• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Wednesday, March 29, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Father Timothy Gollob

Father Gollob: Thoughts on finding inscape at diocesan formation center

Friday, February 21, 2020

By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic

The Diocese of Dallas has a wonderful facility, the Catholic Formation Center, right off Interstate Highway 35 and Zang Boulevard in Oak Cliff. Here many retreats, conferences and meetings are held each week.

Recently, it was my privilege and joy to be asked to hear confessions and to celebrate Mass for a group of good ladies during an ACTS (Adoration, Community, Theology, Service) retreat. In some of the spare moments while things were being organized, I was able to meditate on some of the venues of the center.

As I have been studying the prose and poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, first as a theologian in Rome and now as a thoughtful elder, it entered my imagination to study the formation center with the insights he had labeled “inscape” and “instress.”

Inscape was abundant in the chapel with the Byzantine icons and candles flaring in the darkness while a storm crashed nosily outside.

Inscape was rampant in the kitchen and dining area with the tables spic and span and the wonderful smell of brewing coffee.

Inscape was stationed all over the halls and rooms in the guise of Western artifacts and indigenous pictures. Former Texas Catholic editor and Dallas diocesan archivist Steve Landregan’s book, “Catholic Texans, Our Family Album,” captured my rapt attention.

Inscape was in the guest room where there was a bowl containing an apple, a banana and a welcome card, which announced “Peace is not the absence of trouble — but the presence of Christ!”

I was overwhelmed with my soul full of instress despite a bit of chatter, no clocks and a need for a cup of morning coffee. Gerard Manley Hopkins would have been inspired and delighted.

How about your group checking out this beautiful landscape and inscape?

Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.

  • Tags
  • Columnists
  • Faith
  • Father Timothy Gollob
  • The Texas Catholic
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article Drawn To Success at Cristo Rey
Previous article Vietnamese priest serves villagers quarantined for coronavirus

Related Posts

Father Esposito: Happiness as the blessed life Columnists
Friday, March 10, 2023

Father Esposito: Happiness as the blessed life

Father Dankasa: Two voices in one Columnists
Thursday, March 9, 2023

Father Dankasa: Two voices in one

Prayerfully using Lenten seeds for Easter growth Columnists
Friday, March 3, 2023

Prayerfully using Lenten seeds for Easter growth

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.