Houston Retreat Offers Insights Into Beatitudes

The Beatitudes serve as the compass for the spirituality of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Malta. Fittingly, they served as the theme of the Texas Tri-Region Retreat in mid-November.

Eighty people from Texas, Louisiana, and even Charlotte, North Carolina gathered at Houston’s Holy Name Retreat Center for the largest such event in the state’s Malta history.

The retreat master, Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, imparted profound insights into Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount during five meditations and two homilies on the Beatitudes.

Bishop Lopes’s association with the Order began while an associate pastor in the Bay Area of California after his 2001ordination. In 2005 he began service in the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. As secretary to the cardinal prefect he collaborated closely with Pope Benedict XVI on work leading to the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which allowed Anglicans to come to full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining their Anglican patrimony. He was appointed bishop of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in 2015, covering Canada and the United States.

Bishop Lopes’s clear yet profound meditations helped attendees at the retreat gain a new and deeper understanding of each of the Beatitudes and how they assist knights and dames in their work with the Order.

Hearts and minds were opened to a new Malta sacramental dedicated to the Beatitudes. The small Chaplet of the Order of Malta, designed with the help of Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abby, aids in meditation on the Beatitudes. The sacramental and accompanying booklet may be ordered from The Catholic Company.

Gratitude and congratulations to Causey and Michael Coffield who chaired the retreat, both members of Houston Region Spirituality Committee. Other selfless knights and dames contributing to make Houston’s hosting a seamless, enjoyable success are too numerous to mention.