Spiritual retreats are vital to our prayer lives and spiritual growth. But it’s not always possible to get away and spend a weekend at a retreat house. Thankfully, you don’t need to leave home to create a space for encountering God on retreat!
These simple tips will help you make a spiritual retreat at home.
Retreat houses and centers are often designed to facilitate quiet contemplation and prayer. This usually takes the form of comfortable furniture, soft lighting, and of course, religious icons and sacred artwork adorning walls. Having a physical environment that’s more conducive to prayer can make any retreat more fruitful.
The idea is not to recreate a whole retreat house, but to make a space that’s quiet and comfortable so you can more easily focus on prayer.
Now that you have a space set up, how exactly will you pray in it? There are lots of ways to make a retreat at home, including:
Having a prayer book, Bible study material, or retreat program will provide a helpful direction and structure for your retreat.
If possible, try to include at least one other person in your retreat. Perhaps a spouse or neighbor can join you. Or, invite a friend to watch the same retreat program or read the same book as you, and schedule a call afterwards to share insights and pray together.
One of the advantages of making a spiritual retreat at home is that you can set your own schedule. Make it as brief as you’d like, or take as long as you need.
The length of your retreat will be influenced by the materials you decide to use. It’ll also depend on whether you want to make one retreat day per week or allot a certain number of days in a row for your retreat. For example, when you make a retreat with Living in the Light of Christ, you can:
You can use a similar format whether you’re using a Bible study book or other retreat resource. It’s entirely up to you and how much time you want to take to pray through your retreat! There’s advantages to focusing an entire weekend on your retreat as well as taking a week in between retreat days to pray through the materials. Choose whichever format fits your lifestyle and preferences.
Now that you’ve made a space, a plan, and a schedule, it’s time to show up and receive. If a home retreat is a new concept for you, don’t be discouraged if it feels uncomfortable at first. Just be present and let God do the rest.
Begin your retreat by asking God for any graces you’d like to receive through your time in prayer. But also ask God what He wants to give you through this retreat! He may reveal something specific, or He may not. That’s ok too. The important thing is not what we get out of our retreat but who we’re drawing closer to during this sacred time.
Enter into a place of stillness and inner peace… an inner silence that allows the voice of Christ Jesus to speak from a place deep within… enter into a brief time of retreat, a time of intimacy with the Person of Christ Jesus who calls us to live each new day in the radiance of his light, his peace, and his love.
— Father Anthony Michalik, from the introduction to Living in the Light of Christ
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