Do I need a retreat?

- Sister Mary Christabel, CHS

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The answer to that question is a resounding YES! These days most of us live far too frantic lives to pay much, if any, attention to what goes on inside our hearts.  We simply have too many demands and interruptions.  We are busier than we should be and we have lost the knack of saying   “No,” or “Sorry,” “Can’t fit into my schedule”  

To go on a retreat is to challenge all these demands and interruptions in our lives; to get our lives back on track as children of God.  A retreat provides us with time and a calm space to breathe, relax, listen to, and cooperate with God.  Sometimes there is a retreat conductor to help facilitate this process.

Jesus needed time to himself and we do, too.  We all need time to meet the God who loves us, and yearns to be close with us.  God is always present, always yearning, always seeking to attract our attention. God puts all kinds of clues out there for us to notice and God calls us to respond.  God is always inviting us into a deeper relationship.  God loves us and yearns for that love to be noticed and God longs to be loved back.  God knows us intimately; right down to the deepest parts of us, which we do not even know exist. 

God offers this intimacy all the time, if we pay attention.  That is hard to do but retreat is exactly the place to open up our hearts, and focus our attention – to set aside the distractedness that we live with too much of the time.

What do we do on retreat?

The first thing we do is to relax, and turn off our “get it done” engine.  We can begin to notice what is around.  Most retreats take place in the country, but even in the city there is usually a park nearby. There we can notice what God has done.  Open our eyes.  Hear a bird song.  Let your own heart sing, and hear it sing.

Do something creative.  Have you tried to sketch?  Paint?  Knit?   Have you tried to do a journal?  Write a poem? Read, but not too much; read a little, put the book down in your lap, brood…

All these things provide opportunities for a new thing to happen in you for they can speak to depths that are new for you to discover, that are revealed to you by God.  The psalms are good for this.  Listen to psalm 42: “As the deer longs for the water brooks, so longs my soul for you.  O God.  My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God.”  

Do these words speak from your heart?  For God loves us totally, and longs for us to notice God’s love and respond to it.   In retreat, we have a golden opportunity to return that love and to begin again, or for the first time.