GETTING READY TO MAKE THE RETREAT

Scheduling your sacred time

You may wish to commit to spending about 30 - 40 minutes each day in private, personal prayer each day. If you are not used to spending this length of time in one go, you may consider building up to it gradually. Committing to this period of time will enable you to ponder with the reflections and the scriptures, allow you to pray the insights you will receive and have time to commune with God from the depths of your heart.

Find your sacred space

Designate a place where you'll pray regularly with the reflections. This could be in a quite corner in your home, a church or chapel, a secluded place outside. If where you can manage it, make your prayer space special in a way that it reminds you that it is your meeting place with your Beloved. An icon, a crucifix, a candle, meditative music or an incense will facilitate a sense of the sacredness of your encounter.

Prayer Focus

While you pray as the Spirit leads you, at the beginning of your sacred time, recall the focus of each reflection. Pray for the grace to realise what the focus suggests which ultimately is a more intimate experience of God's friendship and love.

Rest in the Silence

Let the silence anoint you and draw you into a deeper awareness of God's presence and nearness to you. If cares and concerns, thoughts from the past, anticipations and what may be called ‘distractions' rise up in your mind, acknowledge them and allow them to slip away. Your returning from them each time to your awareness of God's presence is in itself a statement of love – ‘I want to be present to you who are ever-present to me.'

Journal of the Journey

You may wish to incorporate journaling into your prayer time or do it at some other time. You may follow these steps: Note in your journal the insight(s) you received during your prayer time and from pondering the reflection. Then seek an explanation – what does it mean? Proceed to think of how it applies to your life. Resolve on what you will concretely do as a response to the insight which will nurture your life and draw you deeper in intimacy with God. This is the NEAR journaling method which can help you hear and respond to God's promptings.

Close your Prayer

Bring your sacred time to a close in the way you would usually end your prayers.