Dozens of people in Kerry have benefitted from spiritual exercises Exodus and Fiat 90, which have proven “absolutely powerful” in helping people thrive during lockdown.
Exodus and Fiat 90 are a set of male and female spiritual exercises respectively which aim to strip life back to the basics of prayer, asceticism and community. An extended Lent, the programmes begin 90 days before Easter Sunday, with participants giving up luxuries and taking up an increased spiritual workload, such as a daily holy hour.
One of the participants, Kate Whelan, told The Irish Catholic of Killarney’s spiritual success since people took up the challenge saying she’s “hardly noticed lockdown”.
Taking part in Fiat 90, Mrs Whelan described her initial hesitancy in signing up as many of the participants were much younger than her.
“Now I would have loved to have been able to say that it’s Youth 2000 that’s running Fiat 90 because most of the people are young, very young, and I was a bit shy in going in because I’m over 70. But then other people who knew I was doing it, said look, I encouraged them to do it. So we got a group of my age doing it as well,” she said.
“But a lot of them are very young and very enthusiastic because a lot of them had been to Medjugorje and places like that.”
Not limited to Killarney, people have joined in from Cork and Tralee as well.
Spiritual director to the groups, Fr Jim Lenihan, recommended the exercise, describing it as a “very, very positive experience”.
Having done it last year, Fr Lenihan knows the spiritual benefits that the exercises confer on those who take part. Speaking of his experience last year, he said the advent of the coronavirus had little impact on the mood of himself or his group and it’s the same for the current cohort of 18 men and over 50 women that he’s watching over.
“We almost found ourselves very joyous last year in the midst of people’s common sadness. We were very much at peace with things.”