In the summer of 2018, I was asked to be the Rector on Long Island Tres Dias (LITD) Men’s Weekend #85. I was honored to be selected; I prayed and said Yes!

During the next few months, I went through the process of team selection. My team was in place, and I was excited to see how God would use them. God put on my heart the desire for Unity in the Church. The Weekend verse was selected (Ps.133:1)

The meetings took place, and all went well. This would be the last retreat weekend at Montfort Seminary in Bayshore. The property was being sold at the end of 2019. We have been using Montfort for our retreats since the beginning of LITD’s existence. That was 40 years! This weekend was the very last weekend at the camp.

The retreat finally arrived; the 8 candidates were excited. The weekend started well. As the weekend progressed, I could see that the candidates were being touched by the Holy Spirit.

All continued to progress. Except I wasn’t feeling well after Friday dinner and during the evening chapel I asked my assistant to cover for me. I left and got very sick.

Thinking it would pass, I laid down. Two of the guys, one team member and one candidate, were EMTs and knew that I wasn’t going to get better. They wanted me to go to the hospital. I initially resisted, but they convinced me to go to the ER.

I was in the ER for the night and most of Saturday. My lead Spiritual Advisor came for a visit to check in on me, and to pray, and let me know how the weekend was going. During this time several tests were performed. They put me on IV antibiotics. They said I had sepsis. Which can be fatal. I kept praying.

That evening, our Head Spiritual Advisor came by. He shared that a lot of prayer was going up for me and he also prayed with me. I felt a peace that everything was going to be ok. I didn’t get much sleep that night, so, when they brought breakfast around on Sunday morning, I told them to leave it. My roommate was sleeping so I took advantage and went to sleep also, but sleep was not to be on my schedule.

Some communities have Serenades, where the community comes in and sings to those on the weekend during Saturday dinner. Our community does Mañanitas. The community comes in during Sunday morning chapel and sings a specific song, gives a bouquet of carnations, and then leaves. I was going to miss the last Mananita at Montfort.

But God had other plans. In my sleepy haze I started to hear humming coming from down the hall and a few minutes later 6 ladies from the community who were at the Mañanita sang for me and gave me the carnations! I was tearing up the whole time. Five ladies came in, the sixth one was my sister facetiming with one of the other ladies. This absolutely blew me away. I gave the Carnations to the nursing staff!

I didn’t give my rollo, one of the other team members did it for me. I couldn’t attend the closing, so I didn’t hear the testimonies, the weekend song, and certainly not the final time in Montfort’s chapel.

Monday, after the weekend was over. I was both blessed and a little depressed that I didn’t have the opportunity to complete my rector experience. The other Spiritual Advisor came to visit me and talked about how the weekend went. While he was there, the Infectious Disease specialist came in to give me the results of all the tests they took. He said, “I’m taking you off the antibiotic, YOU HAD FOOD POISONING!” 

I can’t say enough about my team, God’s team. They all stepped up. I am very proud of all of them. In speaking with the President of LITD, he said that since I didn’t get to finish the weekend, he would support me being rector again at some future date. Montfort did not charge us for the weekend. That was completely unexpected and a blessing.  De Colores!

By Joseph Ambrose

LITD Men’s #65
RECTOR Men’s #85