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| St. Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises: History & Background | The Spiritual Exercises Welcome Page, Guide & Introduction |
| SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK ONE | SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK TWO |
| SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK THREE | SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK FOUR |
| St. Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises: History & Background | The Spiritual Exercises Welcome Page, Guide & Introduction |
| SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK ONE | SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK TWO |
| SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK THREE | SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR WEEK FOUR |
Quotes of St. Ignatius of Loyola
“Go forth and set the world on fire.”
“Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God.”
“Love is shown more in deeds than in words.”
“To give, and not to count the cost. To fight, and not to heed the wounds. To toil, and not to seek for rest.
To labor, and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will”
“Go forth and set the world on fire.”
“Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God.”
“Love is shown more in deeds than in words.”
“To give, and not to count the cost. To fight, and not to heed the wounds. To toil, and not to seek for rest.
To labor, and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will”
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1. The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
2. The Benefits of a Spiritual Retreat
3. Making a "Home Retreat"
4. The Pros and Cons of a Home Retreat
5. How to Prepare for a Home Retreat
1. The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
2. The Benefits of a Spiritual Retreat
3. Making a "Home Retreat"
4. The Pros and Cons of a Home Retreat
5. How to Prepare for a Home Retreat
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IGNATIUS THE MAN
Íñigo López de Loyola (he would only take on the Latinized name of “Ignatius” later in life) was born in the municipality of Azpeitia at the castle of Loyola in today's Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. He was baptized Íñigo, after St. Enecus (Innicus) The Basque language has it as Eneko; the Spanish name is Íñigo. St. Enecus was Abbot of Oña, a medieval Basque name which perhaps means “My little one”. It is not clear when he began using the Latin name “Ignatius” instead of his baptismal name “Íñigo”. It seems he did not intend to change his name, but rather adopted a name which he believed was a simple variant of his own, for use in France and Italy where it was better understood. From here on, in this article, we will call him by the name we all know, Ignatius.
Ignatius was the youngest of thirteen children. His mother died soon after his birth, and he was then brought up by María de Garín, the local blacksmith's wife. Ignatius adopted the surname “de Loyola” in reference to the Basque village of Loyola where he was born. Military Career As a boy Ignatius became a page in the service of a relative, Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, treasurer (contador mayor) of the kingdom of Castile. As a young man Ignatius had a great love for military exercises as well as a tremendous desire for fame. He framed his life around the stories of El Cid, the knights of Camelot, and the Song of Roland. He joined the army at seventeen, and according to one biographer, he strutted about “with his cape slinging open to reveal his tight-fitting hose and boots; a sword and dagger at his waist.” According to another he was “a fancy dresser, an expert dancer, a womanizer, sensitive to insult, and a rough punkish swordsman who used his privileged status to escape prosecution for violent crimes committed with his priest brother at carnival time.” Upon encountering a Moor who denied the divinity of Jesus, he challenged him to a duel to the death, and ran him through with his sword. He dueled many other men as well. In 1509, at the age of 18, Ignatius took up arms for Antonio Manrique de Lara, Duke of Nájera. His diplomacy and leadership qualities earned him the title “servant of the court”, which made him very useful to the Duke. Under the Duke's leadership, Ignatius participated in many battles without injury. But at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521 he was gravely injured when a French-Navarrese expedition force stormed the fortress of Pamplona on May 20, 1521. A cannonball hit him in the legs, wounding his right leg and fracturing the left in multiple places. Ignatius was returned to his father's castle in Loyola, where, in an era that knew nothing of anesthetics, he underwent several surgical operations to repair his legs, having the bones set and then rebroken. In the end these operations left one leg shorter than the other: Ignatius would limp for the rest of his life, and his military career was ended. Religious Conversion and Visions During his recovery from surgery, Ignatius underwent a spiritual conversion which led to his experiencing a call to religious life. Hospitals in those days were run by religious orders, and the reading material available to bedridden patient tended to be selected from scripture or devotional literature. This is how Ignatius came to read a series of religious texts on the life of Jesus and on the lives of the saints. In the months following his surgery,Ignatius wanted to read stories of the knights and romances, but the only books available were on the lives of the saints and the life of Christ. In finally deciding to read those books, Ignatius slowly came to realize that his old life did not hold the same appeal. That led him to decide to give his own life over to the service of Jesus. He left his family home on a pilgrimage that, over several years, led to an even deeper conversion. His insights and first writings from this period evolved into the Spiritual Exercises, through which he made available for others the experiences of prayer that had led him to deeper union with God. The work which most particularly struck him was the De Vita Christi (The Life of Christ) of Ludolph of Saxony. This book would influence his whole life, inspiring him to devote himself to God and follow the example of St. Francis of Assisi and other great monks. It also inspired his method of meditation, since Ludolph proposes that the reader place himself mentally at the scene of the Gospel story, visualizing the crib at the Nativity, etc. This type of meditation, known as "Simple Contemplation", was the basis for the method that Ignatius would promote in his Spiritual Exercises. While still convalescing, Ignatius resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to the conversion of Infidels in the Holy Land. In March 1522 he had recovered sufficiently to walk again, and he visited the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, where, during an overnight vigil at the shrine, he experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. He then hung his sword and dagger before the statue of the Virgin. From Montserrat he walked on to the nearby town of Manresa (in Catalonia), where he lived for about a year, begging for his keep, and then eventually doing chores at a local hospital in exchange for food and lodging. For several months he spent much of his time praying in a cave nearby where he practiced rigorous asceticism, praying for seven hours a day, and formulating the fundamentals of his Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius also experienced a series of visions in full daylight while at the hospital. These repetitive visions appeared as “a form in the air near him and this form gave him much consolation because it was exceedingly beautiful ... it somehow seemed to have the shape of a serpent and had many things that shone like eyes, but were not eyes. He received much delight and consolation from gazing upon this object ... but when the object vanished he became disconsolate.” (Jean Lacouture, Jesuits, A Multibiography).He came to interpret this vision as diabolical in nature. Period of Study In September 1523, Ignatius made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the goal of settling there. He remained there from September 3 to 23 but he was sent back to Europe by the Franciscans. He returned to Barcelona and at the age of thirty-three began to attend a free public grammar school to prepare himself for entrance to a university. When his preparation was complete, he then went on to the University of Alcalá, where he studied Theology and Latin from 1524 and 1534. There he encountered some women who had been called before the Inquisition. These women were considered alumbrados (Illuminated, or Enlightened Ones) – a group that was linked in their zeal and spirituality to Franciscan reforms, but had incurred mounting suspicion on the part of the administrators of the Inquisition. At one point, Ignatius was preaching on the street when three of these devout women began to experience ecstatic states. One fell senseless, another sometimes rolled about on the ground, another had been seen in the grip of convulsions or shuddering and sweating in anguish. This suspicious activity had taken place while Ignatius was preaching without a degree in theology. Ignatius was then singled out for interrogation by the Inquisition; however, he was later released. After these adventurous activities,Ignatius moved to Paris to study at the famous University. He studied at the ascetical Collège de Montaigu, where he remained for over seven years. He arrived during a period of anti-Protestant turmoil which forced John Calvin to flee France. Very soon after his arrival Ignatius had gathered around him six key companions, all of whom he had met as fellow students at the University—Francis Xavier, Alfonso Salmeron, Diego Laynez, and Nicholas Bobadilla, all Spanish; Peter Faber, a Savoyard; and Simão Rodrigues of Portugal. Peter Faber, a young man from Savoy in the south of France, and Francis Xavier, a nobleman from the eastern end of the Basque country, were his first roommates, and would become his closest associates in founding the Jesuit order. On the morning of the 15th of August, 1534, in the chapel of church of Saint Peter, at Montmartre, Loyola and his six companions, of whom only one was a priest, met and took upon themselves the solemn vows of their lifelong work. Later, they were joined by Saint Francis Borgia, a member of the House of Borgia, who was the main aide of Emperor Charles V, and other nobles. Ignatius obtained a master's degree from the University of Paris at the age of forty-three. In later life he was often called “Master Ignatius” because of this. Foundation Of The Jesuit Order In 1539, with Saint Peter Faber and Saint Francis Xavier, Ignatius formed the Society of Jesus, which was approved in 1540 by Pope Paul III. Ignatius was chosen as the first Superior General of the order and invested with the title of Father General by the Jesuits. Ignatius sent his companions as missionaries around Europe to create schools, colleges, and seminaries. Juan de Vega, the ambassador of Charles V at Rome, met Ignatius there. Esteeming Ignatius and the Jesuits, when Vega was appointed Viceroy of Sicily, he brought Jesuits with him. A Jesuit college was opened at Messina, which proved a success, and its rules and methods were afterwards copied in other colleges. Rome Examines the “Spiritual Exercises” In 1548 Ignatius was briefly brought before the Roman Inquisition for examination of his book of Spiritual Exercises. But he was released and the book was finally given papal permission to be printed. It was published in a format such that the exercises were designed to be carried out over a period of 28–30 days. Constitutions or Rules for Jesuits Ignatius, along with the help of his personal secretary Juan Alfonso de Polanco wrote the Jesuit Constitutions, adopted in 1554, which created a monarchical organization for the order, and stressed absolute self-denial and obedience to the Pope and to superiors in the Catholic hierarchy, using the motto perinde ac cadaver – “as if a dead body”, i.e. that the good Jesuit should be as well-disciplined as a corpse. But his main principle became the Jesuit motto: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (“for the greater glory of God”). During the years 1553–1555, Ignatius dictated his autobiography to his secretary, Father Gonçalves da Câmara. This autobiography is a valuable key for understanding his Spiritual Exercises. It was kept in the archives of the Jesuit order for about 150 years, until the Bollandists published the text in Acta Sanctorum (The Acts or Lives of the Saints). |
PART ONE
THE IGNATIAN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES It is a well-known fact that we need exercise to maintain our physical health. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) recognized the need for exercise in order to maintain our spiritual health as well. In fact, around the years 1522-1524, St. Ignatius composed a retreat handbook entitled Spiritual Exercises.
Medicine and Meditation, Convalescence and Contemplation During his long and painful recovery from being wounded in battle during the Siege of Pamplona in 1521, Ignatius Loyola, the soldier, experienced a conversion. While recuperating, he could do little else but read. The books he wanted to read were unavailable and he was instead given books on the saints. Reading the lives of Jesus and the saints made Ignatius happy and aroused desires to do great things. Ignatius realized that these feelings were clues to God’s direction for him. He reflected deeply on his ultimate desires, learning to discern between desires that were grounded in vanity and those that were grounded in holiness. Time For A Retreat After recovering from a leg wound incurred, Ignatius made a retreat with the Benedictine monks at their abbey high on Montserrat in Catalonia, northern Spain, where he hung up his sword before the statue of the Virgin of Montserrat. The monks introduced him to the spiritual exercises of Garcia de Cisneros, which were based in large part on the teachings of the Brothers of the Common Life, the promoters of the "devotio moderna". Ignatius the Caveman From Montserrat, he left for Barcelona but took a detour through the town of Manresa, where he eventually remained for several months, continuing his convalescence at a local hospital. During this time he discovered The Imitation of Christ of Thomas à Kempis, the crown jewel of the "devotio moderna", which, unlike the focus on labor in the Lord's vineyard which Ignatius will give to his Constitutions, gave little grounding for an apostolic spirituality. He also spent much of his time praying in a cave nearby, where he practiced rigorous asceticism. During this time Ignatius experienced a series of visions, and formulated the fundamentals of his Spiritual Exercises. He would later refine and complete the Exercises when he was a student in Paris. After coming face to face with his own sinfulness and God’s grace and mercy, and having left behind his life as a soldier and dedicated his life to God, Ignatius concluded that this personal experience of God could be experienced by all people through the practice of the spiritual exercises he himself had engaged in. He would now fight to conquer souls for God and lead them captive to Heaven! The result, of course, is the book of Spiritual Exercises, designed to help people to experience a deepening experience of God in their daily lives. Ideas Take Shape The sources of the book are the Sacred Scriptures and the experiences of spiritual life. Ignatius indeed was little by little prepared by Divine Providence to write his book. From 1521 the thoughts which preceded his conversion, the progress of his repentance, the pious practices which he embraced at Montserrat and at Manresa, all helped to give him a knowledge of asceticism (spiritual exercising). His book is a work lived by himself and later on lived by others under his eyes. But a book so lived is not composed all at once; it requires to be retouched, corrected, and added to frequently. These improvements are revealed by a simple examination of the Spanish text, where along with the Castilian there are found Latin or Italian expressions together with Scholastic terms which the writer could not have used before, at least, the beginning of his later studies. St. Ignatius himself admitted this to Father Luis Gonzales: “I did not compose the Exercises all at once. When anything resulting from my own experience seemed to me likely to be of use to others, I took note of it”. Father Nadal, Ignatius's friend and contemporary, writes of the final redaction: “After having completed his studies, the author united his first attempts of the Exercises, made many additions, put all in order, and presented his work for the examination and judgment of the Apostolic See.” Did Our Lady Help Ignatius With the Spiritual Exercises? Another tradition concerns the part taken by the Blessed Virgin in the composing of the “Exercises” at Manresa. It is not based on any written testimony of the contemporaries of St. Ignatius, though it became universal in the seventeenth century. Possibly it is founded upon earlier oral testimony, and upon a revelation made in 1600 to the Venerable Marina de Escobar and related in The Life of Father Balthazar Alvarez. This tradition has often been symbolized by painters, who represent Ignatius writing from the Blessed Virgin's dictation. Practice Makes Perfect Over the years, Ignatius became expert in the art of spiritual direction. He collected his insights, prayers, and suggestions in his book the Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential books on the spiritual life ever written. With a small group of friends, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. Ignatius conceived the Jesuits as “contemplatives in action.” This also describes the many Christians who have been influenced by Ignatian spirituality. The Spiritual Exercises grew out of Ignatius Loyola’s personal experience as a man seeking to grow in union with God and to discern God’s will. He kept a journal as he gained spiritual insight and deepened his spiritual experience. He added to these notes as he directed other people and discovered what “worked.” Eventually Ignatius gathered these prayers, meditations, reflections, and directions into a carefully designed framework of a retreat, which he called “spiritual exercises.” Ignatius wrote that the Exercises: “have as their purpose the conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.” He wanted individuals to undertake these exercises with the assistance of an experienced spiritual director who would help them shape the retreat and understand what they were experiencing. The book of Spiritual Exercises is a handbook to be used by the director, not by the person making the retreat. Don’t Just Read Them, Do Them! While the Spiritual Exercises is a book, it is also a series of exercises developed by a man who believed that stretching oneself spiritually is as important as an athlete's conditioning routine. It is not just about knowing, but doing—as Holy Scripture tells us: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work; this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:22-25). The object of the exercises is to help people develop their awareness, their attentiveness, their openness, and their responsiveness to God. In other words, the exercises embody the characteristic themes of Ignatian spirituality. The Structure of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises Ignatius organized the Spiritual Exercises into four “weeks”―in a very broad sense. These are not strictly seven-day weeks, but four stages or periods on a journey to spiritual freedom and wholehearted commitment to the service of God. Jesuits do the exercises in literally four weeks, during what is known as the 30-day retreat or simply "The Long Retreat." And they do so typically at a retreat house with a spiritual director. But with the growing interest in Ignatian spirituality, many people are practicing the Exercises in other ways. When St. Ignatius Loyola designed the Spiritual Exercises, he built into them a flexibility so that as many people as possible could do them. He conceived them as a 30-day retreat but he recognized that many people, even in the 16th century, could not step out of their lives for 30 days given to silence, prayer and meditation. To respond to this need, he created the 19th annotation―an adaptation of the Exercises that is spread out over a much longer period of time so that participants could maintain their commitments to work and family while seeking God in prayer and silence. One popular version is known as the "Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life," which someone can do while continuing his or her daily responsibilities. This approach (which Ignatius spelled out in his manual) often involves an hour each day of prayer and reflection for several months, with regular guidance from a spiritual director. This period of time usually takes anywhere from 7 to 9 months, where one hour is dedicated to following the retreat every single day throughout all those months, in addition to a weekly meeting with the spiritual director. Some persons manage to do just 30 days, giving several hours a day to their "Home Retreat". The most common way for laypersons to go through the Exercises is this “retreat in daily life”―though it is not the best way to make the retreat. The influence of the world dilutes much of the good that could be done. There is no better way to make the retreat than to do the full 30-Day Retreat in silence and solitude. This allows the work of the Holy Ghost to take place unimpeded and without distractions. However, before making a 30-Day Retreat, it is recommended a person acclimatize by making a shorter Ignatian Retreat—such as the 3-day, 4-Day, 5-Day, or 8-Day, or 10-Day Ignatian Retreat. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius form the cornerstone of Ignatian Spirituality: a way of understanding and living one's relationship with God in the world as practiced by members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Exercises were designed to be carried out while under the guidance of a spiritual director, but they were never meant only for monks or priests: Ignatius gave the Exercises for 15 years before he was ordained, and years before the Society of Jesus was founded. He saw them as an instrument for bringing about a conversion or change of heart, in the Reformation times in which he lived. After the Society of Jesus was formed, the Exercises became the central component of its training program. They usually take place during the first year of a two-year novitiate and during a final year of spiritual studies after ordination to the priesthood. The Exercises have also impacted the founders of other religious orders, even becoming central to their work. Ignatius considered the examen, or spiritual self-review, to be the most important way to continue to live out the experience of the Exercises after their completion. The Four ‘Weeks’ FIRST WEEK. The first week of the Exercises is a time of reflection on our lives in light of God’s boundless love for us. We see that our response to God’s love has been hindered by patterns of sin. We face these sins knowing that God wants to free us of everything that gets in the way of our loving response to him. The first week ends with a meditation on Christ’s call to follow Him. SECOND WEEK. The meditations and prayers of the second week teach us how to follow Christ as His disciples. We reflect on Scripture passages: Christ’s birth and baptism, His sermon on the mount, His ministry of healing and teaching, His raising Lazarus from the dead. We are brought to decisions to change our lives to do Christ’s work in the world and to love Him more intimately. THIRD WEEK. We meditate on Christ’s Last Supper, passion, and death. We see His suffering and the gift of the Eucharist as the ultimate expression of God’s love. FOURTH WEEK. We meditate on Jesus’ resurrection and His apparitions to His disciples. We walk with the risen Christ and set out to love and serve Him in concrete ways in our lives in the world. PART TWO
THE BENEFITS OF A SPIRITUAL RETREAT The Immeasurable Value of Retreat
People focus far more on the health of the body than the health of soul. They spend far more money on the health or beauty of the body than they spend on the health and beauty of their soul. A retreat refreshes and revitalizes, gives the opportunity for more time spent in prayer and contemplation, and rekindles and deepens one’s relationship with God. One may take this opportunity to more clearly hear God’s call and to seek God’s healing grace and thereby attain a degree of spiritual renewal. The purpose of a spiritual retreat, as an addition to daily spiritual activities, is to temporarily leave behind the usual distractions we all face for a time long enough to allow relaxation and for an inner change to occur: the ongoing conversion of heart that is critical to deepening faith. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the necessity of such retreats: “In the fever and agitation of modern life, the need of meditation and spiritual repose, impresses itself on Christian souls, who desire to reflect on their eternal destiny, and direct their life in this world towards God.” Yet, it is not only modern life that sends us forth to a period of quiet contemplation. A scriptural basis for understanding the importance of retreat that long preceded the modern world is easily found. We can turn to Jesus’ actions and his suggestions to others as transmitted in the Gospel accounts. Near the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, this is relayed: “And rising very early, going out, Jesus went into a desert place and there he prayed. And Simon, and they that were with him, followed after Him. And when they had found Him, they said to him: ‘All seek thee!’” (Mark 1: 35–37) “And when it was day, going out, He went into a desert place, and the multitudes sought Him” (Luke 4:42). He undertook his solitary respite, not when there were no other important matters to tend to, but because of the essential need to make time for prayer, despite all the things to be done. Sometimes Jesus would spend an entire night in retreat: “It came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12). We also see Jesus making the Apostles go on retreat: “The Apostles, coming together unto Jesus, related to him all things that they had done and taught. And He said to them: ‘Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little!’ For there were many coming and going, and they had not so much as time to eat. And going up into a ship, they went into a desert place apart” (Mark 6:30-32) No doubt, the Apostles were energized by the response of the crowds they encountered, but they still needed a chance to recharge themselves interiorly and spiritually before carrying on with their external work. The Models of Retreat The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass serves as a fundamental model of retreat, though on a smaller time scale. We leave the world to enter the church (which is the deserted place compared to the busy surroundings) for prayer, contemplation, hearing the Word of God, lifting up our hearts to the Lord, and receiving the spiritual nourishment of the Holy Eucharist. We are dismissed from the Mass to go out and serve God in our daily lives, having replenished our spiritual reserves by retreating from the world. In addition to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there are brief respites from the burdens of daily life that we may experience―in praying the Rosary, spending an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, praying the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office), reading Holy Scripture, sitting in meditation and contemplation, or enjoying God’s creation by walking a nature trail absorbed in spiritual thoughts. When one thinks of going on a retreat, this is to be done for the purpose of pursuing the same basic respite but more sustained and profoundly invigorating: an extended and focused spiritual endeavor, whether for a day, a weekend, or a week. The Ignatian Retreat One especially useful model for the fullness of retreat, is found embodied in the recommendations of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556; founder of the Society of Jesus) for spiritual exercises undertaken over a period of 30 days. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola are a month-long program of meditations, prayers, considerations, and contemplative practices that help the Catholic Faith become more fully alive in the everyday life of contemporary people. They are a series of prayer exercises, thought processes, and examinations of consciousness and conscience, that are designed to help a retreatant (usually with the aid of a spiritual director) to experience a true and deeper conversion that leads into a deeper and more sincere life with God in Christ. The Ignatian Retreat is a particularly good “jump-start” for Beginners in the spiritual life—for it starts with the basic spiritual principles that cannot be neglected without there being a serious risk to a true spiritual life being successfully lived and the soul being eventually saved. There are other kinds of retreats that can benefit the soul once it is placed on the right path to salvation—but the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are a “no-frills” and basic introduction to the spiritual life and point the soul in the right direction with a minimum of fuss and with clear and simple instructions and principles. It is important to make sure that at the start of your journey that you are heading in the right direction. St. Thomas Aquinas says that if you are just one degree off-course at the start, then you will be many miles off-course after a short time into your journey. Christocentric—Focused on Christ Christ is our destination--“Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Spiritual Exercises are divided into a series of four weeks, which are really four “movements” or “stages” or “platforms”, each filled with accompanying prayer, visualizations, reflections, and spiritual exercises for each week, that have Christ and His life as their focal point. These four periods of time include consideration of God’s generosity and mercy and the complex reality of human sin; an imagining of the life and public ministry of Jesus, His proclamation of the Gospel, His sayings and parables, His teachings and His miracles; and of Jesus’ last days, His arrest and interrogation, whipping, public mockery, passion, crucifixion and death; and then, of Jesus’ Resurrection, His Ascension, and the pouring-forth of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and Christ’s continued life in the world through the Spirit today and in the Messianic People called and missioned to His cause…..we attempt to get out of God’s way in our hearts, to let God deepen our sense of interior spiritual freedom from the hero-system of popular secular society, and allow God’s own impelling Spirit to lead us in taking action, out of this new freedom, which is authentically emancipatory for other men and women. The Basic Elements of Retreat Retreats differ from conferences, seminars, and meetings in that the primary work is interior spiritual development through a prolonged period of reflection, rather than simply being exposed to information, techniques, and inspiration, then returned immediately to the daily routine. Conferences only take you so far—they give you information—whereas retreats take you further—by getting you to process and act upon that information. Many retreats may be organized around a presentation or series of presentations that ultimately help guide the participants for the remainder of their retreat time. We are not just in this world to merely KNOW things, but to use that knowledge as springboard to ACTION—whether that action be individual or social, interior or exterior. As the saying goes: “Ideas have consequences!” Yet most people today are full of ideas with little or no consequences. Julius Caesar’s famous phrase: “I came, I saw, I conquered!” (Veni, vidi, vici!) has, for modern man, become: “I came, I saw, I did nothing about it!” On the individual and personal plain, we see how pitiful our state of soul is, but we do nothing about it. On the social plain, we see how bad the world is, but we do nothing about it! “I came to the news, I read the news, I did nothing with that news!” St. James puts it this way: “If a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own face in a mirror. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was!” (James 1:23-24). Retreats are meant to help you look at yourself—be frightened at what you see—and then do something about it! It is knowledge that leads to action. Sometimes, conferences, seminars or workshops, with a religious theme, are described as retreats, but may lack the important elements of a full retreat environment―for a full retreat is designed to assist participants in deepening their relationship with God and improving their spiritual life. That type of event―a conference, seminar or workshop with a religious theme―might more accurately be called a “time of reflection” or “day of recollection” because it only spans a few hours of time and aids in grasping an important principle or two, while additional pursuits, such as meditation, contemplation, and prayer, would be important and would be needed for turning that into the full retreat experience. The conferences, seminars and workshops with a religious theme could be described to giving your car an oil-change, whereas the retreat gives your car a thorough overhaul with repairs. The oil-change is done within a day. The full overhaul and repairs can take many days. |
PART THREE
MAKING A HOME RETREAT
MAKING A HOME RETREAT
St. Ignatius Loyola designed the Spiritual Exercises to be flexible, so that as many people as possible could do them. He conceived them as a 30-day retreat, but he recognized that many people, even in the 16th century, could not step out of their lives for 30 days given to silence, prayer and meditation. To respond to this need, he created the 19th annotation to his retreat rules and recommendations―an adaptation of the Exercises that is spread out over a much longer period of time, so that participants could maintain their commitments to work and family, while at the same time seeking God in prayer and silence.
One popular version is known as the “Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life,” which someone can do while continuing his or her daily responsibilities. This approach (which Ignatius spelled out in his manual) often involves an hour or more, each day of the week, of prayer and reflection for several months, with regular guidance from a spiritual director.
This period of time usually takes anywhere from 7 to 9 months, where one hour or more hours are dedicated to following the retreat every single day throughout all those months, in addition to a weekly meeting with the spiritual director for guidance. Doing the math on the matter, we see that a retreat house 30-Day Retreat, that dedicates 10 hours a day to the retreat, produces a total of 300 to 360 hours over those 30 days. A “Home Retreat”―that gives one hour a day to spiritual matters―will produce (over 7 to 9 months) a total of 210 to 270 hours—thus still falling short of the 30-Day Retreat totals. However, some persons may only manage to do just one month at home (30 days), giving not just one, but several hours a day to their “Home Retreat”—which might give a total of anywhere from 60 hours for the month (2 hours a day) or 90 hours (3 hours a day) or 120 hours (4 hours days)—which still falls short of the 300 to 360 hours for a retreat house 30-Day Retreat.
Possibly—hopefully—this series of articles will eventually evolve into an online version of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises for home use—spanning a full 7 to 9 months. The only caveat or frightening aspect of this is the sheer volume of research and time that will have to spent on the matter, while keeping the rest of the website operation as usual. A second drawback can be the fact that what is acceptable, practical and pleasing for one person, may be unacceptable, impractical and displeasing to another person. One person’s preferred foods and diet is not another person’s preferred food and diet. That is why the words “possibly” and “hopefully” have been used. Yet, the interior life, or the spiritual life, is—as Our Lord said and as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange echoes—“The One Thing Necessary”.
“The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of―to Martha and Mary (Luke 10:41)―consists in hearing the word of God and living by it. The interior life thus conceived is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not. This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
It is your interior life—your spiritual life—that will decide you eternal destiny, and therefore it is more important and more necessary than your family life, your working life, your social life, your sporting life, your intellectual life, your artistic life, your scientific life, your political life, or your economic life. All of these alternatives are useless for salvation unless they are tied into and subjugated to your spiritual life.
SOME GUIDELINES BY AN OLD (LONG DECEASED) JESUIT PRIEST
The following brief thoughts and guidelines for a “Home Ignatian Retreat” were penned by an old Jesuit priest of the last century, who had studied in Rome and became a sworn enemy of Modernists and Liberals. He was known to be devoted to the Catholic practice of Eucharistic adoration, spending at least three hours a day praying before the Blessed Sacrament. At the end of his life he was persecuted by his Religious Order and forbidden to teach, because he was too conservative for his time.
How to Make a Thirty Day Private Retreat, Following the Spiritual Exercises
Already in the lifetime of St. Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises were made by people in the privacy of their homes.
In order to make the Exercises in their entirety, thirty full days should be given for the retreat. This means beginning the night before the first full day, and ending on the morning after the thirtieth day.
The Spiritual Exercises were written by St. Ignatius Loyola over a period of some ten years, from 1521 to 1533. They are based on three principal sources: Sacred Scripture, personal religious experience, and certain masters of the spiritual life, notably Thomas A. Kempis, the author of the Imitation of Christ.
The Exercises were first officially approved by Pope Paul III on July 31, 1548, exactly eight years to the day before the death of St. Ignatius.
Since then some forty Bishops of Rome have formally approved and praised the Exercises, and strongly recommended them for use by the faithful. In 1922, Pope Pius XI declared St. Ignatius the heavenly patron of all spiritual exercises and retreats.
St. Ignatius’ Exercises have thus become the Church's standard way for people in every state of life to grow in holiness and reach Christian perfection.
Basic Purpose and Structure
The fundamental purpose of the Exercises, in Ignatius' own words, is two-fold:
(a) To prepare and dispose the soul to free itself from all inordinate affections, and
(b) After it has freed itself from them, to seek and find the will of God concerning to ordering of life for the salvation of one's soul.
Each of these two ends of the Exercises is so important that they call for further explanation.
(a) Prepare and Dispose the Soul
On the premises of our Catholic Faith, we assume that we have a fallen human nature (Original Sin). We believe that, because of concupiscence, our minds have been darkened and our wills weakened by the fall.
Objectively speaking, God has made it clear that we are in this world to know, love and serve God, and thereby save our souls.
But subjectively, from the dawn of reason to the present moment, we know that we have not been as faithful to God's grace as we should have been. He provides the grace, indeed, but we must provide our voluntary cooperation with this grace.
Why have we not been as faithful to divine grace as we should have been? The fundamental reason is that our human wills have become more or less enslaved by inordinate affections and desires.
How can our affections and desires be inordinate? They can be inordinate when our spontaneous impulses are out of order. And they are out of order to the extent that our desires are not in conformity with the will of God for us. We have urges to do things that are forbidden by God, and urges to avoid doing things that are commanded by God.
Our prospect of reaching Heaven, and even of being truly happy here on earth, depends on the mastery we achieve over our natural impulses and desires. After all, it is one thing to have some inclination or desire. It is something quite else to first recognize whether the desire is morally good, and then to either resist the desire if it is bad or give in to the desire if it corresponds to God's will.
We return to the primary purpose of the Spiritual Exercises. Through them, we are to prepare and dispose our soul to free itself from all inordinate affections.
How do we free ourselves from all inordinate affections? In two ways: by enlightening the mind and by strengthening the will. Each of these ways corresponds to the two terms used by St. Ignatius when he says we are to prepare and dispose the soul.
We prepare the soul to free itself from disorderly affections by educating our mind to know what is God's will in my life, why I should do God's will, and how I am to conform my will to His.
In the light of the knowledge thus gained, we prepare our soul to be free to do the will of God. We are truly free in the depths of our soul only when we choose what is truly good for us. There are many spurious attractions that entice our wills, so we must know clearly, firmly and intelligently what we should choose, not what we would like to choose.
We dispose our soul to free it from disorderly affections by strengthening our will. Naturally speaking, what God wants us to do is not always what we want to do. If we are to follow God's will through life, our wills must be fortified. Our wills are fortified when they are strongly motivated. We must provide our wills with motives for doing the will of God. We must see the benefits that come from doing the will of God, even when it does not naturally appeal to us. And we must see the harm that comes from doing our own will instead of God's will, even when doing the divine will is naturally displeasing to us.
On both levels, of preparing and disposing our souls properly, we need much help from God. We need light for the mind and strength for the will. These are infallibly available in answer to prayer. That is why the Spiritual Exercises are especially thirty days of concentrated prayer. We are to beg God to show us, so we might know what obstacles stand in our spiritual life and to strengthen us, so we might be liberated from our disorderly affections.
(b) Seek and Find the Will of God
The second purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is to honestly seek the will Of God in our lives, and trust that by the end of the retreat we have found it.
This is not so obvious as may seem. One reason that many people never really find what God wants them to do is because they are not sincerely looking to discover the divine will in their lives.
The first purpose of the retreat must be kept in mind during the thirty days. I must keep preparing and disposing myself to be freed from inordinate affections. The more honest I am with myself in uprooting the obstacles to serving God, the more honest I will be with God in seeking His will for me--not only now or the near future, but until the end of my life on earth.
It is important to state here that to seek and find God's will for me I must rise above vague generalities. I should, by the end of the retreat, have come to some definite and specific conclusions.
One conclusion belongs to the essence of the Spiritual Exercises. I must see God's will for me as including some form of the apostolate. As St. Ignatius understood the spiritual life, he never separated personal holiness from zeal for souls.
So closely did he associate sanctity and the apostolate that the one stands or falls by the other. Unless I decide to cooperate with Christ in the salvation and sanctification of others, I am not really pursuing holiness as Christ and His Church have understood it for 1900 years.
What follows from this necessary relations between holiness and the apostolate? One consequence is that I must assume that God wants me to labor to save souls. During the retreat I should make this as definite as possible. I should not precisely decide whether God wants me to engage in apostolic labors. I should only decide how He wants me to be a channel of grace to others.
Some Practical Guidelines
(1) A private thirty-day retreat should be carefully planned. The following are some practical directives.
(2) Make a firm resolution at the beginning of the retreat to give as much time and attention to the Spiritual Exercises as your state of life, employment and other duties allow.
(3) Have a copy of the Spiritual Exercises available. Use the text of the Exercises as your principal guidelines during the retreat.
(4) Map out for each of the thirty days a theme for the day, and three specific meditations following that theme.
(5) Decide how many meditations you can reasonably make each day. At least one clock hour should be given to reflective meditation. You may, of course, spend more than one full hour a day in meditation. But then decide whether you will cover one, two or three of the meditation subjects during the day.
(6) It is wiser to know each day how much time you can give to meditation. The amount of time can change from one day to the next, but decide by the morning of each day how much meditation time you will devote for that day.
(7) Assist at Mass and receive Holy Communion each of the thirty days of the retreat.
(81) Prepare to make, before the end of the retreat, a more-or-less general confession. This need not be a general confession of your past life. But it should at least cover a sufficiently long period to provide you with an inventory of your moral life. It will also bring you special graces from God, not only during the retreat but for the rest of your life.
(9) Do some writing every day of the retreat. It may be only a few jottings or it may be a greater length. It is recommended that you make some record of the lights and inspirations that God gives you during the retreat. This writing may be part of the meditation itself, or it may be done separate from the meditations.
(10) You may, but you need not, tell others that you are making a retreat. Prudence may suggest that others, except members of the immediate family, not be told. Use your discretion.
(11) Within the limits of prudence and charity, it is recommended that during the retreat you keep more or less recollected than usual.
(12) Provided the Blessed Sacrament is available, spend whatever time you conveniently can before Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.
(13) Do not in any way curtail or neglect your regular duties. Learn to combine doing your ordinary work while remaining closely united with God.
(14) Do some spiritual reading daily. It may be directly connected with the retreat theme for the day, or it may be on some other subject that will help you in the spiritual life.
(15) It may be useful the night before to plan what you are going to specially meditate on and pray for on the next day.
Avoid such secular reading or entertainment as you can, which would interfere with a spirit of recollection. But remember, do not neglect any of your ordinary duties or responsibilities.
(16) If listening to some religious recordings would help, by all means use them. The same with conversation with others. Do not fail in the virtues of charity or justice towards others while you are making the Spiritual Exercises.
(17) Those making the Exercises may find spiritual benefit in contacting one another and, if they wish, sharing with one another whatever lights the Holy Spirit may give them during the retreat.
(18) If desired, the priest director can be available by telephone, briefly and occasionally, during the Exercises to assist those retreatants who may want some counsel.
(19) Recite the Rosary every day. Say the Angelus at least twice daily.
(20) Make an Examination of Conscience every day, and plan on doing so regularly after the retreat.
(21) Familiarize yourself with the book of the Spiritual Exercises so that you can better understand such areas as Discernment of Spirits, Rules for Thinking with the Church and the Three Methods of Prayer.
(22) Keep yourself in peace. The evil spirit may tempt you to worry or discouragement. Ignore these temptations.
(23) Plan, by the end of the retreat, to have made the retreat Election. In other words, with God's grace make some definite resolutions for the future as the focus of the Spiritual Exercises. Come to some clear decisions on God's will in your life, and tell Him you will do what He asks of you.
(24) The retreatants should pray for one another during these Spiritual Exercises.
One popular version is known as the “Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life,” which someone can do while continuing his or her daily responsibilities. This approach (which Ignatius spelled out in his manual) often involves an hour or more, each day of the week, of prayer and reflection for several months, with regular guidance from a spiritual director.
This period of time usually takes anywhere from 7 to 9 months, where one hour or more hours are dedicated to following the retreat every single day throughout all those months, in addition to a weekly meeting with the spiritual director for guidance. Doing the math on the matter, we see that a retreat house 30-Day Retreat, that dedicates 10 hours a day to the retreat, produces a total of 300 to 360 hours over those 30 days. A “Home Retreat”―that gives one hour a day to spiritual matters―will produce (over 7 to 9 months) a total of 210 to 270 hours—thus still falling short of the 30-Day Retreat totals. However, some persons may only manage to do just one month at home (30 days), giving not just one, but several hours a day to their “Home Retreat”—which might give a total of anywhere from 60 hours for the month (2 hours a day) or 90 hours (3 hours a day) or 120 hours (4 hours days)—which still falls short of the 300 to 360 hours for a retreat house 30-Day Retreat.
Possibly—hopefully—this series of articles will eventually evolve into an online version of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises for home use—spanning a full 7 to 9 months. The only caveat or frightening aspect of this is the sheer volume of research and time that will have to spent on the matter, while keeping the rest of the website operation as usual. A second drawback can be the fact that what is acceptable, practical and pleasing for one person, may be unacceptable, impractical and displeasing to another person. One person’s preferred foods and diet is not another person’s preferred food and diet. That is why the words “possibly” and “hopefully” have been used. Yet, the interior life, or the spiritual life, is—as Our Lord said and as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange echoes—“The One Thing Necessary”.
“The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of―to Martha and Mary (Luke 10:41)―consists in hearing the word of God and living by it. The interior life thus conceived is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not. This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
It is your interior life—your spiritual life—that will decide you eternal destiny, and therefore it is more important and more necessary than your family life, your working life, your social life, your sporting life, your intellectual life, your artistic life, your scientific life, your political life, or your economic life. All of these alternatives are useless for salvation unless they are tied into and subjugated to your spiritual life.
SOME GUIDELINES BY AN OLD (LONG DECEASED) JESUIT PRIEST
The following brief thoughts and guidelines for a “Home Ignatian Retreat” were penned by an old Jesuit priest of the last century, who had studied in Rome and became a sworn enemy of Modernists and Liberals. He was known to be devoted to the Catholic practice of Eucharistic adoration, spending at least three hours a day praying before the Blessed Sacrament. At the end of his life he was persecuted by his Religious Order and forbidden to teach, because he was too conservative for his time.
How to Make a Thirty Day Private Retreat, Following the Spiritual Exercises
Already in the lifetime of St. Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises were made by people in the privacy of their homes.
In order to make the Exercises in their entirety, thirty full days should be given for the retreat. This means beginning the night before the first full day, and ending on the morning after the thirtieth day.
The Spiritual Exercises were written by St. Ignatius Loyola over a period of some ten years, from 1521 to 1533. They are based on three principal sources: Sacred Scripture, personal religious experience, and certain masters of the spiritual life, notably Thomas A. Kempis, the author of the Imitation of Christ.
The Exercises were first officially approved by Pope Paul III on July 31, 1548, exactly eight years to the day before the death of St. Ignatius.
Since then some forty Bishops of Rome have formally approved and praised the Exercises, and strongly recommended them for use by the faithful. In 1922, Pope Pius XI declared St. Ignatius the heavenly patron of all spiritual exercises and retreats.
St. Ignatius’ Exercises have thus become the Church's standard way for people in every state of life to grow in holiness and reach Christian perfection.
Basic Purpose and Structure
The fundamental purpose of the Exercises, in Ignatius' own words, is two-fold:
(a) To prepare and dispose the soul to free itself from all inordinate affections, and
(b) After it has freed itself from them, to seek and find the will of God concerning to ordering of life for the salvation of one's soul.
Each of these two ends of the Exercises is so important that they call for further explanation.
(a) Prepare and Dispose the Soul
On the premises of our Catholic Faith, we assume that we have a fallen human nature (Original Sin). We believe that, because of concupiscence, our minds have been darkened and our wills weakened by the fall.
Objectively speaking, God has made it clear that we are in this world to know, love and serve God, and thereby save our souls.
But subjectively, from the dawn of reason to the present moment, we know that we have not been as faithful to God's grace as we should have been. He provides the grace, indeed, but we must provide our voluntary cooperation with this grace.
Why have we not been as faithful to divine grace as we should have been? The fundamental reason is that our human wills have become more or less enslaved by inordinate affections and desires.
How can our affections and desires be inordinate? They can be inordinate when our spontaneous impulses are out of order. And they are out of order to the extent that our desires are not in conformity with the will of God for us. We have urges to do things that are forbidden by God, and urges to avoid doing things that are commanded by God.
Our prospect of reaching Heaven, and even of being truly happy here on earth, depends on the mastery we achieve over our natural impulses and desires. After all, it is one thing to have some inclination or desire. It is something quite else to first recognize whether the desire is morally good, and then to either resist the desire if it is bad or give in to the desire if it corresponds to God's will.
We return to the primary purpose of the Spiritual Exercises. Through them, we are to prepare and dispose our soul to free itself from all inordinate affections.
How do we free ourselves from all inordinate affections? In two ways: by enlightening the mind and by strengthening the will. Each of these ways corresponds to the two terms used by St. Ignatius when he says we are to prepare and dispose the soul.
We prepare the soul to free itself from disorderly affections by educating our mind to know what is God's will in my life, why I should do God's will, and how I am to conform my will to His.
In the light of the knowledge thus gained, we prepare our soul to be free to do the will of God. We are truly free in the depths of our soul only when we choose what is truly good for us. There are many spurious attractions that entice our wills, so we must know clearly, firmly and intelligently what we should choose, not what we would like to choose.
We dispose our soul to free it from disorderly affections by strengthening our will. Naturally speaking, what God wants us to do is not always what we want to do. If we are to follow God's will through life, our wills must be fortified. Our wills are fortified when they are strongly motivated. We must provide our wills with motives for doing the will of God. We must see the benefits that come from doing the will of God, even when it does not naturally appeal to us. And we must see the harm that comes from doing our own will instead of God's will, even when doing the divine will is naturally displeasing to us.
On both levels, of preparing and disposing our souls properly, we need much help from God. We need light for the mind and strength for the will. These are infallibly available in answer to prayer. That is why the Spiritual Exercises are especially thirty days of concentrated prayer. We are to beg God to show us, so we might know what obstacles stand in our spiritual life and to strengthen us, so we might be liberated from our disorderly affections.
(b) Seek and Find the Will of God
The second purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is to honestly seek the will Of God in our lives, and trust that by the end of the retreat we have found it.
This is not so obvious as may seem. One reason that many people never really find what God wants them to do is because they are not sincerely looking to discover the divine will in their lives.
The first purpose of the retreat must be kept in mind during the thirty days. I must keep preparing and disposing myself to be freed from inordinate affections. The more honest I am with myself in uprooting the obstacles to serving God, the more honest I will be with God in seeking His will for me--not only now or the near future, but until the end of my life on earth.
It is important to state here that to seek and find God's will for me I must rise above vague generalities. I should, by the end of the retreat, have come to some definite and specific conclusions.
One conclusion belongs to the essence of the Spiritual Exercises. I must see God's will for me as including some form of the apostolate. As St. Ignatius understood the spiritual life, he never separated personal holiness from zeal for souls.
So closely did he associate sanctity and the apostolate that the one stands or falls by the other. Unless I decide to cooperate with Christ in the salvation and sanctification of others, I am not really pursuing holiness as Christ and His Church have understood it for 1900 years.
What follows from this necessary relations between holiness and the apostolate? One consequence is that I must assume that God wants me to labor to save souls. During the retreat I should make this as definite as possible. I should not precisely decide whether God wants me to engage in apostolic labors. I should only decide how He wants me to be a channel of grace to others.
Some Practical Guidelines
(1) A private thirty-day retreat should be carefully planned. The following are some practical directives.
(2) Make a firm resolution at the beginning of the retreat to give as much time and attention to the Spiritual Exercises as your state of life, employment and other duties allow.
(3) Have a copy of the Spiritual Exercises available. Use the text of the Exercises as your principal guidelines during the retreat.
(4) Map out for each of the thirty days a theme for the day, and three specific meditations following that theme.
(5) Decide how many meditations you can reasonably make each day. At least one clock hour should be given to reflective meditation. You may, of course, spend more than one full hour a day in meditation. But then decide whether you will cover one, two or three of the meditation subjects during the day.
(6) It is wiser to know each day how much time you can give to meditation. The amount of time can change from one day to the next, but decide by the morning of each day how much meditation time you will devote for that day.
(7) Assist at Mass and receive Holy Communion each of the thirty days of the retreat.
(81) Prepare to make, before the end of the retreat, a more-or-less general confession. This need not be a general confession of your past life. But it should at least cover a sufficiently long period to provide you with an inventory of your moral life. It will also bring you special graces from God, not only during the retreat but for the rest of your life.
(9) Do some writing every day of the retreat. It may be only a few jottings or it may be a greater length. It is recommended that you make some record of the lights and inspirations that God gives you during the retreat. This writing may be part of the meditation itself, or it may be done separate from the meditations.
(10) You may, but you need not, tell others that you are making a retreat. Prudence may suggest that others, except members of the immediate family, not be told. Use your discretion.
(11) Within the limits of prudence and charity, it is recommended that during the retreat you keep more or less recollected than usual.
(12) Provided the Blessed Sacrament is available, spend whatever time you conveniently can before Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.
(13) Do not in any way curtail or neglect your regular duties. Learn to combine doing your ordinary work while remaining closely united with God.
(14) Do some spiritual reading daily. It may be directly connected with the retreat theme for the day, or it may be on some other subject that will help you in the spiritual life.
(15) It may be useful the night before to plan what you are going to specially meditate on and pray for on the next day.
Avoid such secular reading or entertainment as you can, which would interfere with a spirit of recollection. But remember, do not neglect any of your ordinary duties or responsibilities.
(16) If listening to some religious recordings would help, by all means use them. The same with conversation with others. Do not fail in the virtues of charity or justice towards others while you are making the Spiritual Exercises.
(17) Those making the Exercises may find spiritual benefit in contacting one another and, if they wish, sharing with one another whatever lights the Holy Spirit may give them during the retreat.
(18) If desired, the priest director can be available by telephone, briefly and occasionally, during the Exercises to assist those retreatants who may want some counsel.
(19) Recite the Rosary every day. Say the Angelus at least twice daily.
(20) Make an Examination of Conscience every day, and plan on doing so regularly after the retreat.
(21) Familiarize yourself with the book of the Spiritual Exercises so that you can better understand such areas as Discernment of Spirits, Rules for Thinking with the Church and the Three Methods of Prayer.
(22) Keep yourself in peace. The evil spirit may tempt you to worry or discouragement. Ignore these temptations.
(23) Plan, by the end of the retreat, to have made the retreat Election. In other words, with God's grace make some definite resolutions for the future as the focus of the Spiritual Exercises. Come to some clear decisions on God's will in your life, and tell Him you will do what He asks of you.
(24) The retreatants should pray for one another during these Spiritual Exercises.
PART FOUR
THE PROS AND CONS OF A HOME RETREAT
THE PROS AND CONS OF A HOME RETREAT
To Do Or Not To Do (A Retreat)?—That Is The Question!
You could—very broadly speaking—liken a spiritual retreat to a car. Some questions are very similar--“Does it work? … How long will it last? … Is this the kind that I need? … Will it get me to where I want to go? … Can I afford it? … etc.” Or we could liken the spiritual retreat to seeking-out a doctor when we have a serious illness—we want the best doctor that we can afford. Likewise, we want the best retreat for our spiritual health—for we seek eternal life in Heaven, not an eternal ‘death’ in Hell. So let us look at the various options you have for maintaining or regaining your spiritual health—which is what a spiritual retreat is essentially there to provide.
Everyone Worries About Finances, So…
The common question we ask before purchasing something, is: “How much will it cost?” Retreats are no different. If you are going to attend a spiritual retreat—the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises or any other kind of spiritual retreat—you will have to pay. So, after having done some research on current prices being listed at some of the Jesuit Retreat Centers around the country, here is what you should expect to pay:
● A Preached Weekend Retreats' suggested offering is $360
Actual cost is $470 per person.
● 3-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $260 to $350
Actual cost is anywhere from $500 to $650 per person.
● 5-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $450 to $550
Actual cost is anywhere from $800 to $950 per person.
● 8-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $700 to $800
Actual cost is anywhere from $1,400 to $1,600 per person.
● 30-Day Directed Retreat suggested offering is anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000
Actual cost is (don’t even ask) per person.
Can I Afford to Attend a Directed Retreat?
Attending a retreat is not only about paying out money—it is also about losing money! You pay out whatever the cost of the retreat may be, and, in addition, you lose the wages you would have been paid for the time you would have worked had you not gone on retreat. Suddenly, the 5-day retreat (at let’s say $500) has your week’s wage tagged-on! The 30-day retreat (at let’s say $3,000) has a month’s salary tagged-on! When you further calculate in the uncertainty about the quality of preacher you are likely to get—and let’s face it, in the increasingly Liberal and Modernist times for Holy Mother Church, you may be “paying through the nose” only to get Liberal and Modernist garbage rammed into your head! Or there again, maybe not. Who knows?
Furthermore, if you go alone on retreat—leaving family behind—then how long will you last at your retreat-acquired higher spiritual level before the rest of the family (remaining at a lower level) eventually drag you back down to where you were before? Yet to take the whole family with you on retreat (which would be ideal) is not something that retreat centers cater for, nor did they ever cater for such family Ignatian retreats—because of the wide level of ages (and it is not recommended that youngsters under 16 be given a full-blown Ignatian retreat). Besides, even if you could take your family with you, it would probably mean refinancing your house to raise the money you would need!
“What About a Retreat in My Home?” You Ask
Well, that is fine, but it also has its drawbacks. Who will preach the retreat for you? Will all the family participate? If not, will they be distraction to those who do participate—you can bet that they will, for the devil will be working overtime to arrange that! If there is nobody to preach the retreat—where will you get the materials that you need for your retreat? Will you, or who will, arrange the materials in a way that they are suitable and digestible for all the different age ranges (presuming you have children at home)? How much will the daily family and work schedule affect and influence the progress and outcome of the retreat? How long will the retreat last? How great a part of the day will be consecrated to the retreat? Under what conditions? These and many more questions need to be looked at and assessed.
Building-Up Slowly!
A child starts school at kindergarten level and not at middle-school or high-school level. Likewise, an infant must learn to stand before it can walk, and learn to walk before it can run. Spiritual muscle works much like physical or bodily muscle. You must start-out with light exercises and gradually increase the intensity of the exercises you have chosen to follow. Just as you don’t want to pull a muscle by demanding too much too soon—likewise, you don’t want to pull a spiritual muscle by going too far too soon (which is what the devil wants in order to discourage you and stop you from making any spiritual progress, for spiritual exercises give you spiritual strength and that is not what he wants to see).
We see this “too much, too soon” syndrome come into play with many souls during Lent—they take on far too much because their imagination tells them that they can handle it! Before you know, Lent comes crashing to a discouraging halt—too much was tried too soon. Even a seasoned athlete will not launch into his training sprints before having first warmed-up with stretches and gentle jogging.
This is why the Ignatian Retreat Centers lay down some prerequisites before allowing anyone to participate in a full 30-Day Retreat. Here is a quote from one such retreat center:
“The 30-Day retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center offers the experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The Exercises can be helpful for someone making a decision – whether it is a vocational choice, a decision regarding one’s current way of life, or pertaining to a period of transition. It is also an excellent experience for anyone in a time of renewal or sabbatical.
“The retreat experience begins with two days of preparation and concludes with a day of reflection. During the retreat itself, the retreatant prays four or five times a day, sees a spiritual director once a day, and participates in daily Eucharist. An atmosphere of prayerful silence pervades the property and the hearts of the retreatants.
“Normally, retreatants will have made at least one silent, directed retreat before embarking on the 30-Day; it is also expected that they will have already engaged in ongoing spiritual direction.
“In addition to filling out an application form, those wishing to apply will be asked to supply a statement from their spiritual director detailing both the duration of spiritual direction and their readiness for the retreat; two letters of recommendation from those active in the faith who know the retreatant well..
“Please note that no action can be taken on any application until these materials are received, along with a $600 deposit required to reserve a space. The fee is $4,195. Once an application is approved, the remaining $3,595 balance will be due by May 15th, 2018.”
Where Am I?
You first have to assess the level at which you currently find yourself, and then build upon that. This discovery is best done with your spiritual director, or regular confessor, or parish priest, or at least with some spiritually serious person who knows you well and will not be afraid to tell you things you may not want to hear! We go on retreat—not to be praised—but to cure our spiritual ailments. Even though we would like to be perfect—and some folk think that they are pretty much perfect—the reality is far different as well as being unpleasant. We should recall that Our Lord once said to one His mystics, that if she saw herself as He sees her, then she would die in terror!
You could—very broadly speaking—liken a spiritual retreat to a car. Some questions are very similar--“Does it work? … How long will it last? … Is this the kind that I need? … Will it get me to where I want to go? … Can I afford it? … etc.” Or we could liken the spiritual retreat to seeking-out a doctor when we have a serious illness—we want the best doctor that we can afford. Likewise, we want the best retreat for our spiritual health—for we seek eternal life in Heaven, not an eternal ‘death’ in Hell. So let us look at the various options you have for maintaining or regaining your spiritual health—which is what a spiritual retreat is essentially there to provide.
Everyone Worries About Finances, So…
The common question we ask before purchasing something, is: “How much will it cost?” Retreats are no different. If you are going to attend a spiritual retreat—the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises or any other kind of spiritual retreat—you will have to pay. So, after having done some research on current prices being listed at some of the Jesuit Retreat Centers around the country, here is what you should expect to pay:
● A Preached Weekend Retreats' suggested offering is $360
Actual cost is $470 per person.
● 3-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $260 to $350
Actual cost is anywhere from $500 to $650 per person.
● 5-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $450 to $550
Actual cost is anywhere from $800 to $950 per person.
● 8-Day Directed Retreats' suggested offering is anywhere from $700 to $800
Actual cost is anywhere from $1,400 to $1,600 per person.
● 30-Day Directed Retreat suggested offering is anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000
Actual cost is (don’t even ask) per person.
Can I Afford to Attend a Directed Retreat?
Attending a retreat is not only about paying out money—it is also about losing money! You pay out whatever the cost of the retreat may be, and, in addition, you lose the wages you would have been paid for the time you would have worked had you not gone on retreat. Suddenly, the 5-day retreat (at let’s say $500) has your week’s wage tagged-on! The 30-day retreat (at let’s say $3,000) has a month’s salary tagged-on! When you further calculate in the uncertainty about the quality of preacher you are likely to get—and let’s face it, in the increasingly Liberal and Modernist times for Holy Mother Church, you may be “paying through the nose” only to get Liberal and Modernist garbage rammed into your head! Or there again, maybe not. Who knows?
Furthermore, if you go alone on retreat—leaving family behind—then how long will you last at your retreat-acquired higher spiritual level before the rest of the family (remaining at a lower level) eventually drag you back down to where you were before? Yet to take the whole family with you on retreat (which would be ideal) is not something that retreat centers cater for, nor did they ever cater for such family Ignatian retreats—because of the wide level of ages (and it is not recommended that youngsters under 16 be given a full-blown Ignatian retreat). Besides, even if you could take your family with you, it would probably mean refinancing your house to raise the money you would need!
“What About a Retreat in My Home?” You Ask
Well, that is fine, but it also has its drawbacks. Who will preach the retreat for you? Will all the family participate? If not, will they be distraction to those who do participate—you can bet that they will, for the devil will be working overtime to arrange that! If there is nobody to preach the retreat—where will you get the materials that you need for your retreat? Will you, or who will, arrange the materials in a way that they are suitable and digestible for all the different age ranges (presuming you have children at home)? How much will the daily family and work schedule affect and influence the progress and outcome of the retreat? How long will the retreat last? How great a part of the day will be consecrated to the retreat? Under what conditions? These and many more questions need to be looked at and assessed.
Building-Up Slowly!
A child starts school at kindergarten level and not at middle-school or high-school level. Likewise, an infant must learn to stand before it can walk, and learn to walk before it can run. Spiritual muscle works much like physical or bodily muscle. You must start-out with light exercises and gradually increase the intensity of the exercises you have chosen to follow. Just as you don’t want to pull a muscle by demanding too much too soon—likewise, you don’t want to pull a spiritual muscle by going too far too soon (which is what the devil wants in order to discourage you and stop you from making any spiritual progress, for spiritual exercises give you spiritual strength and that is not what he wants to see).
We see this “too much, too soon” syndrome come into play with many souls during Lent—they take on far too much because their imagination tells them that they can handle it! Before you know, Lent comes crashing to a discouraging halt—too much was tried too soon. Even a seasoned athlete will not launch into his training sprints before having first warmed-up with stretches and gentle jogging.
This is why the Ignatian Retreat Centers lay down some prerequisites before allowing anyone to participate in a full 30-Day Retreat. Here is a quote from one such retreat center:
“The 30-Day retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center offers the experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The Exercises can be helpful for someone making a decision – whether it is a vocational choice, a decision regarding one’s current way of life, or pertaining to a period of transition. It is also an excellent experience for anyone in a time of renewal or sabbatical.
“The retreat experience begins with two days of preparation and concludes with a day of reflection. During the retreat itself, the retreatant prays four or five times a day, sees a spiritual director once a day, and participates in daily Eucharist. An atmosphere of prayerful silence pervades the property and the hearts of the retreatants.
“Normally, retreatants will have made at least one silent, directed retreat before embarking on the 30-Day; it is also expected that they will have already engaged in ongoing spiritual direction.
“In addition to filling out an application form, those wishing to apply will be asked to supply a statement from their spiritual director detailing both the duration of spiritual direction and their readiness for the retreat; two letters of recommendation from those active in the faith who know the retreatant well..
“Please note that no action can be taken on any application until these materials are received, along with a $600 deposit required to reserve a space. The fee is $4,195. Once an application is approved, the remaining $3,595 balance will be due by May 15th, 2018.”
Where Am I?
You first have to assess the level at which you currently find yourself, and then build upon that. This discovery is best done with your spiritual director, or regular confessor, or parish priest, or at least with some spiritually serious person who knows you well and will not be afraid to tell you things you may not want to hear! We go on retreat—not to be praised—but to cure our spiritual ailments. Even though we would like to be perfect—and some folk think that they are pretty much perfect—the reality is far different as well as being unpleasant. We should recall that Our Lord once said to one His mystics, that if she saw herself as He sees her, then she would die in terror!
PART FIVE
HOW TO PREPARE FOR A HOME RETREAT
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR A HOME RETREAT
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
The Forest and the Tree
In planning something, a broad, all-encompassing view must be taken. We should not fail to see the forest because of the tree that is up against our nose. One of the part of Prudence is “circumspection” which is a compound word based on two Latin words: “circum” meaning “about, round, around” and “spectare” meaning “to look, to watch”—thus we literally get the meaning “to look around” or “look about” and your modern-day dictionary will define circumspection as “careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences.” In other words, “to look at all the angles” or “look at all the facts” or “consider all the options.”
Categories Help Planning
Aristotle has his famous “Ten Categories” lists ten categories by which to examine things. For the sake of planning a spiritual retreat, these have been greatly simplified—so as not to put to sleep those who have not the slightest philosophical inclination nor understanding. The original ten are: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion. These, in “kiddie-language” (not in philosophical terms, so any philosophers out there had better just “grin and bear it”), for the purpose of planning and organizing a spiritual retreat, are as follows (not in Aristotle’s order):
WHAT?
WHY?
WHO?
WHEN?
WHERE?
WHICH?
WITH WHAT?
WITH WHOM?
HOW LONG?
HOW DEEP?
Each of these "categories" are merely chapter headings that allow for, or even demand, much deeper and broader examination. Let us take a look at them in the context of planning and organizing a spiritual retreat that will take place in the home. But before we do that, a word of caution! Do not underestimate the importance of planning well, nor the certainty that the devil will try oppose and ruin your plans in this particular area of your life, more so than he would in most other areas of your life. Spiritual progress and increased spiritual strength is not what he wants to see!
THE "WHAT?"
What is a spiritual retreat, or, more precisely, what are the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola? What is it about them that makes them held in such high esteem and has seen them outlast changing fashions and trends over the centuries, while remaining the same—year in and year out?
The Spiritual Exercises grew out of Ignatius Loyola’s personal experience as a man seeking to grow in union with God and to discern God’s will. He kept a journal as he gained spiritual insight and deepened his spiritual experience. He added to these notes as he directed other people and discovered what “worked.” Eventually Ignatius gathered these prayers, meditations, reflections, and directions into a carefully designed framework of a retreat, which he called “spiritual exercises.”
Ignatius wrote that the Exercises: “have as their purpose the conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.” He wanted individuals to undertake these spiritual exercises with the assistance of an experienced spiritual director, who would help them shape the retreat and understand what they were experiencing. The book of Spiritual Exercises is a handbook to be used by the director, not by the person making the retreat.
The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a “long retreat” of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the Spiritual Exercises as a program for laypeople. The most common way of going through the Exercises now is a “retreat in daily life,” which involves a month’s long (or several month’s long) program of daily prayer and weekly meetings with a spiritual director.
THE "WHY?"
The most important question is “Why?” It is the question that decides if something will be undertaken or not undertaken? It is, so to speak, the ‘spark-plug’ or the ‘ignition’ for the ‘car’ that is our soul. There has to be a sufficient reason for doing something, for sparking our interest. Why make a retreat? Is a retreat really that essential? Can you do without a retreat?
The popes of the twentieth century held that retreats for the laity were of the greatest importance to assist the laity in maintaining the Faith and preserving them in Catholic Action. In 1929, Pius XI, in his encyclical Mens Nostra, declared that retreats were immensely beneficial to the laity, especially as a defense against Atheistic Materialism which hounds modern societies. That was stated in 1929—almost 90 years ago! How much worse has not the world become by 2017? Retreats have a special power to refocus man upon his Creator and his end.
Pius XI wrote: “The most grave disease by which our age is oppressed, and at the same time the fruitful source of all the evils deplored by every man of good heart, is that levity and thoughtlessness which carry men hither and thither through devious ways … Hence comes the constant and passionate absorption in external things; hence, the insatiable thirst for riches and pleasures that gradually weakens and extinguishes in the minds of men the desire for more excellent goods, and so entangles them in outward and fleeting things that it forbids them to think of eternal truths, and of the Divine laws, and of God Himself, the one beginning and end of all created things. Now, if we would cure this sickness from which human society suffers so sorely, what healing remedy could we devise more appropriate for our purpose than that of calling these enervated souls, so neglectful of eternal things, to the recollection of the Spiritual Exercises?”
Pius XII not only recommended but also urged that the Spiritual Exercises become part of the spiritual life of the laity. He wrote: “It is only right, from time to time, to shake off the world’s dust like any other. Nothing is more urgent than a frequent renewal, within your own hearts, by bringing back under the sign of God’s love your whole interior life, so that your action may be increasingly more upright, sincere, meritorious, securely effective among men, a valid service in the interests of God and of the Church.”
In his encyclical, Mediator Dei, Pius XII further stressed the importance of retreats and other private devotions as a means that provide graces for greater growth in virtue and a greater disposition in receiving the sacraments themselves.
And later, in 1956, Pius XII reiterated his wish that Catholic Action, if it is to be founded in God, then it must be nurtured by prayer, by silence, by contemplations, by the Spiritual Exercises: “Here, noise, agitation, speed lose all their rights. Here it is question of entering into the interior sanctuary, in calm and silence, and above all of patient and humble waiting for the grace from on high, of accepting the will of Another, of whom John the Baptist said: ‘He must increase, and I must decrease.’ Prolonged daily prayer, the only way which leads into the presence of God—how many young people have the courage to force themselves to it? Do not hope to exercise any apostolate worthy of the name unless you first accept this elementary requirement, whose importance Christian tradition has never ceased to emphasize.”
The bottom line for making a retreat is to draw closer to God, draw further away from the world, and to make improvements to your spiritual life—which is the “one thing necessary” in your life on Earth (see Luke 10:38-42).
“As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation which everyone has with himself as soon as he is alone, even in the tumult of a great city … As soon as a man seriously seeks truth and goodness, this intimate conversation with himself tends to become conversation with God. Little by little, instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center, man [hopefully] tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute for his egoism, a love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of, to Martha and Mary (Luke 10:41), consists in hearing the word of God and living by it. The interior life thus conceived is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life … This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in purgatory. No one enters heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
So, to answer the question “Why make a retreat?”―it can be said: “You make a retreat in order to draw closer to God, draw further away from the world, and to make improvements to your spiritual life so that you have a better chance of reaching the sanctity that is necessary for getting to Heaven. In more coarse terms, you could say that you take your car (your soul) to the auto repair shop (the retreat) for car maintenance and repairs (for spiritual improvements and repair) by the auto mechanics (those directing the retreat—for example priests, Religious, or some other qualified person such as you spiritual director or confessor), so that the car (your soul) will be able to successfully complete the long journey you have planned (your road to Heaven). If you do not take your car in for maintenance and repairs, you might not make the journey successfully. The essential things that the car will need is gasoline (charity), oil (humility) and water (grace). These are available in abundance on retreat.
What will save or damn our soul is the love or lack of love that we have towards God (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-3). You could be as wealthy as a king―yet miserable―if you have no friends. Or you could be as poor as dirt―yet happy―because you're surrounded by loved ones. A recent study of human happiness by the distinguished British economist Richard Layard concludes that the most significant factor for personal happiness is relationships with other people. And what personal relationship could be more important than the relationship with God? That is why Our Lord said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30). Our Lord wants our friendship: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends … You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14-15).
The saints―who were notoriously happy―gave witness to this reality. Even St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Claretian Martyrs of Barbastro, and the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne sang hymns of joy on their way to martyrdom. Immersed in conditions that would make mere mortals sad, these friends of God faced suffering with joy. It was their friendship with God that gave them strength and joy.
But friendship takes time and needs to be strengthened by conversation. Couples who have strong marriages will tell you about the importance of getting away for a long weekend to spend time alone in conversation. We need to do the same with God, and that's why the Church warmly recommends annual retreats for the faithful.
Retreats are a time away from our normal activities to spend time getting reacquainted with God, to examine the priorities of life and to make concrete and practical resolutions for improvement. Retreats can be a powerful step toward personal conversion.
Before Our Lord began His public ministry, He spent 40 days in the desert praying and fasting as a way to prepare for the important work ahead (see Luke 4:1-13). Those were days of retreat.
During His three years of public ministry, Jesus would sometimes invite His disciples to “‘Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little!” For there were many coming and going: and they had not so much as time to eat. And going up into a ship, they went into a desert place apart” (Mark 6:31-32). Again, days of retreat.
When Jesus entered forcefully into the life of St. Paul, He directed Paul to rise and go into the city, where he would be told what to do. For three days St. Paul neither ate nor drank, preparing himself to receive the spiritual direction of Ananias (see Acts 9:1-9). Those, too, were days of retreat.
Down through the centuries the Holy Spirit has raised up great saints and founders for the reform and service of the Church. While the methods of the Franciscans, Jesuits and other Religious Orders, have varied considerably, what their founders shared in common was a profound spiritual experience while on retreat, whether in the forests surrounding Assisi, the caves of Manresa, or in a residence of St. Vincent de Paul. These saints were seeking solitude in order to listen to God. Jesus was calling them apart to spend some time with Him.
Current Church legislation encourages the parish pastor to organize periodic retreats or missions for the good of the faithful, while all those who are to be ordained to the priesthood are required to make a weeklong retreat. Similarly, priests and Religious are asked to make a yearly retreat.
For the good of the Church, as well as for the good of their own souls and the sake of their families, lay people are also encouraged to get away for a few days each year to rekindle their relationship with Christ. There are many types of retreats, and many Church organizations offer retreats of various lengths and topics. Retreats may last two days or 30 to 40 days; they may be organized for men or for women, or for couples together. They may follow a traditional format with a priest-preacher as the retreat master, offering several spiritual conferences or meditations daily. They may be directed or undirected. You might make a retreat with a large group in a hotel, or by yourself in a monastery.
THE “WHO?”
There is more than one “Who” to consider here!
Firstly, who will your retreat by for? Who will get to make it? Will be it be only for yourself? Or your family? Will friends and relatives be invited? Will all age groups be catered to? Or will it only be for adults?
Secondly, who will present or give or preach the retreat?
Let us look at the pros and cons of the first “Who”—with regard to whom the “Home Retreat” will cater. Ideally, if the talent, resources and organizational skills are present, there is nothing better (but nothing rarer) than a retreat catering for all ages. This, obviously, would mean different levels of conferences and meditations—for adults, teenagers and the younger children. It is commonly held that children—even the younger teens—should not be exposed to a full-blown Ignatian Retreat, especially the psychological battering of the first week, which focuses on the gravity of sin and Hell. However, a milder version is in no way damaging to the child—for Heaven’s sake, Our Lady showed children of the ages 7, 9 and 10 a vision of Hell. She didn’t just talk about it, she terrified them by showing them Hell! Besides, the continual bombardment by worldliness, that today’s children suffer, warrants or even demands that they receive a spiritual antidote of some kind.
The advantages of an “All Age” retreat is that the whole family can improve spiritually as a unit―rather than a select few, who will then find themselves at war with those who did not make the retreat. Yet such a retreat requires very careful planning and sifting through of suitable materials that can be used on retreat, to cater for the different age groups. Hats off to you if you can bring it off!
On the question of “Many or Few?”—each has its own pros and cons. There is a certain power that it palpable when many persons are doing the same thing. A full church at Mass conveys more of a powerful feeling, whereas only a handful at Mass does not—especially when it comes to singing hymns! A procession of thousands is more impressive than a procession of five persons. When more people participate in something, it makes the event seem more important. Sports players sense this difference when having to play in front of a crowd of 80,000 spectators in comparison to merely 1,000 spectators. Inviting others outside the family can also be encouraging, in that it gives a reassurance that others feel the same way we do.
However, larger numbers can also create many more distractions—not least because there ends up being less “personal space” for the solitude and silence that a good retreat requires. The silence of the mind is not only distracted by hearing others speak, but also by merely seeing others. For larger numbers to work and not harm the retreat, larger premises are required—not everyone can supply that luxury, especially in larger Catholic families.
A more delicate “Who” is whether or not to invite those friends or relatives who have a habit of being disruptive in any shape or form. Those who habitually want to be seen and noticed, or the serial jokers who will fail to respect the seriousness of a retreat and will thus be a constant source of distraction and a good tool for the devil.
The final list of who is and who is not invited, needs careful and prayerful deliberation.
As regards the second “Who”—obviously, if it is a “Home Retreat”, then it is unlikely that a priest will be involved—especially if it is a long retreat of several days or many days. However, there are still some priestly possibilities that you could consider. It might be a priest who is on vacation, who might be staying with you or with friends—even though it is unlikely that he will sacrifice his vacation for your “Home Retreat”, he might be persuaded to offer a Mass or two, or even daily Mass—with a sermon or conference on a key topic thrown in! “Half-a-loaf is better than none” as they say! You just have to be creative and keep your ear tuned-in to the news about the whereabouts and availability of priests. Of course, such a “catch” would be a rarity, but it is still worth keeping in mind.
If a “live” priest or preacher is not available, then the next best thing would be to secure videos of retreat conferences—yet here there is the danger of finding “half-baked”, or poor content, or “missing the point” videos of retreat conferences or meditations. Not all priests or retreat preachers are equal—the quality varies greatly. A good book is better than a poor preacher. Another possibility is an audio version of a retreat—these are far more easily obtainable, but the quality of content and delivery of the preacher is again very important. Once again, a good book might do more good than a poor preacher.
If using video or audio, it is recommended not to use that exclusively, but to blend it in with the use of passages from the many excellent spiritual books that are available—especially those of the saints, who carry a stronger authority.
If no priest is available and no video or audio recordings are available, then, for a group retreat, one or several persons should be chosen to read the selected materials from whatever books are being used. Obviously, only those should be chosen who can give a good presentation, who can read clearly and unhurriedly, and have a certain gravity or seriousness of voice.
THE “WHEN?”
When to have a “Home Retreat” can be a logistical nightmare—especially if it will be a retreat for the family members, and it will be even more of a nightmare if outsiders are involved. The different schedules of different persons will be the main cause of that nightmare. The longer you intend the retreat to last, the harder it will be to accommodate those schedules—and that applies both to the number of days you intend the retreat to last and the number of hours in the day you wish to consecrate to the retreat.
One logical solution would be to have the retreat during vacation time! Yet how many (worldly) persons are willing to sacrifice the potential fun of a vacation for the potential ‘drudgery’ and comparative ‘boredom’ of a retreat? For that to realistically happen, would require no minor miracle of grace! Yet miracles do happen—if we make some sacrifices and pray with great Faith for them!
This introduces another stumbling-block! Which vacations could be used (sacrificed)? The summer vacation time is probably the most painful one to sacrifice—children want their ‘summer-fun’ and the idea of a retreat will not be a funny suggestion in the eyes. The mind and heart will not be in the retreat, but in the ‘fun’ things that they are being deprived of and are greatly missing. It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s how it is with most children—so we have to be realistic. However, the main advantage of the summer vacation time is that there is still a lot of time for the children to ‘catch-up on their fun’—since their vacation lasts for months! The mid-winter break, or spring break, provides another option that could be more feasible―but using another vacation slot throughout the year, would probably (in the children’s opinion) use-up too great a percentage of their shorter vacation! A Christmas retreat—though potentially rich from a spiritual perspective—would be seen as a “party-pooper” retreat that robs everyone of their Christmas ‘fun’—but then again, how much ‘fun’ did Christ have at that first Christmas? Lent is another possibility, which even the most worldly person would reluctantly concede as being a time when a greater spiritual focus is owed.
Of course, if children are excluded from the retreat, then it makes the logistics of when to schedule the retreat somewhat easier—but will that benefit the children, who are, in most cases, spiritually undernourished and even spiritually sick, while being worldly wise and overfed? So, in summary, a great deal of prayer, thought and discussion needs to be put into the scheduling of a “Home Retreat”. The solutions for each family will vary greatly.
In planning something, a broad, all-encompassing view must be taken. We should not fail to see the forest because of the tree that is up against our nose. One of the part of Prudence is “circumspection” which is a compound word based on two Latin words: “circum” meaning “about, round, around” and “spectare” meaning “to look, to watch”—thus we literally get the meaning “to look around” or “look about” and your modern-day dictionary will define circumspection as “careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences.” In other words, “to look at all the angles” or “look at all the facts” or “consider all the options.”
Categories Help Planning
Aristotle has his famous “Ten Categories” lists ten categories by which to examine things. For the sake of planning a spiritual retreat, these have been greatly simplified—so as not to put to sleep those who have not the slightest philosophical inclination nor understanding. The original ten are: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion. These, in “kiddie-language” (not in philosophical terms, so any philosophers out there had better just “grin and bear it”), for the purpose of planning and organizing a spiritual retreat, are as follows (not in Aristotle’s order):
WHAT?
WHY?
WHO?
WHEN?
WHERE?
WHICH?
WITH WHAT?
WITH WHOM?
HOW LONG?
HOW DEEP?
Each of these "categories" are merely chapter headings that allow for, or even demand, much deeper and broader examination. Let us take a look at them in the context of planning and organizing a spiritual retreat that will take place in the home. But before we do that, a word of caution! Do not underestimate the importance of planning well, nor the certainty that the devil will try oppose and ruin your plans in this particular area of your life, more so than he would in most other areas of your life. Spiritual progress and increased spiritual strength is not what he wants to see!
THE "WHAT?"
What is a spiritual retreat, or, more precisely, what are the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola? What is it about them that makes them held in such high esteem and has seen them outlast changing fashions and trends over the centuries, while remaining the same—year in and year out?
The Spiritual Exercises grew out of Ignatius Loyola’s personal experience as a man seeking to grow in union with God and to discern God’s will. He kept a journal as he gained spiritual insight and deepened his spiritual experience. He added to these notes as he directed other people and discovered what “worked.” Eventually Ignatius gathered these prayers, meditations, reflections, and directions into a carefully designed framework of a retreat, which he called “spiritual exercises.”
Ignatius wrote that the Exercises: “have as their purpose the conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.” He wanted individuals to undertake these spiritual exercises with the assistance of an experienced spiritual director, who would help them shape the retreat and understand what they were experiencing. The book of Spiritual Exercises is a handbook to be used by the director, not by the person making the retreat.
The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a “long retreat” of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the Spiritual Exercises as a program for laypeople. The most common way of going through the Exercises now is a “retreat in daily life,” which involves a month’s long (or several month’s long) program of daily prayer and weekly meetings with a spiritual director.
THE "WHY?"
The most important question is “Why?” It is the question that decides if something will be undertaken or not undertaken? It is, so to speak, the ‘spark-plug’ or the ‘ignition’ for the ‘car’ that is our soul. There has to be a sufficient reason for doing something, for sparking our interest. Why make a retreat? Is a retreat really that essential? Can you do without a retreat?
The popes of the twentieth century held that retreats for the laity were of the greatest importance to assist the laity in maintaining the Faith and preserving them in Catholic Action. In 1929, Pius XI, in his encyclical Mens Nostra, declared that retreats were immensely beneficial to the laity, especially as a defense against Atheistic Materialism which hounds modern societies. That was stated in 1929—almost 90 years ago! How much worse has not the world become by 2017? Retreats have a special power to refocus man upon his Creator and his end.
Pius XI wrote: “The most grave disease by which our age is oppressed, and at the same time the fruitful source of all the evils deplored by every man of good heart, is that levity and thoughtlessness which carry men hither and thither through devious ways … Hence comes the constant and passionate absorption in external things; hence, the insatiable thirst for riches and pleasures that gradually weakens and extinguishes in the minds of men the desire for more excellent goods, and so entangles them in outward and fleeting things that it forbids them to think of eternal truths, and of the Divine laws, and of God Himself, the one beginning and end of all created things. Now, if we would cure this sickness from which human society suffers so sorely, what healing remedy could we devise more appropriate for our purpose than that of calling these enervated souls, so neglectful of eternal things, to the recollection of the Spiritual Exercises?”
Pius XII not only recommended but also urged that the Spiritual Exercises become part of the spiritual life of the laity. He wrote: “It is only right, from time to time, to shake off the world’s dust like any other. Nothing is more urgent than a frequent renewal, within your own hearts, by bringing back under the sign of God’s love your whole interior life, so that your action may be increasingly more upright, sincere, meritorious, securely effective among men, a valid service in the interests of God and of the Church.”
In his encyclical, Mediator Dei, Pius XII further stressed the importance of retreats and other private devotions as a means that provide graces for greater growth in virtue and a greater disposition in receiving the sacraments themselves.
And later, in 1956, Pius XII reiterated his wish that Catholic Action, if it is to be founded in God, then it must be nurtured by prayer, by silence, by contemplations, by the Spiritual Exercises: “Here, noise, agitation, speed lose all their rights. Here it is question of entering into the interior sanctuary, in calm and silence, and above all of patient and humble waiting for the grace from on high, of accepting the will of Another, of whom John the Baptist said: ‘He must increase, and I must decrease.’ Prolonged daily prayer, the only way which leads into the presence of God—how many young people have the courage to force themselves to it? Do not hope to exercise any apostolate worthy of the name unless you first accept this elementary requirement, whose importance Christian tradition has never ceased to emphasize.”
The bottom line for making a retreat is to draw closer to God, draw further away from the world, and to make improvements to your spiritual life—which is the “one thing necessary” in your life on Earth (see Luke 10:38-42).
“As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation which everyone has with himself as soon as he is alone, even in the tumult of a great city … As soon as a man seriously seeks truth and goodness, this intimate conversation with himself tends to become conversation with God. Little by little, instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center, man [hopefully] tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute for his egoism, a love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of, to Martha and Mary (Luke 10:41), consists in hearing the word of God and living by it. The interior life thus conceived is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life … This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in purgatory. No one enters heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
So, to answer the question “Why make a retreat?”―it can be said: “You make a retreat in order to draw closer to God, draw further away from the world, and to make improvements to your spiritual life so that you have a better chance of reaching the sanctity that is necessary for getting to Heaven. In more coarse terms, you could say that you take your car (your soul) to the auto repair shop (the retreat) for car maintenance and repairs (for spiritual improvements and repair) by the auto mechanics (those directing the retreat—for example priests, Religious, or some other qualified person such as you spiritual director or confessor), so that the car (your soul) will be able to successfully complete the long journey you have planned (your road to Heaven). If you do not take your car in for maintenance and repairs, you might not make the journey successfully. The essential things that the car will need is gasoline (charity), oil (humility) and water (grace). These are available in abundance on retreat.
What will save or damn our soul is the love or lack of love that we have towards God (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-3). You could be as wealthy as a king―yet miserable―if you have no friends. Or you could be as poor as dirt―yet happy―because you're surrounded by loved ones. A recent study of human happiness by the distinguished British economist Richard Layard concludes that the most significant factor for personal happiness is relationships with other people. And what personal relationship could be more important than the relationship with God? That is why Our Lord said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30). Our Lord wants our friendship: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends … You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14-15).
The saints―who were notoriously happy―gave witness to this reality. Even St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Claretian Martyrs of Barbastro, and the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne sang hymns of joy on their way to martyrdom. Immersed in conditions that would make mere mortals sad, these friends of God faced suffering with joy. It was their friendship with God that gave them strength and joy.
But friendship takes time and needs to be strengthened by conversation. Couples who have strong marriages will tell you about the importance of getting away for a long weekend to spend time alone in conversation. We need to do the same with God, and that's why the Church warmly recommends annual retreats for the faithful.
Retreats are a time away from our normal activities to spend time getting reacquainted with God, to examine the priorities of life and to make concrete and practical resolutions for improvement. Retreats can be a powerful step toward personal conversion.
Before Our Lord began His public ministry, He spent 40 days in the desert praying and fasting as a way to prepare for the important work ahead (see Luke 4:1-13). Those were days of retreat.
During His three years of public ministry, Jesus would sometimes invite His disciples to “‘Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little!” For there were many coming and going: and they had not so much as time to eat. And going up into a ship, they went into a desert place apart” (Mark 6:31-32). Again, days of retreat.
When Jesus entered forcefully into the life of St. Paul, He directed Paul to rise and go into the city, where he would be told what to do. For three days St. Paul neither ate nor drank, preparing himself to receive the spiritual direction of Ananias (see Acts 9:1-9). Those, too, were days of retreat.
Down through the centuries the Holy Spirit has raised up great saints and founders for the reform and service of the Church. While the methods of the Franciscans, Jesuits and other Religious Orders, have varied considerably, what their founders shared in common was a profound spiritual experience while on retreat, whether in the forests surrounding Assisi, the caves of Manresa, or in a residence of St. Vincent de Paul. These saints were seeking solitude in order to listen to God. Jesus was calling them apart to spend some time with Him.
Current Church legislation encourages the parish pastor to organize periodic retreats or missions for the good of the faithful, while all those who are to be ordained to the priesthood are required to make a weeklong retreat. Similarly, priests and Religious are asked to make a yearly retreat.
For the good of the Church, as well as for the good of their own souls and the sake of their families, lay people are also encouraged to get away for a few days each year to rekindle their relationship with Christ. There are many types of retreats, and many Church organizations offer retreats of various lengths and topics. Retreats may last two days or 30 to 40 days; they may be organized for men or for women, or for couples together. They may follow a traditional format with a priest-preacher as the retreat master, offering several spiritual conferences or meditations daily. They may be directed or undirected. You might make a retreat with a large group in a hotel, or by yourself in a monastery.
THE “WHO?”
There is more than one “Who” to consider here!
Firstly, who will your retreat by for? Who will get to make it? Will be it be only for yourself? Or your family? Will friends and relatives be invited? Will all age groups be catered to? Or will it only be for adults?
Secondly, who will present or give or preach the retreat?
Let us look at the pros and cons of the first “Who”—with regard to whom the “Home Retreat” will cater. Ideally, if the talent, resources and organizational skills are present, there is nothing better (but nothing rarer) than a retreat catering for all ages. This, obviously, would mean different levels of conferences and meditations—for adults, teenagers and the younger children. It is commonly held that children—even the younger teens—should not be exposed to a full-blown Ignatian Retreat, especially the psychological battering of the first week, which focuses on the gravity of sin and Hell. However, a milder version is in no way damaging to the child—for Heaven’s sake, Our Lady showed children of the ages 7, 9 and 10 a vision of Hell. She didn’t just talk about it, she terrified them by showing them Hell! Besides, the continual bombardment by worldliness, that today’s children suffer, warrants or even demands that they receive a spiritual antidote of some kind.
The advantages of an “All Age” retreat is that the whole family can improve spiritually as a unit―rather than a select few, who will then find themselves at war with those who did not make the retreat. Yet such a retreat requires very careful planning and sifting through of suitable materials that can be used on retreat, to cater for the different age groups. Hats off to you if you can bring it off!
On the question of “Many or Few?”—each has its own pros and cons. There is a certain power that it palpable when many persons are doing the same thing. A full church at Mass conveys more of a powerful feeling, whereas only a handful at Mass does not—especially when it comes to singing hymns! A procession of thousands is more impressive than a procession of five persons. When more people participate in something, it makes the event seem more important. Sports players sense this difference when having to play in front of a crowd of 80,000 spectators in comparison to merely 1,000 spectators. Inviting others outside the family can also be encouraging, in that it gives a reassurance that others feel the same way we do.
However, larger numbers can also create many more distractions—not least because there ends up being less “personal space” for the solitude and silence that a good retreat requires. The silence of the mind is not only distracted by hearing others speak, but also by merely seeing others. For larger numbers to work and not harm the retreat, larger premises are required—not everyone can supply that luxury, especially in larger Catholic families.
A more delicate “Who” is whether or not to invite those friends or relatives who have a habit of being disruptive in any shape or form. Those who habitually want to be seen and noticed, or the serial jokers who will fail to respect the seriousness of a retreat and will thus be a constant source of distraction and a good tool for the devil.
The final list of who is and who is not invited, needs careful and prayerful deliberation.
As regards the second “Who”—obviously, if it is a “Home Retreat”, then it is unlikely that a priest will be involved—especially if it is a long retreat of several days or many days. However, there are still some priestly possibilities that you could consider. It might be a priest who is on vacation, who might be staying with you or with friends—even though it is unlikely that he will sacrifice his vacation for your “Home Retreat”, he might be persuaded to offer a Mass or two, or even daily Mass—with a sermon or conference on a key topic thrown in! “Half-a-loaf is better than none” as they say! You just have to be creative and keep your ear tuned-in to the news about the whereabouts and availability of priests. Of course, such a “catch” would be a rarity, but it is still worth keeping in mind.
If a “live” priest or preacher is not available, then the next best thing would be to secure videos of retreat conferences—yet here there is the danger of finding “half-baked”, or poor content, or “missing the point” videos of retreat conferences or meditations. Not all priests or retreat preachers are equal—the quality varies greatly. A good book is better than a poor preacher. Another possibility is an audio version of a retreat—these are far more easily obtainable, but the quality of content and delivery of the preacher is again very important. Once again, a good book might do more good than a poor preacher.
If using video or audio, it is recommended not to use that exclusively, but to blend it in with the use of passages from the many excellent spiritual books that are available—especially those of the saints, who carry a stronger authority.
If no priest is available and no video or audio recordings are available, then, for a group retreat, one or several persons should be chosen to read the selected materials from whatever books are being used. Obviously, only those should be chosen who can give a good presentation, who can read clearly and unhurriedly, and have a certain gravity or seriousness of voice.
THE “WHEN?”
When to have a “Home Retreat” can be a logistical nightmare—especially if it will be a retreat for the family members, and it will be even more of a nightmare if outsiders are involved. The different schedules of different persons will be the main cause of that nightmare. The longer you intend the retreat to last, the harder it will be to accommodate those schedules—and that applies both to the number of days you intend the retreat to last and the number of hours in the day you wish to consecrate to the retreat.
One logical solution would be to have the retreat during vacation time! Yet how many (worldly) persons are willing to sacrifice the potential fun of a vacation for the potential ‘drudgery’ and comparative ‘boredom’ of a retreat? For that to realistically happen, would require no minor miracle of grace! Yet miracles do happen—if we make some sacrifices and pray with great Faith for them!
This introduces another stumbling-block! Which vacations could be used (sacrificed)? The summer vacation time is probably the most painful one to sacrifice—children want their ‘summer-fun’ and the idea of a retreat will not be a funny suggestion in the eyes. The mind and heart will not be in the retreat, but in the ‘fun’ things that they are being deprived of and are greatly missing. It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s how it is with most children—so we have to be realistic. However, the main advantage of the summer vacation time is that there is still a lot of time for the children to ‘catch-up on their fun’—since their vacation lasts for months! The mid-winter break, or spring break, provides another option that could be more feasible―but using another vacation slot throughout the year, would probably (in the children’s opinion) use-up too great a percentage of their shorter vacation! A Christmas retreat—though potentially rich from a spiritual perspective—would be seen as a “party-pooper” retreat that robs everyone of their Christmas ‘fun’—but then again, how much ‘fun’ did Christ have at that first Christmas? Lent is another possibility, which even the most worldly person would reluctantly concede as being a time when a greater spiritual focus is owed.
Of course, if children are excluded from the retreat, then it makes the logistics of when to schedule the retreat somewhat easier—but will that benefit the children, who are, in most cases, spiritually undernourished and even spiritually sick, while being worldly wise and overfed? So, in summary, a great deal of prayer, thought and discussion needs to be put into the scheduling of a “Home Retreat”. The solutions for each family will vary greatly.