A retreat is time deliberately taken away from ordinary life to be alone with God: a day, a weekend, a week, or the full thirty days of the Spiritual Exercises. Jesus himself went apart to a deserted place to pray, and the Church has always sent her people after him. Priests and religious are bound by canon law to make one regularly; the laity are simply, warmly, invited. Saint John Paul II in Novo Millennio Ineunte asked that our parishes and communities become 'genuine schools of prayer', and the Catechism describes the three great expressions of prayer — vocal, meditative, contemplative — that a retreat gives room to. A retreat is not a course to pass; it is a place where God can speak because, for once, you are listening.

What you need

• A retreat booked: at a retreat house, a monastery, or a parish program
• A Bible, a notebook and a rosary
• Simple clothes, and whatever the house asks you to bring
• Arrangements at home and work so that you can actually be absent
• A question or intention to bring, or simply the desire to be with God

When to pray it

Once a year if you can, as many religious communities require of their members; Advent and Lent are natural seasons, and a retreat is the traditional way to prepare for a big decision, a sacrament, or a consecration.

Steps

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   Step 1: Choose the kind of retreat

   Decide what you need and what you can give. A preached retreat has talks and a shared timetable; a directed retreat (in the Ignatian tradition) is silent, with a daily meeting with a director who gives you Scripture to pray; a private retreat at a monastery follows the monks' Hours with no program; parish weekends and movements such as Cursillo are more communal. Beginners are usually best served by a preached or directed retreat of two to five days. Ask your parish or diocese for retreat houses; most monasteries also receive guests.

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   Step 2: Prepare your intention

   In the week before, ask yourself what you are bringing: a decision to discern, a grief, a dryness in prayer, a wish to begin again, or simply the desire to be with God. Write it in one sentence in your notebook and pray the Veni Creator Spiritus▾ for it each day. Go to confession beforehand if you can, so that the retreat begins clean; if not, plan to go during it.

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   Step 3: Arrive and put the phone away

   Arrive on time, settle your room, and then switch the phone off and put it out of reach for the duration, having told the people who need to know how to reach the house in an emergency. Leave the news, the email and the podcasts at the door. The first hours often feel empty or restless; that is withdrawal, not failure, and it passes.

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   Step 4: Follow the rhythm: Mass, prayer, silence

   Keep the house's timetable faithfully: daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours if it is prayed, the talks or director's meetings, meals in silence. Between them give yourself set times of prayer — an hour with Scripture in the morning, the Rosary or Stations in the afternoon, time before the Blessed Sacrament — and walk outside. Read little; pray much. The Catechism's three forms of prayer are all welcome: vocal prayer to steady you, meditation on a Gospel scene, and simple silent attention to God, which is contemplation.

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   Step 5: Meet the director

   If the retreat has a director, meet him or her honestly: say what is happening in your prayer, including nothing, and what is stirring in you, including what embarrasses you. The director's task is to help you notice where God is at work and to give you the next passage to pray, not to solve your life. If there is no director, use the notebook each evening: what did I pray, what moved, what do I want tomorrow?

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   Step 6: Go to confession

   Make a good confession during the retreat; nearly every retreat house makes a priest available. Use the quiet to make a thorough examination of conscience, perhaps over a whole life if it has been long since your last serious one. Confession in the middle of a retreat is often its turning point: what follows is lighter.

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   Step 7: Make resolutions

   On the last day, before the Blessed Sacrament if possible, ask what God has been saying and write down one or two concrete resolutions — a daily time of prayer, a reconciliation to make, a habit to drop, a decision taken. Pray the Anima Christi▾, offering them to Christ, and give thanks with the Te Deum▾ or a Glory Be▾. Keep the resolutions few and specific enough to check.

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   Step 8: Return home gently

   Go home slowly: do not turn the phone on until you leave the grounds, and if you can, keep the first evening quiet. Tell the people at home something of what happened, and put the first resolution into practice the next morning. The grace of a retreat is meant for ordinary life; a short daily prayer and a monthly look at your notebook will keep it there.

Tips

• Silence is the main event. Everything else on the retreat exists to let it happen.
• Do not measure the retreat by feelings; dryness in prayer, the Catechism says, is often where the real work is done.
• Sleep. Most people arrive exhausted, and God is not offended by rest.
• Take away one or two resolutions, not ten; the ones you keep are the ones the retreat was for.