Spiritual Retreat: What to Expect and Why Go on One

Perhaps you have heard Catholics mention that they have attended a spiritual retreat at one time or another. Perhaps you have, yourself, been invited to attend one and have hesitated to accept the invitation as you do not know what to expect during spiritual retreats. What, exactly, happens during spiritual retreats?

I, personally, aim to attend a spiritual retreat once a year and have benefited a lot from this practice. Two of my friends, Abbie and Raffy, have attended spiritual retreats too. Like me, they find the experience rewarding and are happy to share their experiences and insights about it with Ignitum Today readers. We hope that by sharing our experiences, we could help demystify this Catholic tradition and perhaps encourage readers to try attending retreats on their own.

A Time-Old Catholic Practice

This year, Abbie spent her birthday alone with God in a Carmelite retreat house.

“It has been very busy and stressful the past couple of years of my life,” she said. “I was turning 40 years old and wanted to celebrate my birthday with only God. ‘God alone is enough,’ has been a recurring theme in my life for a while, too. A retreat, I thought, would be a perfect reminder of that.”

Last year, to prepare for “leveling up” his membership in the Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix (a public association under the Franciscans of the Immaculate), Raffy spent three days in retreat at the Divine Word Seminary.

Abbie and Raffy are just a few among many Catholics who occasionally take time out to attend spiritual retreats. A retreat is a time-old Catholic practice where one withdraws from the world for a few days, spending those days talking with God and examining oneself on how to improve one’s relationship with Him. The idea behind a retreat is that the soul, like the body, needs a vacation to reinvigorate itself in its daily struggle and that the relationship with God, like any other relationship, needs quality exclusive time to keep it alive. As St. Josemaria Escriva succinctly put it in The Furrow, “Days on retreat. Recollection in order to know God, to know yourself and thus to make progress. A necessary time for discovering where and how you should change your life. What should I do? What should I avoid?”

Diverse But Essentially the Same

There are many kinds of retreats to suit a wide range of personal preferences.

Abbie spent hers in an unstructured way, with no retreat master – a first time for her, since she usually attended group retreats every year. This time, guided solely by a book which she found in the retreat house, she spent a lot of time praying, reflecting, singing songs of praise to God, and, in her own words, “allowing myself to be silent in the Lord’s presence.”

Photo credit: photos.ecatholic.com

Raffy’s retreat consisted of praying Lauds, Vespers, the Rosary, the Way of the Cross, as well as doing strolling meditations. On his spiritual mentor’s advice, he also spent time reading The Imitation of Christ and the Mass readings. “My structure of the retreat which, is mainly free-flowing, is based upon our spiritual mentor’s advice to not to focus on intellectual matters during retreat, but rather let the retreat be free-flowing and let God speak to your heart spontaneously.”

I personally attend the retreats organized by Opus Dei, which feature guided prayer sessions, talks, daily Mass, and group devotions (like spiritual reading, the Rosary, and the Way of the Cross) interspersed with time for private prayer and opportunities for the Sacrament of Confession and personal spiritual direction. The talks and guided prayer sessions are usually about the creation and fall of man, the Last Things, and the life of Christ, as well as pointers on how ordinary Catholics living in the world can practice the lessons from these topics.

Amidst these differences, however, the common threads of all retreats are silence, prayer, and allowing oneself to be led by the Holy Spirit. As the priest said in one retreat I attended, “What matters is not what you do but what you allow God to do to you.”

The Price and the Rewards

Attending a retreat entails sacrifices. For Abbie, it required taking a leave from work just when she had to spend more time in the office to prepare for her maternity leave. She also had to drive a long way to the retreat house, which is no joke for someone who is almost eight months pregnant. In addition, she says, “There is always harassment from the Evil One when you’re in pursuit of being one with God.”

Raffy, too, had to fit in his retreat into his rest days, given how hard it is to file for leaves at the business process outsourcing (BPO) firm he works for, especially when it is near Christmas. Being used to night shift work meant his body clock had to re-adjust during the retreat, and then, after the retreat, he had to go back to work after having had little sleep. But he went on the retreat anyway. “In that retreat, I learned that even though I am having irregular schedules due to my nature of work as a night worker in a BPO company, if you really want to have a retreat, there is always a way,” he says.

The sacrifices pay off. For example, according to Abbie, “The retreat gave me the much needed break my body, and more especially my spirit, needed. I was able to ‘hear’ the Lord’s message to me, loud and clear. I left the retreat house feeling refreshed and renewed; ready to face life’s challenges head-on.”

Raffy, for his part, says, “It relaxes your mind and soul, reconnects yourself to God, and makes you feel at peace with nature. It also rekindles your desire to be a more faithful Catholic. It also reminds you that life is too short to spend in worldly things and focuses you more on eternity.”

As if these are not reasons enough to attend a retreat, a retreat provides many opportunities to earn indulgences. According to the Enchiridion of Indulgences (the official manual of the Catholic Church about granting indulgences), a plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who spend at least three whole days in the spiritual exercises of a retreat. Even if one’s retreat does not last three whole days, however, a retreat usually provides opportunities to do other works to which indulgences are attached (such as prayer before the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour or praying the Way of the Cross) as well as to fulfill the conditions needed to gain indulgences (such as sacramental confession, Communion, and a prayer for the Pope a few days before or after doing the works to which indulgences are attached).

Raffy stresses the importance of going to sacramental confession before or during the retreat. “A retreat is a wonderful opportunity to re-examine your life and strive to be holier,” he says.

Final Thoughts

Both Raffy and Abbie hope to be able to go on retreats again in the future. Abbie, in particular, encourages others to try attending retreats as well. When asked about anything she would like to tell readers about attending retreats, Abbie enthusiastically replied, “Go! Attend one! Do it! MAKE the time for it. Just when your schedule is so booked and it seems so impossible to pause and ‘waste’ time, THAT’S when you need to pause, regroup, and focus on what…no, WHO really matters.”