{"id":497,"date":"2011-06-11T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=497"},"modified":"2011-06-11T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T13:00:41","slug":"back-from-retreat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/back-from-retreat-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Back From Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just returned from a five day retreat at Bethany Retreat Center<\/a>.\u00a0 While not everyone can take five days, I encourage everyone to think about taking an annual retreat.\u00a0 For those who work, many retreat centers offer weekend retreats.<\/p>\n

What is a retreat?\u00a0 In military terms, a retreat is withdrawing from the front lines, generally when the one retreating is losing the battle.\u00a0 It may be done to avoid casualties or it may be done to regroup.\u00a0 The latter more fits the Christian idea of a retreat.\u00a0 For Christians, making a retreat is to take time strengthen our focus on God.\u00a0 It isn’t just for people who have lost their awareness of God.\u00a0 Even if we still are very much aware of God in our lives, a retreat can be a time to help us deepen our relationship with Jesus by removing us from the distractions of the world.<\/p>\n

There are three types of retreats, preached, directed, and private.\u00a0 Any retreat would generally include daily Mass,\u00a0prayer, and rest.\u00a0 During a preached retreat there is a presenter(s) who gives talks on scripture and what it means to live our faith.\u00a0 The number of talks can vary but would generally be one to three talks a day.\u00a0 A preached retreat may or may not include periods of silence.<\/p>\n

A directed retreat generally does not include any presentations (the homilies at daily Mass may reflect a theme for the retreat).\u00a0 Once a day, you meet with a retreat director to talk about where God is at in your life.\u00a0 For the rest of the day, the director may give you something to read or think about to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus.<\/p>\n

A private retreat has no presentations or director.\u00a0 Some might then think you could do it from home but I would always encourage you to go to a retreat center even for a private retreat to step away from the distractions of the world.\u00a0 During a private retreat, time is spent in quiet reflection on issues you know you are facing in your relationship with Jesus.\u00a0 You might bring some reading material on the spiritual challenges you are facing in your life.<\/p>\n

For any retreat, rest is an essential retreat.\u00a0 We don’t have to spend every waking moment reading or reflecting.\u00a0 Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to take time to rest to open ourselves to God..\u00a0 For me, sometimes\u00a0one of the most refreshing things is to simply take a walk in the woods, finding God in the beauty of\u00a0creation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What do you need to do to deepen your relationship with Jesus?<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just returned from a five day retreat at Bethany Retreat Center.\u00a0 While not everyone can take five days, I encourage everyone to think about taking an annual retreat.\u00a0 For those who work, many retreat centers offer weekend retreats. What is a retreat?\u00a0 In military terms, a retreat is withdrawing from the front lines, generally …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Back From Retreat’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-81","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}