I stepped back from the corporate world. I left the company,” he says, adding, “When you’re barreling down the road at 100 miles per hour, you don’t take the time to be reflective.”
Cottrell began taking serious stock of his life, reading spiritual books and returning more intentionally to his childhood faith to help regain his footing.
“It sounds like a trite type of expression, so light and fanciful,” he says, “but true happiness in life comes through living and pursuing a virtuous life.”
Finding his way to a men’s retreat hosted by the Diocese of Fargo, Cottrell subsequently joined the leadership team that organizes these events, including the “Made for Greatness” retreat set for July 14 to 16 at the Stiklestad Lodge in Fort Ransom, North Dakota.
While the stark reroute in his life turned into a blessing, he says, not everyone gets such a tap. Without it, they could “continue drifting through life” without a strong sense of purpose.
Made for Greatness
Brad Gray, director of the diocese’s marriage and family life office, says the retreat is part of an ongoing effort “to help guys to encounter the Lord, experience their faith, and see that this is a normal and very masculine thing to do.”
Its name comes from Pope Benedict XVI, who once declared about men: “You were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
“Men want to be great, not mediocre, and sometimes we surrender the true greatness we were made for for lesser things,” Gray says. “A man is meant to slay the beast and feed the family,” and, as such, is inclined to approach the world more externally.
“Men are about accomplishing and achieving,” he continues. “It doesn’t matter if you are a man who loves the arts or loves fixing cars. Every one of us yearns for greatness at our core.”
The hope, he says, is for participants to bring the “spark” from these events back to their communities.
Retreat at a hunting lodge
Aware of a hunting lodge owned by the family of a local priest, the diocese’s Redeemed men’s retreat committee decided this would be an ideal location for a men’s gathering. “It’s such a phenomenally manly venue, with stuffed (taxidermy) animals in the lodge, bunk houses, and even a chapel that they brought into the property.”
Along with time for prayer and reflection, men on this retreat will be able to try axe-throwing, a cowboy quick-draw, trap-shooting, and cornhole tossing.
“It’s a great time for us to come together as men in pursuit of God, or be open to God’s pursuit” of us, Gray says, noting that the nighttime Rosary walk is a retreat favorite. “Hearing the sound of men’s voices booming through the night is really something.”
While women build relationships face-to-face, he adds, men tend to build them side-to-side—something this retreat offers.
Tom O’Keefe, who heads the retreat’s leadership team, began to realize at one point that “there had to be more to life,” and began seeking out opportunities to enrich his spiritual life. “My wife has been influential, too, but these men are teaching me to be a holy man.”
Ideally, he says, authentic male friendships should lead to the baring of one’s soul. “If you haven’t told your friend something you’ve shared in the confessional, you don’t have a true friend,” he adds, noting that most men are “notorious at isolating,” believing they can fix what’s broken themselves. But together, “We can help each other find Christ.”
Like Gray, he finds the voices of men praying together striking. “I would say there’s nothing like 70 guys in a small chapel singing the ‘Our Father’ or blowing the walls off with the ‘Ave Maria.’”
‘True masculinity’
Brandon Clark initially became involved in men’s retreats after helping promote them on air for Real Presence Radio. He now helps organize the retreats.
“A lot of challenges in the world could be tackled if men would live out their call to true masculinity—especially in dying to self, and taking up servitude,” Clark says.
Referring to C.S. Lewis’s fictional book, “The Screwtape Letters,” he recalls how Wormwood, a demon hoping to erode humanity, suggests that taking down the head of the family is key.
“There’s such a heavy barrage against men and masculinity in the world, and media in particular promotes it,” Clark says, adding that it can make men lackadaisical. “We’re called to be defenders of women, yet there’s a lot of objectification on the men’s parts, and I think there’s some missing links in the chain that I really want to see fixed.”
Men’s retreats done well can help men be emboldened to reclaim their truest identity, Clark says. “We try to first of all teach them who they are, and that they’re infinitely loved beyond compare, created unique in the eyes of God.”
Because many men are deeply wounded, Clark concludes, they can easily fall into the trap of thinking they will never be good enough. “When we start to unpack those wounds, it gives the men permission to move forward in taking up the role God gave them.”
With that identity fixed and known, worldly failure becomes less of an emphasis. “We don’t have to climb the corporate ladder and have multiple houses, cars and boats, but being able to rest in our identity as beloved sons (of the Father) is really the first step,” he says. “If we could come to understand God loves us no matter what, and will never abandon us, that’s a great place to be.”
‘A spirit of hope’
The retreat will include a presentation by Bishop John Folda, “My flesh for the life of the world,” focusing on the Eucharist as a way to a stronger faith.
“The Eucharist really puts (men) in communion with Christ himself, and perhaps helps them to understand, in a healthy way, their own masculine identity as sons of the Father, but also brothers of Jesus, brothers to one another,” and leaders within their homes and communities.
Many men today are experiencing a lack of spiritual friendship, Folda says. “There’s a certain isolation that people experience in our culture,” and men seem to have fewer opportunities for filling that void. “I think giving men a sense of solidarity with one another as men of faith is very important, so they know they’re not alone in this faith journey. They know they have companions…brothers making that same journey.”
Due to a growing phenomenon of depression in the culture at large, he says, “inculcating a spirit of hope” is vital. “I’m not saying this is unique to men, but men need to know there is hope in the living of our faith for happiness, for a sense of peace in our lives, and for a deeper relationship with God.”
To offset this darkness, people need to be invited “into a deeper hope for more lasting things,” he says. “Hope keeps us going. It’s not the same as wishful thinking or optimism. It’s a virtue of grace, and it’s there for us in the person of Christ.”
Folda also will emphasize the inherent mission we all have as Christians, and men in particular. “Pope Francis calls it being a ‘missionary disciple,’” he says. “We’re sometimes shy of living that mission, but our times call for a more bold living of the mission we’ve been given.”
To learn about upcoming retreats, visit https://www.fargodiocese.org/mfg .
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on June 23, 2023.]
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