James Martin - Together on Retreat: Meeting Jesus in Prayer

Jesus

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

Between Heaven and Mirth

Together on Retreat

Contents

View of the Sea of Galilee from the Mount of the Beatitudes

R ETREATS ARE BIG BUSINESS these daysquite literally. Corporations, colleges, hospitals, high schools, and all sorts of professional organizations often ask their employees to carve out time for a retreat. Typically, this involves inviting people to spend a day, a weekend, or even a week away from the office in a quiet setting where the group engages in (take your pick) brainstorming, reviewing the past year, or strategic planning. Some of the more lavish corporate retreats may be held at far-flung resorts in a sylvan setting. Simpler ones might be at a local conference center or hotel ballroom.

The practice has become so common that a friend who works for a large corporation said to me a few years ago, Im going on a retreatjust like you!

Then he smiled and said, Well, maybe not exactly .

What he meant was this: retreats began not in the corporate world, but in the spiritual world. And originally retreats werent focused on business matters, but on something, or some one, else. Essentially, a retreat means taking time away from the busy-ness of everyday life in order to focus more on your spiritual life. A retreat is an extended period of time spent with God in prayer.

In the Christian world, retreats find their origin in Jesuss own practice of withdrawing from his disciples to pray, often in what the Gospels describe as a secluded place. Jesus does this frequentlyand he does so from the start of his public life. The very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark tells us this about Jesus, who has just begun his preaching and healing: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed (1:35).

Jesus needed not only time away from the disciples and the crowds, but one-on-one time with God the Father in prayer. He needed to recharge his spiritual batteriesas all of us do.

Later on, the great monastic orders of the Catholic Church required regular retreatsa few days of concentrated prayerfor their members. In the sixth century, St. Benedict suggested that his Benedictine monks intensify their already austere spiritual practices during the period of Lent. Almost one thousand years later, St. Ignatius Loyola (14911556), the founder of the Jesuit Order, popularized a more formalized version of the retreat in his book Spiritual Exercises, in which specific meditations are used to help retreatants enter more deeply into a relationship with God. Soon the Spiritual Exercises became popular not only with Jesuits, but with people from all walks of life.

Today Christian spiritual retreats take place in a variety of settings. Often people go to a retreat house specifically designed for that purpose. These are usually big, rambling buildings that can accommodate anywhere from a handful to a hundred retreatants and are often located in a wooded or rural area, far from the din of daily activity. My own favorite is a Jesuit retreat house located on the Atlantic Ocean, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Just as often people travel to a monastery, where the monks are used to hosting visitors on retreat.

Retreats take different forms. On a directed retreat, individuals see a spiritual director on a daily basis and discuss what is happening in their personal prayer. You might do a directed retreat in a group (that is, in a retreat house with others on retreat) or on your own (you might be the sole guest in the monasterys guest house that week). There are also guided retreats, which might focus on a particular topic (for example, womens spirituality, or preparing for marriage, or learning about new ways to pray). Guided retreats usually offer presentations or lectures as well as opportunities to meet with a directorthough on a less regular basis than during a directed retreat. Another popular form is the preached retreat, which consists mainly of listening to presentations and praying on your own, with somewhat less opportunity for one-on-one spiritual direction.

Almost all of these retreats are done in an atmosphere of silence, which helps people dwell more in the relationship with God than with those around them. Not that theres anything wrong with other people! But remember, a retreat is one-on-one time with God.

So there are a wide variety of retreat styles, and a variety of schedules too. Probably the most intense version is the full Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, which is usually spread over thirty days. Many people choose an eight-day retreat, which is required annually of most priests and members of religious orders in the Catholic Church. Weekend or overnight retreats are also popular.

Normally, spiritual directors will say, The longer, the better! But God can work within any time frame or setting. Besides, few people have thirty days, or even eight days, to devote to a retreat.

Of course, Christians arent the only ones who make spiritual retreats. Buddhist retreats are becoming increasingly popular, and any sort of pilgrimage to a holy site undertaken by Christians, Jews, or Muslims can be seen as a retreat if done in a prayerful manner. Last year I took a trip to the Holy Land (more about that later) and found that visiting the holy sites helped me to pray more deeply. More broadly, the idea of withdrawing from daily life to seek out inner peace and a clearer direction is also part of Native American spirituality; an example is the vision quest, a ceremony practiced by a number of different groups.

Especially in the last few decades, spiritual directors and retreat houses have tried to help people who might be too busy to withdraw as Jesus did (whether because of time demands or financial limitations) experience some of the fruits of a retreat. The Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life, based on a suggestion of St. Ignatius, is one popular way that busy people can do the full program of the Spiritual Exercises, but at home. Rather than spending thirty days in silence at a retreat house praying for three or four hours a day, busy people can pray for one hour every day on their own and meet with a spiritual director once a week. In this way the thirty days is stretched over the space of several months.

Speaking of busy people, thats the idea behind this e-retreat.

W HATS AN E -R ETREAT?

Recently, I helped to direct a weekend retreat at the house I mentioned in Gloucester, Massachusetts, called Eastern Point Retreat House, with my friend Sister Maddy, an experienced spiritual director. Our theme was Meeting Jesus by the Sea. We chose various Scripture passages that focused on Jesuss work by the Sea of Galilee and used them as an invitation to prayer for the sixty or so retreatants who joined us. The weekend turned out to be a lot of fun.

A few months later, it dawned on me that this retreat, if slightly adapted, could be used profitably by people who might not have the opportunity to go on retreat. At the same time a friend encouraged me to think about writing an e-book. Thus, the idea for an e-retreat, an invitation to prayer using the technology of the e-book, came about.

The Web and all sorts of new digital apps already help many people to pray. (Of course, they can be a distraction from prayer too!) And a number of popular websites provide reflections on Scripture, invite people to explore new ways of prayer, and even guide people through specific meditations.