There seems to be a lot of confusion and, in many cases, violations of the Essentials related to this practice, so let’s talk about it.

ROLLO OVERVIEW:  The “Living the 4^th Day” Rollo is the very last talk of the weekend.  It’s given by the rector, typically on Sunday just before everyone prepares for the Apostolic Hour and Closing.  By this time, the candidates have heard all of the talks and are likely on sensory overload from all they’ve experienced.  The purpose of this talk is to briefly (20 minutes) wrap up the weekend experience by encouraging the candidates to personally evaluate any changes they’ve experienced in their relationship with Jesus & others.  In addition, the talk provides some guidance to engaging with their 4^th Day as well as what they should share about Tres Dias, keeping in mind that there are NO SECRETS.  In other words, it’s the culmination of the Tres Dias Method to prepare candidates for their 4^th Day.

IMPORTANT:  Given the above, the ultimate goals of this final rollo are three-fold; encouraging the candidates to:

• Become involved in their local church as servant-leaders
• Stay connected to their Christian community, including Tres Dias
• Join or form a Reunion Group for personal growth and accountability

As the candidates wrap up their experience, they should leave with a sense of excitement  and victory about achieving these goals.  In other words, it’s a positive, yet challenging, straight-forward rollo with specific objectives that make sense with the flow of the weekend and the ultimate goal of the Tres Dias Method.  The talk should not be diluted with unrelated information.

SO WHERE DOES THE SPOUSAL TALK FIT IN?

HISTORY:  Well, the history of the spousal portion of the talk began innocently in the very early weekends in Mid-Hudson Tres Dias, the founding community.  At some point in the early years, a decision was made to have the male rector’s wife join him in the rollo to give a wife’s perspective of how to return home.  Basically, she would speak for about 5 minutes and, in effect, say something like “When you go home tonight, realize that your wife has been spending this weekend dealing with the kids, errands, laundry, etc while you’ve been on your mountaintop experience.  In other words, be sensitive to her needs when you go home this evening.”  And she might throw in a quick story about how her husband didn’t do that. 😊

It was about 5 minutes long dealing solely with the section of the outline that discusses what to share about the weekend.  And it only occurred on the men’s weekends since it wouldn’t apply to the women as their husbands would already have attended.

It was a practice that never should have started because it was a clear violation of the cloister, but no one really gave it a lot of thought at the time.

WHERE IT IS TODAY:  From that beginning (5 minutes of the rector’s 20 minute talk) it has morphed into what I call a “Cottage Industry.”  Many communities now encourage the rector’s wife to come and give a prolonged (30-45 minute) talk about issues such as how husbands should treat their wives and other relational issues not related to the purpose of the talk.  In addition, husbands of female rectors are encouraged to participate with their own lengthy talks.

Not only do these practices clearly violate the Cloister, they also detract from the critical goals of the rollo by re-focusing the attention of candidates to other areas.  It creates a distraction and perhaps confusion at a vulnerable point in the weekend where we want them to be focusing on their 4^th Day.

Because these actions are so egregious, the Policy Committee of the International Secretariat issued guidance on the issue in the 2017 Position Paper titled “Review of the Cloister as it Applies to a Tres Dias Weekend.”   The Committee would have preferred to completely eliminate the practice since it’s such a serious violation of the Essentials and corruption of the purpose of the Rollo.  However, since it’s so ingrained in the practice of most communities going back to the earliest weekends, it was decided to allow it as an exception, provided the following criteria are met:

• The exception only applies to the Rector’s spouse.
• The subject matter must be limited to information listed under Section II of the Rollo outline titled “What to share regarding your Tres Dias Weekend.”
• Since it is part of the rollo, the spouse’s presentation as well as the rector’s portion must be critiqued by the team, as is required of all rollos.
• This presentation shall not exceed 5 minutes of the allotted time for the rollo, and shall not cause the rollo to exceed the allotted time of 20 minutes as noted in the ‘Purpose and Situation” of the rollo
• Most recently, the Policy Committee has issued a directive advising that, because this is a LAY rollo, spouses who are Spiritual Directors are not permitted to participate.  Failure to adhere to any of the above is considered a violation of the Essentials!

In case you’re interested, Mid-Hudson Tres Dias, the ones who started the practice, have since removed it as an option for their rectors.

MY QUESTION TO COMMUNITY LEADERS:  I trust that you now understand that this rollo is critical in wrapping up the weekend by focusing the candidates on the desired outcome of Tres Dias.  Knowing this, I must ask two rhetorical questions:

• Knowing that this practice violates the cloister AND violates the intent of the Essentials at this point in the weekend:  Are you able to justify, genuinely and in good faith, continuing the practice even if it is a long-standing tradition that’s favored by team members?
• Would you be willing to put a stop to the practice, even if your community wouldn’t necessarily be happy with your decision?

I trust you found this information insightful and I hope you’ll seriously consider acting on it.

I’ll be happy to engage any questions or, even, justifications.  Let me know your experiences and take-aways by joining me on our Private Facebook Page so we can continue the conversation.

Until next month,

De Colores!

Jeff Mehl
President
Tres Dias International