I was only eighteen that summer, still finding my way, still clinging to the last threads of childhood and just beginning to step and sometimes hesitantly into the unknowns of adulthood. Our Marian group had gathered for our annual retreat: a few days to set aside the noise and hurry of the world and listen for God’s voice in the quiet.
The retreat house had stood for more than a century, nestled in gentle hills that seemed to hold the echoes of all who had come before us. Long before our group arrived, it was a home for German Catholic immigrants who fled the chaos of early 20th-century Europe. During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, it opened as a hospice, where nuns cared for the dying with herbal remedies and unwavering faith. Some of those patients never left, and their names are still carved on small wooden crosses in the chapel garden.
I felt the weight of all that history as I stepped through the door for the first time. The air was cool and smelled of incense and old wood. Paintings of Mary and the saints lined the hallways, their solemn eyes following us as we carried our bags to our rooms. It felt like a place where prayers had been spoken so often that the very walls had learned to listen.
I remembered a story a friend once told me about a similar retreat she attended in Italy. The monastery where she stayed had survived wars and revolutions. One night, she woke to see a monk in a brown robe kneeling by her bed, hands folded in silent prayer. She blinked, and he was gone. She told me later that she wasn’t afraid and she felt as if he was there to remind her that in every generation, the faithful have faced darkness and found the light.
That story stayed close to my heart as we began our days of reflection. Each morning, we woke to soft light streaming through the chapel windows, singing hymns that rose like incense into the high wooden rafters. In our small groups, we shared our stories and how we had felt God’s love in the kindness of a neighbor, the patience of a friend, the strength of a quiet prayer.
Each testimony was like a flicker of light in the dark. I realized that faith isn’t built in grand gestures or miraculous signs. It is built in small, quiet acts of love and in the hope that carries us through even the heaviest days.
Yet even as our hearts turned to God, the house itself seemed to want to be noticed. Late at night, the grandfather clock in the common room would chime, even though the hands were frozen at 3:15. Maria woke one morning to find her rosary missing from her nightstand and later discovered it in the chapel, laid neatly on the altar as if someone or something had placed it there.
In the evenings, Leo and I would walk the narrow paths behind the house. Once, we heard footsteps in the gravel behind us. Slow, deliberate. We stopped, but the footsteps stopped too. “Probably just the wind,” Leo said with a shaky laugh. But I saw the worry in his eyes.
One night, after the final prayer, I stayed behind in the chapel, whispering a prayer for courage in the flickering light of the candles. When I opened my eyes, I saw a figure standing at the back. It wore a white robe, tall and still. My heart leapt, thinking it was Father Gabriel. But when I looked closer, I saw it had no face, just a smooth, pale shape where eyes and mouth should have been. In a blink, it was gone, leaving only the hush of the chapel and the echo of my heartbeat.
I didn’t tell anyone. Some things are meant to stay in the quiet places of the heart.
On our last night, we gathered around a small fire outside, the air rich with the smell of pine and smoke. One by one, we spoke of how we had found God’s hand in the smallest things and in the stillness of morning, in the laughter of friends, in the courage to face what scared us most.
When it was my turn, I shared that I had come to the retreat looking for answers, but I had found something deeper: the certainty that I was not alone. Even in the silence, God was there, a steady flame in the darkness.
The final morning dawned bright and clear. As we packed up and loaded the van, I paused to take one last photo of the house, its windows bathed in golden light. In one of the upper windows, I saw a shadowy figure watching us. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, or maybe it was a final reminder of the mysteries that dwell in quiet places.
I remembered one last moment before we left: I had gone back inside to check for anything we might have left behind. I called out for Leo, thinking he might still be in bed. In one of the rooms, I saw someone lying there, facing away from me. “Leo, we’re leaving,” I said softly. No response. I reached out, my fingers brushing cold air. When I turned, Leo was already outside, laughing in the sun.
I didn’t say anything. I simply prayed for peace in my heart.
Since then, I have learned that even in the holiest places, shadows can linger. A priest once told me, “Faith doesn’t chase away the darkness, it teaches us how to see the light in spite of it.” That’s what I carried home with me. That even in the most silent halls and shifting shadows, God’s light shines brighter still.
Whenever doubt tries to creep in, I remember those days in the hills. I remember the warmth of candlelight, the soft hush of dawn, and the unwavering truth that we are never alone. Because in the end—whether we find ourselves in a place of perfect peace or facing whispers in the dark and God is always with us. His presence is stronger than any fear.
And in that truth, there is nothing to fear at all.
