Ecumenical retreat center commences perpetual eucharistic presence
Eucharist can promote Christian unity, say leaders

By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
May 17, 2007

CORNVILLE — The Living Water Retreat Center has been a place for all Christians to quiet themselves and hear God’s voice for more than 25 years. As of last month, it’s also a place for Catholics to find the Eucharist.

“The Eucharist is the summit towards which all the activities of the Church are directed and the fountain from which her richest graces flow,” Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said.

The bishop emphasized the need for the presence of the Eucharist when the center came under Catholic leadership last spring.

“It is important to have the Eucharist celebrated at a retreat site, on a regular basis, and to reserve the Blessed Sacrament there,” the bishop said. “Equally important are the efforts of the staff to have a eucharistic focus in all that they do.”

Living Water, about a two-hour drive from Phoenix, features a half-mile of creek-front property and 130 rooms, some of which are private and can accommodate married couples.

Three meals a day are included so visitors can focus on spiritual reflection instead of cooking and cleaning.

John and Barry French, who founded the retreat center in the early 1980s, placed a major emphasis on hospitality. The Living Water Community felt called to sell the retreat center to a Tempe-based Catholic covenant community, City of the Lord, for a fraction of its worth.

Neither the bishop nor City of the Lord thought the Eucharist would encumber the ecumenical mission of the retreat center.

“God doesn’t have boundaries,” said Bob Carmody, the community’s coordinator.

Fr. David Kelash, pastor at the nearby Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Cottonwood, will celebrate Mass in the Cenacle of Living Water Chapel every fourth Sunday of the month. The retreat site will have a perpetual eucharistic presence in the chapel’s tabernacle.

“Having the chapel here will open the door to having more Catholic retreats,” Fr. Kelash said. “If we come and find the Eucharist here, then we come and find our center.”

Fr. Kelash concelebrated the first Mass in the chapel April 28 with Fr. Andriy Chirovsky, a Byzantine priest and accomplished theologian. The two blessed the chapel before Mass.

“We Christians have allowed the body of Christ to be run asunder through our pride, through our inability to express God’s truth in a way that will open every heart,” Fr. Chirovsky said in his homily.

He said that Christians can grow in unity by focusing on holiness.

“Only the Lord will be able to fully heal the Body of Christ,” he said. “It’s only through our worship and our humble surrender that He can do this.”

Ed Wilmowski of City of the Lord said Living Water is constantly booked, and 40 percent of the visitors are Catholic. The Cenacle will only be open to Catholic groups, he said, conforming to canon law.

“It’s going to change the entire makeup of this place,” Wilmoski said. “The mission was always to serve the body of Christ. Our goal is to keep it that way.”

Bishop Olmsted said the Eucharist could promote Christian unity.

“To be Catholic implies that we are also ecumenical. In other words, we need to identify ourselves with Christ who prayed, at the Last Supper, ‘Father, may they all be one,’” the bishop said.

“Catholics should pray for complete union in Christ and promote better understanding and fraternal charity with non-Catholic Christians,” he added.

“It never impedes ecumenism to live one’s Catholic faith authentically. Rather, a watered-down Catholicism would damage both the Catholic Church and her ecumenical efforts.”