Articles - From the Curate

Just before my ordination at the beginning of July, I went away on a 4-day retreat with my fellow deacons to The Briery at Ilkley - a retreat house run by the Sisters of the Cross and Passion. The retreat meant going away from our usual routine and home. We spent quiet time together, worshipped, reflected, heard talks and it gave me time to be with God. The retreat was partly silent - talking in the house was allowed at teatime 6-8pm and allowed outside. The day was broken up with Morning Prayer, mid day prayer, Daily Eucharist, Evening Prayer and Compline - a very Benedictine monastic rule of prayer.

This all gave me time to stop, pause and reflect on where I was on my faith journey. It gave me space, quiet and stillness. It gave me time to just be with God. All of this prepared me for my Ordination, as it made me feel close to God and receptive to His love for me. Other retreats in my past have equally helped my relationship with God, by enabling me to set aside time just for me and God, with no distractions.

Why, you may ask, am I telling you this?

Well, to hopefully encourage you to try a retreat if you haven't already been on one. Now, you might have no interest in retreats at all, you may have already been on one and didn't enjoy it, or you may think retreats are just for clergy aren't they, or for people of a certain tradition? Well, actually, retreats are for everyone and they are all very different - in venue, structure, theme, some are silent, others are not, they can be in groups or solitary, etc. Retreats can be very different. The rewards are great - having the time to read, think, rest, sleep, being still, the list is endless - but the result hopefully the same - a connection and refreshment of our faith and relationship with God.

I used to have a lot of reasons stopping me going on retreat in the past: I didn't have time, I had too many commitments, and I couldn't afford it, were a few of them. However, I came to realise that I needed to find the time, delegate some of my commitments for a short weekend and I found some retreats worked on donations of what I could afford. It became possible for me to have space and time to be with God, which made me feel closer to Him.

I would recommend anyone going on a retreat. If you want to know more about how to do this, please come and ask me or David or ask around in Church - there are a number of people who have been on one and who would love to share their experience with you.

If, after all of that, it's still not possible for us to get away, then it's still important to try to find that stillness and space in our week and in our day - which I know from experience is not always easy. Finding stillness and space in the busyness of daily life can be hard. However, let's be encouraged by Jesus' example: He went off a lot on his own, whenever he could catch a moment (a lot of the time at night) away from the disciples, away from the crowd, just spending a bit of time quietly with God, praying and being refreshed and strengthened for the next busy day.

Spending time with God is essential to our faith. In any relationship, how can we expect to be close to someone if we don't put in the necessary effort to spend time with them? So it is with our relationship with God - He eagerly waits for us to spend time with Him, because then He is sharing our lives, we can get to know Him better and then hopefully feel His love for us. We will then, like Jesus did, return to the hustle and bustle of our lives, refreshed and feeling strengthened and loved by God.

So God's love and blessings to you during this next month. May you hopefully find some space to spend time with God our Father.

Best wishes
Diane

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